PPC & Advertising Information

Per Click - Do They Know Something We Dont?


I have utilized pay-per-click (PPC) advertising since its inception about two years ago. With PPC, the advertiser is only charged when a person actually clicks on their link. The amount you actually pay for each click is referred to as the cost-per-click (CPC). I've got to admit, I was pretty leery at first. But since then I've watched the price of certain search engine keywords skyrocket in excess of $10 per click! The big question isn't how much it costs per click but how many clicks does it take to get an acquisition. I've often asked myself, why would so many companies pay that much money for one single, measly, push of the index finger? The answer is simple - it just works!

HOW TO JUSTIFY $10 PER CLICK

The advent of PPC advertising has changed Internet marketing forever. It represents a free market in much the same way as eBay -- controlled by a natural supply and demand relationship. For a keyword phrase such as "debt consolidation," the top five advertisers are willing to pay cost-per-click charges of $10.01, $10.00, $9.99, $7.00, and $6.97. My first reaction was, something has to be wrong with this picture - it just can't be! So I looked at the "life insurance" phrase, where the top five range from $7.00 to $3.50. Then there are drugs like "Xenical" that range from $6.76 to $6.74. There are many more examples where the cost-per-click exceeds $6.00, $7.00, or $10.00, but you get the point.

The fact of the matter is that while PPC advertising can work quite well - it can also be a flat out failure. When companies are willing to pay more than $5.00 per click, you can be pretty certain that they have figured out how to make it work - otherwise they wouldn't pay those prices.

THE SELECT FEW

I have seen many situations where PPC will work for one company but not for another in the same industry, using the same keywords. Large and small companies will venture in, bid for a week or two, and then drop out -- never to be heard from again. Some will come in, drive the prices way up then drop back out to obscurity. The select few who are successful have found the secret -- a combination of patience, determination, creativity, keyword selection, management and analysis. They do the math, every day - they manage the bids, every day - they look for new keywords, every day - they analyze the results, every day. It takes a great deal of work to figure out how to make PPC advertising deliver results, and the ones who have are now benefiting - every day.

WHAT IS THE COST OF AN ACQUISITION?

In order to determine if your PPC advertising is justified, the first thing you need to understand is your current acquisition cost - what does it now cost to acquire a new customer or order? It's amazing how few companies know what their cost of acquisition is. To keep it simple, take your total advertising expenditures and divide it by the number of new acquisitions (orders or customers), that should give you a rough estimate of your cost per acquisition. Similarly, after running a PPC campaign for a month, you take the total advertising expenditures divided by the number of acquisitions. Of course, these raw numbers are not burdened by administrative costs, but they still provide an apples-versus-apples comparison.

I have managed PPC campaigns where the average cost-per-click was $0.40 and others where it was $5.00. The key question remains: how many clicks does it take to get an acquisition? If the cost for each click is $0.40 and it takes 200 clicks for an acquisition, then the acquisition cost is $80.00. If the cost for each click is $5.00 and it takes 10 clicks, the cost of the acquisition is $50.00.

FINDING THE GAPS

Two key points are crucial: (1) how much does it cost to get an Internet acquisition compared to traditional methods? and (2) what is the value of a new customer? In some businesses a new customer is worth $1,000, while in others, only $10. Typically, the cost-per-click reflects this value, but since the market is still very small, there are significant gaps. Remember the "debt consolidation" keyword phrase above? The difference between the first and last cost-per-click was about 30%. On the other hand, there is literally no difference between cost-per-click rates for the keyword "Xenical". From this you may conclude that there is a lot more competition for "Xenical" then there is for "debt consolidation". The opportunity is between the gaps in the 30% differential example.

The bidding market for keywords is still so new and untapped that it's rare to have more than three competitors fighting over a specific phrase. The gaps in keyword cost-per-click charges such as "debt consolidation" are the norm and represent tremendous opportunities still available in this media. Right now they are plentiful, and for those few people who take the time to understand this important marketing tool, the time to act is NOW!

About The Author

Neal Lebar has proven that Internet marketing can generate returns far greater than traditional media. For more information, visit www.innovate-inc.com or e-mail nlebar@innovate-inc.com


MORE RESOURCES:

StraightUpSearch

Oneupweb : Avoid These 5-PPC Pitfalls
StraightUpSearch
When implemented correctly Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising can be one of the most powerful marketing channels available. It's deceptively easy for most companies to sign-up for a PPC account, but managing these campaigns is another story.



Search Engine Marketing Blogs
KoMarketing Associates
Pay-perk-click (PPC) advertising is one of the more common lead-generation methods. However, 74 percent of B2B marketers spend more than $50 on average to get a single lead, iMediaConnection reports. Many times, these leads are of low quality, ...

and more »


What Kinds of Businesses Should Use PPC Advertising? [Infographic]
Business 2 Community
... 2012 Following up on those results, we wanted to share some advice for new or hopeful AdWords advertisers – namely, what kinds of businesses are finding great success with AdWords and other pay-per-click (PPC) advertising platforms?



IMCREDO Expands Its Social Media Services
openPR (press release)
Now the list of SMO options for business-partners is extended to include online comms management and PPC advertising in social networks. This introduction follows the large-scale market research, conducted by the IMCREDO experts in December, 2011.



Are You Making These 3 Pay-Per-Click Advertising Mistakes?
Business 2 Community
By Elisa Gabbert, Published February 7, 2012 These common pay-per-click (PPC) advertising mistakes are easily avoided, but nonetheless, we see them over. and over. and over. again. These mistakes hurt your click-through rate (CTR), Quality Score, ...



Formic Media Account Team Achieves 100% AdCenter Certification for Pay-Per ...
PR.com (press release)
Formic Media, Inc., a local search engine marketing agency focusing on small business, recently had each member of the account team take, and pass, the Microsoft AdCenter exam. With the account team all passing the exam, Formic Media has now passed all ...

and more »


The Breakdown: Where Google Made its Billions
Fox Business
Home improvement retailer Lowe's spent a whopping $59.1 million on Google pay-per-click [PPC] advertising in 2011, the most of any other single source, followed by $55.2 million from online retail behemoth Amazon and $50.3 million from Lowe's largest ...

and more »


PPC Running Out of Steam? It's Time for Outbound Marketing
iMedia Connection (blog)
Search and Display Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising is one of the most common methods for generating new leads. However, PPC works great at the beginning, reaping all of these low hanging fruit at relatively low cost per lead. However, once all of these ...



Server Side Design Co-Hosts Web Marketing Seminar to Help Businesses Enhance ...
PR.com (press release)
The focus of the seminar is to help businesses boost their online presence by gaining a better understanding about how Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising and Social Media Marketing (SMM) work. “For a business to gain an ...



Intertwine Interactive and Proxibid Announce Partnership
openPR (press release)
Proxibid's business model requires the implementation of an extremely robust PPC advertising campaign. The dynamic, ever-changing nature of the auction business will require diligent monitoring and proactive adjustments by Intertwine's team.


Google News

home | site map
© 2006