Both Use Text Adverts

To gain traffic to the advertiser’s desired landing page, the advertiser will need to create a text advert to advertise their landing page’s contents. With PPC, this has three stages:

• A title which has an aim to grab the web user’s attention.
• The description which gives a little more information to the web user about the title.
• The URL where the URL of the landing page is displayed (although it can be changed).

With Twitter, advertisers have to create tweets in 140 characters or less. This can be deemed much harder to do. Usually, advertisers start the tweet off with the ‘title’ (a sentence to grab the Twitter users’ attention) and then has the link straight after it with description following that. What makes Twitter inparticularly good is the fact that anyone who uses Twitter and retweets the advertised tweet is making it more publicised. I guess with PPC, you have to rely on social media buttons on a landing page for this to happen.

Both Direct Traffic To A Landing Page

This can be seen to be a similarity for all types of advertising programs online because, in essence  advertising programs’ objectives are to gain traffic to a specific web page. The main difference with advertising programs is how they gain traffic to the landing page. For PPC, PPC programs such as AdWords uses Google search engine and Adsense publisher websites to display adverts to be clicked on. Whereas, Twitter uses the idea of social media, trends, the ability to make something viral and a click on a tweet to gain traffic to a web page.

Both Are Contextual

This is a vague but a true statement. Of course, we all know that PPC is completely contextual through relating keywords used in the content of websites and search engines to the adverts being displayed. For Twitter, there is no true contextuality. However, we can group Twitter users by there interests which are sometimes made apparent through their tweets, the hash tags they use and the retweets they tweet. For example, an advertiser could tweet a tweet about an advertising campaign to do with cars. He can use certain hash tags such as #cars (I know it’s unimaginative!) to contextually select the Twitter users who will predominantly see the advertised tweet.

#1 Google AdWords/Adsense

This has to be the most undisputed number one place out there. Ever since Google introduced themselves to PPC, they have always been the market leader in providing an advertiser and publisher side to PPC. Seeing that 97% of Google revenue comes from AdWords and Adsense, it makes clear how successful Google are in PPC : millions and millions of people use it worldwide.

#2 Media.net

I rate extremely highly of Media.net. ‘Why?’ you might ask. Well, seeing that Media.net is run by the Yahoo and Bing network, you will know that if you choose to go with Media.net, you will be in good hands like you are with Google. What impressed me more than anything was the fact that you get your own mentor to help you with using the program. That mentor is a real life person that will stay with you throughout your whole experience with Media.net. This USP has definitely made Media.net popular amongst the internet.

#3 Chitika

I remember using Chitika a few years ago and having a horrid experience with them. I felt that I was not gaining great traffic because to gain the traffic, my adverts were pop-ups which, as we all know, annoy everyone. However, since then, Chitika has improved considerably to the point that has made them the #3 best PPC program out there. What they have done is diversify there products so that you can gain traffic others ways than through annoying pop ups. The adverts are more contextual which helps gaining much more relevant traffic to your landing page. Chitika also state that have over 200,000 websites associated with their publisher side. Although small compared to Adsense, this is still a large number to advertise to.

#4 Ad Dynamo

Ad Dynamo – what can I say about them? I have had a very up-and-down journey with them. Some campaigns work brilliantly with them while others leave me financially in tatters. I think the problem is that, above anything, Ad Dynamo is a South African company that concentrates on South African advertisers and publishers first over the world. However, since being created back in 2008, Ad Dynamo has been the PPC program that has grown the fastest – if they carry on this rate of progress, they will turn out to be a very good PPC program to use indeed!

To view Google’s pay per click campaign on Google Play, I had to type in ‘buy music’ into Google’s search engine.:

My first reaction to this was the level of competition there is for buying music online (and so there should be!). Recently, HMV (UK music retailer) went in and out of administration which just shows how much business companies are losing to downloads online. Everything is just that bit easier and cheaper online, right?

Looking at the actual text advert, it is relatively simple for Google’s standards. This helps bring the point forward about what Google Play has up for offer. The headline interestingly has the URL for Google Play’s homepage on it too being ‘play.google.com’. This is a great addition to any PPC campaign because even if the web user does not click on it, they will know how to reach Google Play from knowing the URL. This brings the tip forward – if you have a relatively short URL, add it to your text advert.

After clicking on the advert, I came to the following landing page:

This landing page has been superbly laid out (which you can expect from Google). The sidebar or internal links of most landing pages are usually associated with being in the upper left corner of the landing page. Google have decided to lower these to the middle left into a list form which includes  books, movies and Android apps along with music. It’s a wise choice to include this on the landing page considering that the web user came to the page because of an interest in music. But, how do people listen to music downloaded? They use portable devices and the chances are that the device can also download books, movies and apps too. For this reason, it’s more of an universal landing page for Google’s portable entertainment.

With most good landing pages, Google has included a large image to visually please the web user. This is important for anyone running a PPC campaign. An average web user’s attention span is not very large on the internet. Therefore, as well as having an objective of gaining a conversion from them, you will also be having the objective of keeping them interested before the conversion is complete. The best way to do this is through using as many images as possible to not just tell the web user what your landing page is about but show them. The best PPC campaigns out there can show their whole landing page’s contents in just one image that is quick and pleasing to the eye.

Choose The Right Landing Page For Your PPC Campaign [Part 1] and [Part 2]

Most advertisers will simply create a landing page that they think is right for the type campaign they have running. This two-parter of an article looks to show advertisers that there are different types of landing pages out there which you should use for different types of landing pages. By looking at what you want to achieve out of your landing page, these articles will help you choose the best landing page for your PPC campaign.

All You Need To Know About Ad Categories For Google Adsense

Looking at the publisher side to PPC, many publishers find themselves with the problem of how to increase the CPC and CTR of their Adsense adverts. A simple way to do this is to unblock all your ad categories because 1) this will increase competition therefore your CPC and 2) you may find that some of the ad categories you first blocked provide an increase to your average CTR. It’s a simple change which can have the potential to make publishers much more money.

Why You Need To Start Using Mobile PPC

PPC originated to displaying adverts on computers. This is still a huge part of PPC. However, every statistic out there will agree that mobile devices are becoming much more popular. For this reason, it is a good idea for advertisers to start looking into making PPC campaigns for mobile devices. As well as having the surge in traffic from mobile devices, there are a few more benefits mobile PPC has which may encourage advertisers to start using it more.

Why Do Advertisers Choose PPC?

PPC is used by millions of advertisers worldwide. Why is this? The simple explanation is that PPC is an awesome way to gain traffic be it short term or long term. This article looks into three reasons why advertisers choose PPC over other online advertising platforms such as banner and in-text advertising.

Analyse A Real PPC Campaign – Microsoft Surface, BuySellAds, Internet Explorer and Aston Martin

I would strongly recommend that you have a read of a few of these analysing articles. Each article looks at the text advert and landing page of the campaign seeing it’s key advantages and disadvantages. From doing this too, we can then look into why the businesses chose to use that type of PPC campaign layout.

1. Experiment constantly.
2. Use your main keyword in both the title and description of your text advert.
3. Target your audiences through location for better results.
4. Use power words throughout your campaign.
5. Run a negative campaign alongside your normal one (e.g. if targeting people wanting to buy something new, use ‘used’ as a keyword).
6. Display less text on the landing page and more pictures or even a video.
7. Capitalise the keywords in your PPC text advert to make them stand out more.
8. Create a custom landing page – do not use your homepage as a landing page.
9. Install Google Analytics onto your landing page to gain an idea of the success rate of your landing page.
10. Regularly check your keywords in search engines to see your competition.
11. Regularly check your brand name to see if other advertisers are bidding for it.
12. Add urgency to your campaign. For example, the discounted offer ends soon.
13. Trademark symbols increase conversion rates. ™ © ®
14. Keep your campaign up to date and fresh – do not leave them to sit there and rot.
15. Add internal links to your landing page so that if the web user is not interested in the landing page, they can explore the rest of your website.
16. Use Mobile PPC.
17. Make sure your CPC reflects the amount of traffic you want (high = lots of traffic).
18. Maximise the quality score.
19. Bid on your own brand name even if others are not.
20. Do not make your advert title too long.
21. Use a custom URL for the text advert.
22. Do not reveal too much information in the text advert. You want to entice the web user into a click of extended knowledge.
23. Make sure your landing page loads fast – web user’s attention span is minimal.
24. Reduce distractions on your landing page to optimise your conversion rate.
25. Keep a list of all the things which worked well with your campaign and what didn’t – use this for future similar campaigns.

There we have it! 25 tips any advertiser can you to improve the success of their campaign in PPC. A mistake you might make after reading this is try to apply all the tips to your campaign at once. Do not do this. The best thing to do is apply each tip once at a time and see how it affects the performance of your campaign. The chances are that it will help improve the success. However, in the slightest chance that it doesn’t, you can know exactly why your performance hasn’t increased.

Shopify.com has quickly become one of the leaders in ecommerce, not only because the sites made with their platform look amazing but they also spent a great amount of time and effort on creating a backend that is easy for site and business owners to use.

I know the importance of running a clean and smooth business when it comes to ecommerce because I used to run a site of my own in the past. People want their orders in time, they want to feel appreciated and know their data and order information is safe.

All of this can be done with the Shopify system. To give you a better idea on what the Shopify site can do for you and your business, watch the short video below.

Now that you have an idea how simple and effective it is to setup a store of your own, you might as well get started. When I ran my ecommerce site, I went with a dropshipping model, which meant I didn’t have to hold any inventory. What I then did was run a bunch of pay per click ad campaigns to get people to my site and convert them into sales. It’s quite exciting to see people come from the search results and actually place real orders on your site. It’s a completely different feeling than seeing affiliates leads come through, because these are actual purchases and products.

Shopify Affiliate Program

Since many of us are already online marketers, I also wanted to point out that Shopify also has an affiliate program of their own that can pay over $300+ per referred customer. This is a very nice commission on a very well known and trusted brand. The Shopify affiliate program isn’t public knowledge to everyone, so the doors are wide open for you to start making money by promoting their site. You can learn more about their affiliate program by clicking here.

If you’ve been getting frustrated with pay per click marketing and promoting offers that just aren’t converting, maybe it’s time for you to start an ecommerce site of your own and start building up your own customer base.

Social Media

I rank social media as one of the highest sources of traffic because the possibilities are endless: you could create a viral video, tweet or post that is shared by the thousands gaining you huge amounts of publicity. Another great thing about social media is that, at its core, it is free. Yes, you can buy tweets and Facebook exposure etc. However, you can gain endless amounts of traffic from social media, in theory, for free. For this reason, I would always try to use social media when trying to gain traffic. This is why social media is often used alongside PPC: social media buttons on the landing page.

Banner Advertising

With PPC being #1, it is safe to say banner advertising (inparticularly BuySellAds) comes in at #2. Although over the months on PPC.org I have always said that PPC is just that bit better than banner advertising, that should not stop you from experimenting with them. The reason I say BuySellAds is not as good as PPC is because:

• You have to do the ‘contextual’ part of your campaign manually.
• You could pay for an advertising spot and get minimal traffic.

But, you could also buy an advertising spot and get much more traffic than you could have ever predicted. Again, like social media, the possibilities are endless. You have paid for that advertising space for a fixed time period: what happens in that time period is yours to keep at no extra cost. If you gain much more traffic than expected during your banner advertising campaign, that is your traffic to keep at no extra cost.

Commenting

I know exactly what you are thinking – commenting? Is that really a source of traffic to be compared to the above examples? Yes: if you know how to use it right. The reason why not many people comment any more is because there are no definite results to gain from doing it. But, surely, that applies to social media, banner advertising and even PPC too? Commenting is a great source of traffic because:

• You gain a link back - Even if it is not a dofollow link, your comment will still give you the possibility to gain traffic as most websites ask for your name and website URL when commenting.
  
• Web users will click on your link if they think your comment is good. You can express a complete understanding of a topic through a few sentences as a comment. From doing this, web users will gain the impression you know exactly what you are talking about and will become intrigued into your depth of knowledge. Therefore, this will encourage them to click on your linked URL in your comment.
• Comments stay there forever – banner advertising and PPC will come and go. Social media will lose interest. As long as the article you commented on keeps getting high amounts of traffic, your comment will keep getting viewed. For example, in theory, if you commented  on 1,000 articles, in ten years time, if each article gains 20 views a day, that is 20,000 views your comment could still potential be getting. This makes clear commenting is definitely for the long term source of traffic.

Some of the best search engines for pay per click marketing come with better results. These search engines are the ones with cleaner reputations and more users. For maximum PPC satisfaction, here are eight search engines that will surely fill your needs.

1. Google Adwords

What else goes to the top of the list but Google’s very own? Also known as the king of PPC marketing campaigns, it integrates efficiently with Adsense and other Google subs. If it is convenient interface and quality traffic being talked about, the Google Adwords wins the race two hands up.

The biggest turn-off for this search engine is its expensive fees though. If you have money to spare for the quality you will get in return, then good for you.

2. Yahoo Advertising

That’s right! When there is Google, there is Yahoo. Many users say it is as good as Adwords’ system. The traffic volume is highly satisfying as well. Weird though, because despite the quality users can get for signing up with Yahoo Advertising, it does not impress as far as membership goes.

One reason is the confusion it makes with Overture (another Yahoo division).

3. 7Search

This is the black horse in the competition indeed. The company claims better income than its biggest competitors, Google and Yahoo. True, the traffic you can get from them is very satisfying considering the size of this company.

The clincher? They charge less than 10 cents for every visitor—exactly what small businesses need. That’s what you call real worth for your money. Regardless the size, it truly belongs to the best search engines for pay per click marketing.

4. Microsoft AdCenter

There is an ongoing argument whether Google or Microsoft gets the best traffic volume. Nevertheless, they are considered one of the major players in the PPC marketing field.

What many users really like about it is the excellent customer service and reliable support group. It is Microsoft after all.

5. ABCSearch

They are considered one of the most trusted just because they have been around for more than 10 years already. Some users do not find its interface impressive a bit, but it is the results that truly matter, right?

6. Findology

This is not really a top PPC search engine, but decent nevertheless. Like ABSSearch, they have been in the business for more than a decade already. They currently boast (something to boast about?) over three million search results per month.

7. ASK Listings

If flexibility is what you want, then ASK Listings is what you need. This PPC search engine has cost-efficient packages for those who are not on good businesses all the time.

8. Espotting

The name does not really ring a bell. That is because Espotting is only a popular choice in the UK and Europe. Nonetheless, it is worthy to mention because of their very good results and high volume.

In Europe alone, it is definitely one of the best search engines for pay per click marketing.

When starting a business or trying to attract new customers to an existing business, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising can be a great tool. PPC campaigns are based on websites placing ad links to a business’s website or specific product page, in exchange for financial compensation when visitors click on the ad links. Ideally, webpages that PPC ads are placed upon share the same target audience as the business the ads are promoting which makes an ideal working advertising relationship for both parties involved.

However, businesses planning on using the PPC method of advertising need reliable web hosting, whether through dedicated servers or alternative means. If a business’s webpage lacks adequate hosting, all the money that is spent on PPC marketing may be a total waste.

Unreliable Webpages Don’t Attract Customers

Once a site user clicks on a business’s PPC ad, the business is obligated to pay the webpage the ad was placed upon for the click. If the webpage that the customer is directed to is experiencing an outage or not loading properly, odds are the user will close the page and never think to return to it again. Therefore, all the PPC ad being used has done is told a potential consumer that the company in question is unreliable and doesn’t feel the need to invest in a reliable hosting option like dedicated servers.

Badly Hosted Webpages Lose Money

Every time someone clicks on a PPC ad link, a business has to pay the webpage promoting that ad, whether their webpage is working when someone clicks on it or not. Sure, the amount paid out for one click doesn’t seem like much, but if lots of users are consistently clicking on an ad link that directs them to a webpage that is down, it is going to add up very quickly. This is one of the ways companies can directly and quickly lose money on otherwise promising PPC ad campaigns.

Consumers Don’t Trust Webpages With Spotty Service

If a customer goes to input their credit card or Paypal information on a business’s checkout page and the page fails to load or goes down, they might be forced to consider that the website they are about to put important financial information into isn’t reliable. This may cause them to reconsider their purchase and not spend money on the website after all. Some consumers might even do more than decide against buying a company’s product; they might even tell their friends that they think that the company is unreliable as well!

To view Aston Martin’s PPC text advert, I typed in ‘Aston Martin’ into Google search for UK:

I found this text advert particularly interesting because the first result for Google search is Aston Martin’s homepage – why would they spend money on PPC then? Well, looking at the advert, it seems it is more of a price sensitive campaign aimed at those wanting to buy an Aston Martin that perhaps can’t afford it (therefore, buy a used one). With the economy the way it is, more and more people will most likely be finding it hard to buy new Aston Martins.

A dominant feature of the whole text advert, I feel, is the keyword density of ‘Aston Martin’ which is displayed twice in the title, once in the description and six times in the link section of the advert. This makes one thing clear. Aston Martin wants to make clear that even if the cars are cheaper and pre owned that you will still be buying an Aston Martin. From this, it is clear that if your campaign is centred around a good brand image, make sure you use it to your full potential like Aston Martin are!

A great feature of the text advert is that from having the links to many different types of Aston Martin cars, they make it seem like there is a wide selection of pre owned cars to choose from: the web user is definitely not limited by choice to pre owned Aston Martins.

After clicking on the text advert, I came to the following landing page:

When I first saw this landing page, I thought of the type of image Aston Martin wanted to portray. The landing page looks smart: especially from the background image used. By having a close up on the stitching on the car, it makes the web user believe that Aston Martin gives all their cars attention to detail. This means that even though the car they might be buying is pre owned, it will have the same precision manufacturing as a new Aston Martin today.

Like always with PPC campaigns, Aston Martin want to analyse the performance of their PPC campaign through installing code onto their landing page. This is clear from the html left after the main bulk of the URL being ‘?gclid=CPrmh5Kd9bYCFTMRtAodJWMALA’. Ultimately, the main features of Aston Martin’s campaign is that:

• They have gone for a price sensitive market that are looking for cheaper alternatives of the same product. Thence, the pre owned.
• The text advert uses the brand image of Aston Martin to entice the web user into a click.
• The landing page does not make the web user feel ‘cheap’ in anyway for being price sensitive.