Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising

Here are a couple very real questions for you:

• Are you anxious to get tons of traffic to your brand new site?
• Are you like the majority of the people who have been afflicted with the “micro wave” mentality and completely incapable of patiently waiting until your traffic builds?

If that is the case then Pay Per Click advertising is probably just what you are looking for!

Pay Per Click (PPC) is a search engine marketing technique where advertisers pay only when their ad is clicked and a visitor is directed to their website.  You and your competitors “bid” on the keyword phrases you’d like your ad to show up on when people enter them into the search box on the search engines.  You can bid as low as $0.10. If it isn’t a competitive phrase, you’ll only pay that $0.10 if someone views your ad and decides to click it and visit your site. 

The position of your ad isn’t simply based on the amount of money you bid for each keyword.  The search engines take into consideration the quality of the page the ad is linking to and the amount of times visitors click the ad, versus the number of times it is displayed.   There are other elements the search engines consider, but these are two of the most important.

A company can start a PPC campaign for as little as $5 so the barrier of entry is about as close to zero as it can be.  This creates an interesting dynamic since it creates a tremendous amount of competition.  We’ve found that companies who aren’t very familiar with how to run an effective PPC campaign end up wasting substantial amounts of money.

Our philosophy is companies should NEVER use PPC advertising to simply buy traffic, they should use PPC to buy profits! 

Search engines determine that amount they charge per click based on the following:

• The amount a company bids for the keyword phrase
• The click through rate (CTR) which is calculated by the amount of times the ad is clicked versus the amount of times it is displayed.
• The quality score of the page the ad is linking to.
  

When we work with clients we create very compelling, benefit focused ads which have an extremely high click through rate, and we develop high quality landing pages which are viewed as extremely relevant by the search engines.  The combination of these two elements cause our client’s cost per click to be significantly reduced. 

Let’s face it...the search engines are looking to make money and they will display an ad that is going to be clicked the most no matter what the bid is.  If they find a company that is willing to pay $5 per click but their ad is only clicked one time for every 100 times the ad is shown, and there is another company who is bidding $1 per click and their ad is clicked 20 times for every 100 times it is shown, they’ll choose to show the ad that brings them more revenue.

Every company should be focused on getting the best results possible for the money they spend.  If you would like to begin to maximize your advertising spend, and ensure you are buying profits and not simply traffic that isn’t converting into a sale or a lead...contact Mindscape now!

WORLD WIDE WEB

meets world class branding

We're now affiliated with Hanon-McKendry, a nationally recognized brand consulting and advertising firm. We share not only office space, but a passion for excellent work and effective marketing. You can read more about the partnership here.