With the holiday shopping season upon us, a fierce battle is ensuing between thousands of online businesses and Internet marketers. They’re duking it out for increased visibility with the hopes of driving more holiday shoppers to their destination URLs, with U.S shoppers alone estimated to spend US $48.1 billion online this holiday season, according to a recent comScore report.
PPC, or Pay-Per-Click, ad campaigns are one of the main advertising tools in the marketing arsenals of these combatants, and with the stakes and potential rewards higher than ever, a lot of resources will be invested into these vital campaigns.
Making the most of their advertising dollars and driving to their sites potential customers eager to spend cash are top priorities. There are strategies the best PPC companies will employ to do just that.
Using What Works
SEO experts recommend experimentation throughout the year, with 15 percent or more of a company’s advertising revenue directed toward finding new avenues to reach intended audiences and more effective ways to grab their attention (and their clicks).
That PPC experimentation should culminate in the big holiday push. It’s time to use what worked throughout the year and toss what didn’t. It’s not the time to gamble on a new PPC marketing theory or stratagem. Now is the time to use what has worked in the past, and go back to the drawing board come the new year to find what new ways could work and stay one step ahead of the pack.
Tis the Season for Anticipation
CPC (cost per click) rates aren’t exactly cheap come holiday time, and competition for key phrases or “head terms” (short, commonly searched for terms) becomes intense. This is where intense keyword research pays off to find quality and under-valued search terms.
It’s also a time when you may need to anticipate new and effective search terms that could crop up and jump on them before they’ve gained enough traction that other online marketers (many of whom use the same analytical tools looking for the same edge in your niche start using them.
Focus on Quality of Traffic, Not Quantity
This ties into the previous point related to experimentation with keywords and ad campaigns. Advertisers should focus on terms they’ve used throughout the year that may not have driven a ton of traffic to their websites, but what traffic they did generate resulted in a much higher ROI (return on investment).
Consider you’re advertising for stainless steel flat washers. You first have keyword confusion to contend because “washers” could apply to two vastly different things. If you’re not careful in what terms you target, half your traffic may have no interest in where you send them and what you’re trying to sell them. Likewise, too broad a search term will have increased competition and is also likely to net too many people simply looking for information and not interested in buying .
In this niche, we see terms such as “316 stainless steel” and “304 stainless steel” with high volumes of searches, and relatively low competition compared to even less-searched-for terms. They are search terms that are also far more likely to lead to a conversion. This is because the searcher has already targeted something very specific and thus, likely has a specific need to fill and is far more likely to make a purchase based on such a search than someone who simply searched for “steel washers”.
