23 Dec 09 How to Create a PPC Campaign

If done properly, a PPC (Pay per Click) campaign can be very cost effective in bringing in targeted traffic to your website. You need to be methodological in your approach while creating a PPC campaign. This will help you create a system that could be duplicated campaign after campaign. Creating a PPC campaign is a five-step process, which I am going to discuss below:

Step 1: Make a budget

Budgeting should be the first step of whatever marketing activity you undertake because resources are always limited, and you would not like to spread your budget too thin. Make a budget stick to it, and do not get carried away. Make a monthly budget and then break it down to weekly then daily. Seeing the nature of the Internet, it is required to make a daily budget. Make sure, you are earning money and not wasting it.

Step 2: Brand identity

Construct an Identity for your brand. You will need a strong brand identity to clearly define what you need to say and what kind of customers you need. You should have your brand identity system handy before you build a PPC Campaign.

Step 3: Get keyword

Define your keywords more tightly, and do not use any non-commercial keywords. I am advising against using non-commercial keywords because PPC costs money, and you would not like to pull freebie hunters through your campaign.

Step 4: Write an effective copy

Your PPC ad will be clicked or not depends upon the power of your advertising copy. Your copy should reflect the product or services you are offering. You should also be careful about word usage. Some words are more effective than others. Run a split-test before moving the campaign live.

Step 5: Make it live and monitor

What is not monitor has not been achieved. You need to monitor every critical aspect of your PPC campaign. See what is working and what is not. Do away with ineffective element and duplicate the elements that are working.

Conclusion

You need to carefully consider every step while creating a PPC campaign. Always keep an eye on Click-through rate (CTR). You can increase your CTR by minor tweaking. For that, all you need to do is experiment.

Tags: Brand Identity, Break, Conclusion, Costs Money, Critical Aspect, Earning Money, Element, Elements, Ey, Freebie Hunters, Marketing, Monthly Budget, Moving, Pay Per Click, Pay Per Click Campaign, Split Test, Step 1, Step 2, Targeted Traffic, Word Usage

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07 Nov 09 Why the Heck Should I Look at Traffic Stat?

Well, if you think everyone look at their traffic log then you are sadly mistaken. Not everyone and every company that owns a website is web savvy. Most of the people do not understand the importance of analyzing website usage statistics. In this post, my goal is to help them understand how critical it is for the success of their business that website traffic log is analyzed.

Reason 1: To know from where the traffic is coming and why

Is it Google or Yahoo or Bing that is sending you the maximum traffic? Or is it the social media sites like Facebook or twitter? Is Digg or StumbleUpon working for you or not? What kind of posts or articles is getting more traffic? Is your effort to get qualified sales lead paying off well or not? These are some of the questions you need to answer in order to make an informed decision about the course of action for your website.

Reason 2: To Track the website usage behavior

The information you get out of your website stat does not just tell you about how many people visited your site and from where. It also tells you about the visitors’ behavior: what they did, which pages they visited, which element got most attention and which caused them to leave, etc. You can use this data to fix the pages that cause the visitors to leave, and use more of the elements that interest visitors.

Reason 3: To know how effective your marketing is

You need to know how effective the dollar you spent on marketing are, and for that you will need to analyze the data. Use Google Analytics or any other analysis tool to figure out which keyword and which search engine is fetching you more traffic. When you are buying keywords from programs like Google Adwords then this information will save you money. This information will also help you drop the useless keywords and purchase the ones that work.

Reason 4: To know what visitors like and what they don’t

The analysis of traffic data will also tell you what is the common entry point to your website and what works as an exit gate. This knowledge will help you amplify the things that work and remove the page from where maximum people leave.

Reason 5: To know the problem in your site

Web monitoring and analysis tools will also tell you which browser, operating system, screen resolution, and color depth your visitor’s computer has. This information will help you understand how your visitors see your website. You can use this knowledge to tweak the site accordingly.

Reason 6: You will get to know your faceless visitors

Every marketer wishes to know its target audience in and out, and it is the privilege of online marketers that they can know their audience if they wish to by analyzing the traffic log of their websites. The understanding of your visitors will help you target your marketing effort much better.

There are many analysis and monitoring tool that you can use, but my personal favorite is Google Analytics and Google Webmaster tools.