Why Use Pay Per Click Marketing

Pay-per-click (PPC) search engines can give you instant traffic and allow you to test new business models in real time. However, the pay-per-click market is competitive. It is worth spending an extensive period of time learning how to write and target ads, tracking your competitors, and doing deep keyword research before jumping in.

I recommend: Pay-per-click search engines allow you to be listed at the top of search results quickly, which allows you to:

• Quickly gather feedback on market conditions.
• Split test a live audience and gather ad test results in real time.
• Prototype ideas to track demand before you invest into a new business model or are stuck footing the bill for a new site.

Where Should I Buy Pay Per Click Ads?

Some pay per click providers offer great clean targeted traffic, while other engines sell traffic that is worthless.

I recommend: Start your ad campaign on Google AdWords first. They have the largest marketshare (in most English and Spanish speaking markets) and the cleanest traffic source.

Once you find keywords that work well on Google you may want to take the best keywords and copy them over to your Yahoo! Search Marketing and Microsoft adCenter accounts.

Most smaller search engines do not have any clean traffic sources. Generally time spent on third and fourth tier search engines would be better spent optimizing your ad strategy on the big 3 search engines.

Keyword Research

Learn how to determine what keywords you should be bidding on.

I recommend: There are a wide array of keyword tools on the marketplace. You create a list of keywords that you would expect people to search for when looking for your products or services, and then insert them into keyword tools to see what keywords relate to your keywords.

Three of the free tools from the search engines that are really easy to recommend are the Google AdWords Keyword Tool, the Google Traffic Estimator, and Microsoft Ad Intelligence. Using those 3 tools you should be able to get a good idea of keywords get a lot of search volume and what keywords are considered valuable by the marketplace.

A number of third party keyword tools like Wordtracker exist, and more recently some competitive research tools like Compete.com Search Analytics and Spyfu have come on the market. The competitive research tools show you what keywords are driving traffic to competing sites.

Should I Opt Into Ad Syndication?

Many of the large search networks offer ad syndication options. Some of them offer clean traffic while others are less reputable.

I recommend: When your accounts are new it is best to opt out of syndication until you find out which keywords are working best for your business. After you find out which keywords work well you can opt into syndication, but set up separate ad groups with lower bid prices for syndicated ads. Below are tips for the big 3 ad networks.

Google allows you to target your ads to Google, Google + search, Google + search + content, Google + content, and content only campaigns. Off the start I would recommend turning off all forms of syndication until you see what keywords are working well.

Yahoo! offers search and content match. Content match is one of their syndication channels. Yahoo! also has other synidcation partners including domain park pages and some search arbitrage plays. They make it hard to opt out of that second stream of syndication unless you block it one site at a time.

Microsoft has few ad syndication partners and a relatively clean distribution network, so you do not have to worry about synidcation too much with them.

Keyword Match Types

Pay per click search engines offer various automated keyword matching types that target your ads to different keyword phrases.

I recommend: Google offers 3 basic matching types: exact match, phrase match, and broad match.

Exact match only displays your ads if people search for that exact phrase. For example, if you bid on [credit cards] your ad will show up when people search for credit cards, but will not show up for any other phrase.

Phrase match only displays your ads if people search for a phrase that contains your kewords within it. For example, if you bid on "credit cards" then your ad will show up when people search for best credit cards.

Broad match displays your ads when Google feels they are still relevant, even if the search terms are in a different order or do not match exactly what you bid on. For example, if you bid on credit cards then your ad might show up when people search for accept credit card payments. Google also has an extension of broad match called automatic matching. Automatic matching expands ads even further to where a search for slippers may return your ad for Addidas sneakers.

The last keyword match type is negative matching. Negative matching allows you to prevent your ad from being displayed on related searches that are irrelevant to your product or service. For example, if you were trying to sell credit cards to consumers you might want to use -payments and -processors to prevent people searching for credit card payment processors from seeing your ad.

For high value phrases it is recommended that you use exact match phrases and create custom ad groups specific to those phrases.

For longtail phrases you might be able to do ok with broad match, but if you ever use broad match make sure you are aggressive with using negative match to filter out irrelevant searches.

Like Google, Microsoft offers exact match, phrase match, and broad match. Microsoft does not offer an expanded broad match version though.

Yahoo! offers standard match and advanced match. Advanced match tends to be a bit broader, and is similar to the combination of phrase match and broad match mentioned above. For your high value keywords you will want to rely on standard match. If you are advertising in a keyword space with few searches and/or you want to pick up any longtail keywords you may want run advanced match campaigns as well.

Free Pay Per Click Marketing Coupons

To help start your account off on the right foot consider using the following coupons for free PPC ad credits.

I recommend: Using these coupons to save money. These coupons are only good for new customers.

• Microsoft AdCenter Coupon: Try Microsoft adCenter for free* with a $75 credit for paid search clicks.
  • the cleanest traffic on the web (no dirty ad syndication partners)
  • newest of the big 3 networks, so they have the lowest click prices
  • best return on investment of the 3 major networks
  • a must buy for search marketers
• Yahoo! Search Marketing Coupon: Yahoo! Sponsored Search connects businesses and customers online. Sign up and get a $25 credit.
  • quality traffic, but not as clean as Microsoft and not as much search volume as Google
  • a must buy for search marketers
• Google AdWords Coupon: $50 AdWords credit
  • the largest keyword driven ad network, but also the most competitive with the highest bid prices
  • a must buy for search marketers

Tracking Conversions

Before you advertise you should have set business goals, and you should track your conversions to see how well you are achieving them. If you are not tracking conversions you are flying blind, and will probably lose money.

I recommend: To ensure your site converts optimally make sure that you offer the most relevant user experience possible. Rather than sending all your keywords to your homepage send that traffic to a specific relevant  landing page. Ensure that keywords, ad copy, and landing page are all well algined to maximize your conversion potential.

Many of the search engines provide built in conversion trackers. If your conversion process is simple you may do well using their built in conversion tracking tools.

If your conversion process is a bit more complex or you do not like giving all your conversion data to search engines for competitive reasons then you may want to use a third party tool like Keyword Max.