5 Ways To Create a Successful PPC Business (B2B) Advertising Campaign

Presently over 50% of all B2B (business-to-business) leads are generated through the Internet. To stay competitive in today’s market a business needs to be present on the search engines. PPC (pay-per-click) advertising is not only a very effective marketing tool, but is also an excellent way for businesses to establish a website’s Internet presence.

A PPC (pay-per-click) campaign designed for B2B (business-to-business) is much different from a campaign designed for B2C (business-to-consumer).

Instead of relying on the high volume of traffic that a B2C campaign generates, a B2B campaign is designed to lower costs by filtering out irrelevant clicks that don’t convert into sales. The strategy for a successful B2B pay-per-click-campaign consists of driving quality leads to optimized landing pages which ultimately results in higher conversion rates. These assets will be used for PPC and SEO both.

The benefits of focusing on high value leads rather than the volume of CTR (click through rate) are that the cost per click is minimized while the sales generated by quality leads are maximized. Understanding some key components of what drives pay-per-click advertising is vital for a successful campaign.

Here are the 5 tips for a Successful B2B PPC Advertising Program:

1. Target Qualified Traffic – Knowing what a desired target audience searches for in terms of keywords is the most crucial element in driving quality traffic to a website. It is best to use highly targeted keywords while avoiding one-word keywords and opting for long-tailed keywords instead. Data from competetitive research, and continually testing keywords and keyword phrases that are relevant to a product or service with insight tools, analytics and experimentation is just as important as bidding on the right ones. This will help determine which keywords are most effective in generating sales and which ones are underperforming and in need of replacement. Find more keywords using the Google Keyword Tool (search “keywords” in Google).
2. Provide Effective Industry Specific Ad Copy – Although B2B ad copy is targeted towards a more sophisticated audience and should be tailored to include industry specific jargon, it still needs to be visually appealing when you use graphic displays (like the Google content network). By using clever copy with a clear call to action that is also formatted to stand out among the crowd, the ad will actively sell a product or service. Using bullet points, numbers, and small blocks of text with plenty of white space will also make an ad easier to read and more likely to generate a sale.
3. Insert Keywords and page data – By using HTML Title + Meta tag descriptions inserted with keywords and sprinkled naturally into the body copy, the site will attract more relevant traffic. This is a “websites-only” opportunity to make a good first impression. There is no point in getting the traffic if no one wants to click through it.
4. Apply Negative Keywords – In many cases providing a comprehensive list of negative keywords is just as important as using applied keywords. Using negative keywords allows the search engines to weed out unnecessary clicks that would otherwise cost money for no conversion. In essence, using negative keywords helps direct the right kind of traffic to a website and is an easy way to improve the ROI for a search budget. For example, a keyword like “Cruise” may mean a “boat cruise” to you, but searches for “Tom Cruise” will also show up, and you waste impressions and clicks. A combination of keyword match types (broad, phrase, exact) and negatives are important.
5. Continually Measure Results – It is most important to know what happens after the click. If a pay-per-click advertising campaign is resulting in a high bounce rate or a low conversion rate there may be a problem with the ad copy, landing page – or it may be a problem with the quality of traffic visiting a website. By continually testing different strategies for bidding on keywords and monitoring the number of relevant lead generations and page versions, a site can determine what is working to achieve higher conversion rates.

If done right, pay-per-click advertising costs are well worth the money spent. Not only does pay-per-click advertising help to establish a website’s Internet presence, but it is also a highly effective way for businesses to communicate with one another. B2B PPC helps businesses improve their website’s traffic and visibility on the Internet and continues to be one of the most popular marketing tools being utilized today. Your business can be up and running on the first page of Google, Yahoo or Bing in minutes!

Learn more about Pay Per Click Management for Business here.

Beat Twitter Traffic With Adwords Traffic Instead?

Social media is all the rage these days. No wonder. It’s what everybody talks about, and it’s a press-darling too. It sure does work well for some companies.

However, it’s a lot of talk, and – it’s as if they forget all the other ways to drive traffic, and more importantly, build conversions on your website.

Well, now you have a chance to test and see if you can leverage the true, tried tested methods for driving traffic quickly to your site, while you build the (sometimes slower) social media programs. (Big note here: not to be discounted, you should leverage Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and others while you test the multi-channel marketing).

You can meet the experts that we have worked with at previous conferences. And you do it all from the comfort of your own home or office.

Click the find out what your competition may already know.

The Idiot’s Guide To Google Quality Score for Adwords

Quality Scores - Your Golden Eggs

The Quality Score (rated 1-10) on the Google Adwords platform is much discussed, and equally mis-understood. If you know the secrets to elevation of the scores (higher is better) – it can be a game changer for your business. For example, the keyword quality score improvement will help on your overall costs of campaigns and CPC (cost per click), ad rankings and more. You’ll sleep better at night, having obsessed about it for months.

Consider these tips and resources to help improve your quality score for advertising with Google paid search.

1. What is the Google Quality Score?

Every keyword you bid on inside the Adwords system is assigned a score. It’s done real-time, and gets assigned once somebody executes a query on Google and clicks on your ad. It helps Google – to help you:

• Get your ad shown
• Reveal the cost if ad is clicked
• Increase or decrease ad ranking – what position to show your ad

Here’s what Google says about Quality Score:

“Quality Score helps ensure that only the most relevant ads appear to users on Google and the Google Network. The AdWords system works best for everybody — advertisers, users, publishers, and Google too — when the ads we display match our users’ needs as closely as possible. Relevant ads tend to earn more clicks, appear in a higher position, and bring you the most success”.

2. What about Relevance?

The main topic of discussion when “quality” is discussed on all search engines, and for Google in specific, is “relevancy”. Does the query match the expectation of the user? Does a link back to web-page match the link and is it topically relevant? (for SEO, search engine optimization). If so, you’ll have a much better chance to rank and get a boost.  The quality score looks at this important model, because ultimately, nobody should (and cannot) be able to simply buy your way into the first position for very long (unless you have seriously deep pockets, and don’t have a brain). It should always be considered, and having keywords tied into the ad copy itself, along with correct matching type (broad, phrase, exact) into campaigns and ad group, gives you a serious head start.  Example: If an ad is clicked 500 times at $2 dollars, Google makes more money if you have 1,000 clicks at $1.50, for example. So, Google wants the clicks, versus just high buys with ads that nobody clicks. (think about this important concept again!). The truth is – it’s set up so that Google, the searcher and the advertiser wins. Users find what they want, more traffic to you, lowered cost for advertiser, better ranking, and more money back to Google.

3. Does Google Reveal The Quality Score?

Inside the Adwords interface, you can see the Quality Score for each of your keywords. However, it’s an optional column that you have check off. The number shown is an approximate value, and a good average is 7, and very common. 1 (one) represents a poor quality score, 10 (ten) is optimum. Don’t obsess, just work through this article, and measure yourself.

4. Why is Quality Score Important?

Ad ranking (positions) on the results pages are important, since it affects click-through-rates (CTR) and bids.

Remember this formula: Bid x Quality Score = Ad Rank.

A paid search specialist should spend time looking at options for improving quality scores because of the above.

5. Things You Can Do to Improve Your Quality Indicators

This list is not exhaustive, but will get you into positive territory, if followed.

• The historical Click-Through-Rate (CTR) of the ad matching keyword on Google (search network)
• The total account history – measure by the overall CTR to ads in total, including keywords
• The quality of your landing page
• Relevance matching factors from keywords to ads within ad groups
• Overall account performance in the geo area when ad shown

Google reveals these things to assist webmasters and advertisers help themselves. However, many of the critical low level factors and secrets are kept safe, so we make some assumptions along the way.  They can change the dials at any time, and not tell us.

We heave learned however, that the CTR of your keywords is the most critical influence on the QS (Quality Score) . The proof is shown because of ads clicked more over time have the biggest impact.  Furthermore, the relevancy of matching from query to ad, to landing page is very much part of this exercise. Landing pages themselves impact the QS in either direction, and you are serving yourself well if applying the right principles to landing page construction. More on that later.

6. Recommendations for fast campaign and landing page optimizations.

A) If somebody is searching for [chocolate cookies], you are helping scoring by providing close alignment of keywords to ad groups. The ad copy in your text should be tightly targeted. Small ad groups, with close relationships of keywords and matching types will help immensly. For example, you can create 3 adgroups to test “chocolate cookie B” (Broad), “chocolate cookie P” (phrase) and “”chocolate cookie E” (exact). Inside each ad group, you would use a limited set of keywords, from 1-10, for example. Also, make sure to include negative keywords. For example, at a higher level, a ‘cookie’ could also be an’ http cookie’ , and would not be related. A negative match type would not create an impression for that keyword, ie. your ad would not be shown.

B) Test, test, test – your ad copy. You must improve your click-through-rate (CTR), and it will improve quality. The copy in the ad is absolutely critical. We often will recommend adding 3-4 variations of the ad, pause 2 of them, and use the built-in A/B mechanisms to show the ads. Note: Make sure to remove the “optimize” setting within the campaign settings. It should allow you to monitor the balance of ads shown better. (Incidentally, “A/B” comes from the mail order business, where they would test the “A” version with a different headline or offer against the “B” version). You can do this only, and very quickly as well. You need 100-1,000 impressions, depending – to get valid data to work from. Don’t stop too soon, and don’t let it run ‘forever’ without changing and updating either. You will be putting money on the table, and giving it to Google instead. We call this the “Google Tax”. You don’t want that.

C) A compelling, clear action-oriented ad should also have a strong landing page to match. The topical and contextual relationships are very important.  Do not stuff keywords on the landing page, and use SEO principles to feed the machine.

D) Monitoring and validation. Google reporting allows a number of fields in “custom” settings, and you should add the Quality Score to keywords and ad groups.

E) Account quality. Deleting or pausing poor performers is recommended. In fact, deleting them completely is likely more preferred, but you should keep track of them somewhere. Pausing is easier, and less work of course. If you have a lot of ad groups, you should look at overall quality indicators and get a sense for “global” views, not just the “detail” view levels.  Keep in mind that a high quality performing platform doesn’t change overnight, so make sure to work with the system, and track it.

F) Geographical impact. You may find great CTRs in Chicago, whereas similar ads get poorer results in Los Angeles. Try to discover where this happens, and fix it.

G) History and testing. Some are afraid to touch highly performing account structures. We agree you have a goal in mind – for all your efforts – but online marketing and Adwords is all about testing and tuning. Testing ads, keywords, landing pages, bids – all is an ongoing exercise, and you are never truly done. Some will set up completely new, different Adwords accounts, and test in a different environment, but it’s not the same.  Also, any time you add new campaigns, you don’t automatically get the benefit of a quality account. Expect to build these out each time, and tune, watch them as before. As you build out new campaigns, we offer this advice: “start high, and work downwards”. You’ll know from keyword research what traffic is available, but it’s not until you launch into your (niche) marketplace, that will truly know. Bidding high, and working downwards is a better strategy. You are showing Google you are not afraid to test, and you are indeed a “Google Adwords Player”!

BONUS: Make sure to read Google Advertising Policies, and Landing Page Guidelines.

Finally – a great video by Hal Varian, Chief Economist at Google. It captures the awesome engine that is the world’s most profitable advertising platform, the keyword auctioning system: Google Adwords.

Pay Per Click Advertizing Inflation and a Call for a Revolution

By Noam Bleiweiss (PPC Tech)

I don’t normally do this, but it’s time for a revolution. And since – apparently — no one else is willing to lead this one, I’m forced to take the reins. You see, PPC doesn’t have to be as competitive or expensive as it currently is. All it takes is some cooperation and teamwork, and we’ll all be seeing positive results in no time.

An ill-fated occurrence

PPC Inflation is a recent (and unfortunate) phenomenon that has been – to the delight of Google and friends – occurring for more and more helpless keywords. As you PPC players may have noticed, the cost per-click necessary to maintain an above-the-fold position keeps rising. Don’t you see that this is exactly what they want?? This must stop!

PPC Inflation Defined

PPC Inflation takes place when more and more site owners decide to advertise online, blindly bidding for the top “Sponsored Link” position. The more inexperienced competitors use this medium, the more expensive it will continue to get for everyone involved. When one schmuck comes in with a super-high bid, all our CPCs are forced up along with theirs! It’s just not fair. Companies should have to pass a cognitive exam before being allowed to launch a PPC campaign. Alas, since that is not in the best interest of the powers that be, I am forced to call for a revolution. Let’s all put down our weapons, and team up to stop PPC Inflation once and for all!

World Series of PPC

You see, Pay Per Click Advertising is much like the lovely game of poker. Beside the fact that it is ultra-competitive and (surprisingly) addicting, a main pattern that pros in both fields will notice is that it is more favorable to compete with other professionals. In poker, novices tend to over-bet, often forcing you to put more money into the pot than you would have liked. In PPC, newbies tend to over-bid, automatically aiming for the top spot, and often forcing EVERYONE’S cost per-click to be more than they would have like.

Lower Prices for Everyone

Now I am no Doyle Brunson (a.k.a. Legendary Poker Champion, to our non-gambling readers) but I do have a dream. While I am in no position to write a “PPC Bible,” what I am able to do is give a slogan that could (read: should) begin a PPC revolution: Sometimes it’s wiser to not aim for #1. This may go against what your Pee Wee coaches instilled in your mind, but it will make the PPC world a better place for us all. Take it, love it, steal it, and spread it. If we all learn to play like professionals, we will all profit like professionals. And if that seems too complicated, you should probably just hire a professional.

Viva la revolution!

PPC is relaxing?

By Charles Queen

PPC is relaxing due to the focus that is needed for each campaign. For example when I start looking into a campaign my mind starts racing about what changes I can make to see what works. The great thing is the results come right there so you know what else you need to do.

I like to zone out and not think about anything else just about improving on what I did. I treat it like a football game. You have 4 quarters and break that down into a week. Monday and Tuesday are the 1^st quarter of a game. You are just getting familiar with the team (campaign) and feeling out your competitor. In the second quarter you know what you need to do to win the game and you make adjustments to be in the game in the later part. (Wednesday).

In the 3^rd quarter you just attack and let it fly aggressively and take the lead (Conversions) from the changes you made during the 1^st and 2^nd quarter. When the 4^th quarter hits (Friday) you are in the lead and closing out the competitor. Saturday and Sunday are the practice days when you go through and prepare for the upcoming week.

That is why PPC is relaxing for me.