Negative keywords play a vital part in the refinement of any Pay per Click (PPC) campaign. By identifying these irrelevant phrases and removing them from your advertising, you will lower the number of times ads appear for unrelated searches, helping to lower Cost per Click (CPC) and make that budget go further.
When you come to create a PPC campaign [See: What is PPC Advertising] impetuousness can cost money. It isn’t simply a case of identifying a few keywords that you want to appear for, writing a bit of ad text, turning on broad match and away you go. You have to be prepared to go deeper.
Broad match isn’t without its dangers, as discussed in my earlier post – The Danger of Broad Match in PPC Advertising. Whilst it gets you seen by a wider audience, it can also make a significant dent in your online budget. Effective Pay per Click advertising comes from controlled targeting of campaigns, not blanket exposure.
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Whilst exuberance to market your new website is understandable, your inexperience may be costly. Pay per Click advertising offers a great opportunity to attract targeted traffic, but it isn’t without its risks.
Broad match is PPC’s very own siren on the rocks. Whilst it offers you the tantalising treat of traffic, it could also leave your budget in a wreck. Within a well-optimised, closely managed campaign it can help expand your online visibility; unfortunately, for those who are just starting out, a budget can be easily decimated with very little return on your investment.
So what is broad match?
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The world’s biggest social media site, Facebook, are to dump Microsoft adCenter as they prepare to launch their own advertising platform. But with the original deal not running out until 2011, full worldwide Bing integration appears to have been the real deal sweetener.
Evidently the Facebook site is a lucrative place for any advertiser to show their products and is equally effective in delivering money to the host – Microsoft. However, in something of a surprise move, Facebook have ended their agreement with the technology giant to manage their advertising system in-house.
With a year left in the contract, clearly Microsoft will seek something in return and it appears as though it may come in the form of Bing being integrated into Facebook as the default search engine, worldwide. Obviously the exact nature of the agreement is still largely under wraps, but it appears that Bing could be set for a huge promotional push, starting off with 350 million+ Facebook users.
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As Pay per Click (PPC) advertising becomes increasingly important, we look at why it is important that you choose a PPC management company who are qualified to manage your online marketing budget.
Online advertising is now one of the most popular ways to gain exposure for your site, company and the promotions you offer. It is unlike any other form of marketing, relying solely on a Pay per Click basis, which means that your adverts need impact and they need to be shown for the most appropriate keywords. More…
Now that you have set up your AdWords Account and have traffic going to your website, it is important that you know what all these people are doing on your website. That’s where Google Analytics can help you.
Analytics can separate the traffic you are paying to visit your site from the remainder of your traffic, allowing you to see if your advertising budget is converting to profit.
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This month, I sat and passed the Microsoft adExcellence exam and am very pleased to have this additional qualification to complement my Google AdWords Professional status.
The Microsoft adExcellence exam is designed especially for individuals (and UK companies in the near future) who have been managing, or are looking to manage, a Pay per Click marketing campaign on Bing (formally MSN Live). As a company, we believe it is important to pass these exams as a minimum standard and to act as a basis to develop our experience of this platform from.
Once you have passed the exam, you become a member of the Microsoft adExcellence official accreditation program and are issued with a member logo and are included within the adExcellence Membership Directory.
adExcellence Member Logo
Microsoft also have another program which companies can become members of, but it is currently not available to the UK. Microsoft have informed us that the membership will be available to UK companies soon and when they do, Impact Media as a company will be taking the steps to obtain the Corporate status.
If you would like Impact Media to help create, manage and optimise your Bing campaigns, why not take advantage of our Bing Pay Per Click Management service.
To join search engine marketing in with the festive spirit, this blog post will provide you with 12 tips for optimising your AdWords Pay per Click campaign.
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Christmas is the time of year where retailers, etailers and marketers go into overdrive. A surplus of consumers means that opportunities for good sales figures are abound.
But it would be churlish to suggest that preparations start as we peel back the first door in our advent calendars; in truth, it goes back to the time where summer is turning to autumn, when ice, snow and Christmas Eve panic buys are the furthest things from most people’s minds. Or at least it should.
Despite still being in the grips of a recession, UK consumers aren’t shy when it comes to parting with their cash at Christmas time; as evidenced by this year’s typically frenzied rush for gifts. More and more consumers are turning to the Internet too when buying goods; with recent reports showing that online shopping in November increased by 11% compared with the same period in 2008 and 25% more than the preceding month of October. So the need for ecommerce websites to be fully optimised as the rush begins has never been more evident.
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Unfortunately not all websites are owned by companies with endless resources and a bottomless pit of money. Most in fact have tight restrictions when it comes to both time and finances. However all sites share a common desire, which is to be the most successful in their field, regardless of the strength of their competition.
To get to the top with limited resources, particularly for SMEs, is no easy task. It requires an acute understanding of your market and effective management of your priorities. Many businesses see SEO as a cure, others have heard about the emerging success stories emanating from social media, whilst some believe that Paid Search (PPC) will get them the targeted traffic they need. There’s plenty of evidence to support all of these viewpoints, but which will work best for you?
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This third and final post in the Quality Score series should provide you with a few ideas when to improving your current Quality Scores. Don’t settle with a Quality Score of seven or eight, set your sights higher and always aim for the top score.
To catch up on why exactly your quality score is so important you should take a look at my previous blog post – The Benefits of a Good Quality Score
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This is the second post in the Quality Score series and covers probably the most important issue, in my opinion.
Once you are aware of the benefits of having keywords with high Quality Scores, you should have no problem with making the changes required to improve your scores.
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Quality Score was introduced for Google AdWords to help Google decide which position an advertisers ad should be displayed and subsequently how much should be charged for each click on the ad.
Google assigns each keyword within an AdWords campaign with a score between 1 – 10 (1 being the lowest, 10 being the highest).
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In April, a new conversion column started appearing in AdWords reports and eventually the main AdWords homepage; it was called “Conversions (many-per-click)” and the old Conversion column was changed to “Conversions (1-per-click)”. This was done with no real fanfare at the time, especially considering the importance of the column. But what is “many per click” and is it better than plain old conversions?
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The ‘ad scheduling’ feature within Google AdWords has always been a fantastic way to extend the budget of your Pay Per Click campaigns. Rather than running an advertisement all day, every day, ad scheduling would allow you to define certain time parameters and ensure you targeted visitors at peak times.
Previously this was all done on a standard hourly rate. Meaning that your adverts could run it from 9am to 6pm on every weekday ,and 10am to 4pm on weekends without any problems. This was always a hugely efficient way to streamline campaigns; that was until Google updated the system, making it even more versatile.
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In the past, this blog article has explained What is a Click through Rate (CTR) and why is it Important?, so that is not something we need to explore further here. The purpose of this post is to help understand how exactly you manage the CTR and keep it at a good level.
Below we give you five top tips to help you along your way:
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