An Introduction to PPC Advertising

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Today’s Class

• What is PPC?• General principles• How to get into PPC• Technicalities/Specifics• Creating a strategy• Measuring success• Ethical issues

What is PPC?

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An Introduction to PPC

PPC stands for “Pay Per Click” Marketing.

Differentiates from traditional media buys, where you pay for a number of impressions, be it in a magazine, a TV ad, or on the internet.

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Acronym Jungle

• PPC• CPC• CPM• SEM• C/R• CTR• CPA / CPL

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Acronym Jungle

• PPC – Pay Per Click• CPC – Cost Per Click• CPM – Cost Per Mille (Thousand Impressions)• SEM – Search Engine Marketing• C/R – Conversion Rate• CTR – Click-Through Rate• CPA / CPL – Cost Per Acquisition / Lead

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Search Network Ads

Paid Ads

Organic Results

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Search Network Ads

Largest US Search Engines:1. Google2. Bing3. Yahoo4. Ask5. AOL

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Search Network Ads

Largest US Search Engines:1. Google – 66.7%2. Bing – 17.9%3. Yahoo – 11.4%4. Ask – 2.7%5. AOL – 1.3%

Source – comScore Core Search Share Report July 2013

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Display Network Ads

Display / Image Ads

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Display Network Ads

Display / Image Ads

Google Display Network:• 180 Billion Monthly Ad

Impressions• $3 Billion per quarter revenue• 0.1% CTRs• $0.75 average CPC• About 20% of online conversions

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Where our clients’ money goes

85%

8%4% 3%

Google AdWordsBingFacebookOther

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Top AdWords Spenders

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Search Engine Marketing

Branches of SEM:• PPC – Pay Per Click• SEO – Search Engine Optimization• CRO – Conversion Rate Optimization• Social Media – Twitter, Facebook etc.

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SEO

• Search Engine Optimization is the process of trying to get your website to rank higher on Google (or other search engines)

• The higher you rank, the more people come to your website

• The more people come to your website, the more money you make

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SEO

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CRO

“Conversion Rate Optimization” is a name given to the process of making a website generate more conversions from existing traffic.– CRO is Amazon’s bread and butter

Spend/CPC * Conversion Rate = Leads

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Social Media

• Reaching out to customers & forming relationships

• Improving brand awareness and reputation• Working as a backup customer service

• Not the same as advertising on Facebook or Twitter, which still falls under PPC.

General Principles

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PPC

• Ads• Bids• Targets– Keywords– Websites– Location– Time– Device

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Ad Rank

Why does this ad appear above that ad?

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The Auction

Source: http://searchengineland.com/new-adwords-ad-ranking-formula-what-does-it-mean-174946

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The Auction

Source: http://searchengineland.com/new-adwords-ad-ranking-formula-what-does-it-mean-174946

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The Auction

Source: http://searchengineland.com/new-adwords-ad-ranking-formula-what-does-it-mean-174946

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What Is Quality Score?

PPC Specifics

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Account Structure

My Client CenterAccount

CampaignsAd Groups

Keywords & Ads

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Keywords

• How you actually target users searching Googleo [exact match]o “phrase match”o +broad +matcho -negative match

• Search Query =/= Keyword

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Keywords

• How do we know which keywords to bid on?– Common sense / brainstorming– Use tools like the Google Keyword Planner

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Bids

• Bid on a keyword level• Set bids to maximize clicks on keywords that

drive sales/sign ups• Use different tools to help us set bids:– Excel– Automated Software– AdWords Rules

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Bids

Calculating a bid:• Bid = Target Cost Per Lead x Conversion Rate

Example: The keyword [ppc management company] has a conversion rate of 0.5% and a lead is worth $200 to Hanapin.

Our bid should be $200 x 0.5% = $1

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Bid Adjustments

• Time of day– Reduce bids 50% from midnight to 6am

• Device Type– Reduce bids 10% for mobile users

• Geography– Increase bids 25% for users within 50 miles of

Bloomington, IN

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Ads

High click-through rates = good Google Quality Scores

Temptation to overpromise = low conversion rates

Need to find the middle ground:• A good hook (such as a catchy headline)• Proof• Trust• Benefits

Create a feature/benefit matrix

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Ads

A Google Search ad:• Has a 25 character headline limit• Two 35 character description lines• One 35 character Display URL• One 2048 character Destination URL

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Ads

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Which ad did better?

Source: http://boostctr.com/blog

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Which ad did better?

200% Higher

CTR

Source: http://boostctr.com/blog

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Which ad did better?

Source: http://boostctr.com/blog

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Which ad did better?

50% Higher

CTR

Source: http://boostctr.com/blog

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Which ad did better?

Ad A Ad B

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Which ad did better?

Ad A Ad B

57% Higher

CTR

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Ad Testing

Measuring Success

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Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

What is the goal of your account?1. Direct Response2. Brand Awareness

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Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Typical Direct Response KPIs:• Conversions• Cost Per Conversion (CPA)• Revenue• Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)• Leads• Return on Investment (ROI)

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Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Typical Brand Awareness KPIs:• Impressions• Clicks• Bounce Rate• Average Time On Site

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Conversion Tracking

• Conversions are typically tracked as a pageview of an important page

• Placing a small code snippet on these pages• Phone tracking systems link back to custom

tags

Creating a Strategy

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PPC Strategy

What is the goal of your account?1. Direct Response2. Brand Awareness

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Budget?

How much money do we have for PPC?1. Unlimited as long as hitting goals?2. Limits set by client for overall spend3. Divide up budget to promote more profitable

campaigns

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Market

Google Trends:• Seasonality• Long term

How much are CPCs? What do you expect your Conversion Rate to be?

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Goals?

Sales?Calls?Sign Ups?Free Trials?Twitter followers?

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Marketing Mix

Where does PPC fit into the company’s overall marketing plan?• Main driver of traffic• Ancillary source of sales

Ethical Issues?

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Retargeting

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Retargeting

• When you visit a site, you get a Google cookie• Advertisers can use that cookie to show you

ads on the Google Display Network (Google Remarketing) and Google Search Network (Remarketing for Search)

• Remarketing is popular because it normally has crazy good ROIs

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Data Privacy

• Websites can track data through tools such as Google Analytics

• Access to search data is anonymous but intrusive

• What stats do sites keep about you?• Tends to be overblown with the media -

Analytics data is anonymous and most advertisers don’t care about an individual user, so much as the overall trends.

Advice for getting into online advertising

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My Background

• History degree from University of Warwick• Job through a friend. Had never heard of PPC

or SEO until then• Big fan of the PPC Hero blog• Moved to US in 2011 – joined Hanapin a few

months after

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Read Blogs!

There are no experts in online advertising:

• searchengineland.com• adwords.blogspot.com• ppchero.com• moz.com/blog (SEO)• boostctr.com/blog (ad copy)• 3qdigital.com/blog• www.clixmarketing.com/blog• Book – Advanced Google AdWords – Brad Geddes (available on Amazon)

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Become a master of Excel!

• 90% of PPC Analysis can be done with Pivot Tables

• Building out accounts is mostly done with Excel & AdWords Editor

• Writing ads mostly done in Excel so we can use =LEN( function to make sure we don’t go over character limits

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Get Certified

Google Certified PartnersGoogle AdWords Qualified Professional Exams• One fundamentals exam• One specialist exam

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