PPC - Pay Per Click Management

One of the best things about PPC is that there are so few barriers to advertising with it.  Starting is extremely easy, and quick.  However, starting with a written strategy, or plan will increase your chances of being successful.  This will help you stay focused on what is most important to growing your e-commerce business, and help you avoid extra pitfalls and getting side stepped with details.  Remember, the ultimate goal of using PPC must be to advertise profitably: Your cost per conversion must be less than you average gross profit, per transaction.  PPC is not to increase “brand awareness” it is to drive targeted traffic to your website, and help fill your sales pipeline.

The first step in a successful marketing plan is calculating how much you can afford to spend per click.  This will be one of the most – if not THE most important number you monitor throughout your PPC campaign.  You can calculate this maximum cost with this simple calculation:

Max bid per click = .7(average gross profit per sale / conversion rate)

Here is a simple example:

So, if I am selling soccer balls on my website for $15, and my cost is $5, my gross profit is $10.  And if I know from past analytics that my conversion rate is 1% – or that for every 100 people that visit my site

Once you have your maximum per-click price set, you should use multiple keyword tools to decide which keywords have the best search volume.  You should also look at Google’s “traffic estimator” tool, but take its results with a grain of salt.  Most PPC experts say that the traffic estimator is only about 70% right, 70% of the time – so there is significant margin for error.

Use lots of different iterations of different keywords, including changing tenses, spellings, and tenses.  “drafting table” might also be called a “drawing table” or a “drafting desk” as well – and these other key terms although searched less frequently may be less competitive, and therefore cheaper.

Now that you’re armed with the right numbers, and the right words, it’s time to put your adwords campaign into effect with some basic ad copy writing.  You would be wise to use multiple versions of ads for the same groups of keywords, controlling for your maximum ppc.  Then and only then will you get a clear idea of how well your ad copy is actually working.  Slight differences like including prices, free shipping, brand names, or other details can have a big effect on the overall profitability of your campaign.  Divide your keywords into similar groups (ad groups, in Google adwords parlance) make sure that the name of your ad group contains the keyword that you are targeting with those ad groups.

Continue to monitor your adwords campaigns constantly.  You cannot afford to simply let them continue to run unsupervised.  Not only could this prove expensive, but you could miss out on many potential sales.  Continue to experiment with keywords, ad groups, and bidding until you find a combination that maximizes your potential profits.