Selecting Negative Keywords
Negative keywords prevent your adverts from showing when a user does a search for something that will not result in a sale. For example if you sell DVDs on your site and a user does a search for “hire DVD”, you would not want them to see your advert and click through to your site because you don’t offer DVDs for hire. By including the term “hire” in your negative keyword list you will reduce the number of untargeted visitors and lower your PPC advertising costs.
Writing Ad Text
With PPC it is undesirable to pay for untargeted visitors who will not buy anything, so the ad text should be designed to eliminate “time wasters” while still attracting the target audience. For this reason, the ad text should describe exactly what the business offers. For example if the business sells only TVs the following ad title would be too general: “Online Electronics Store” and would result in a large number of visitors, but with few actual sales. Instead, a title like “Latest TVs for Sale” would be more appropriate.
Monitoring and Analysing the Campaign
Once setup it is crucial that the PPC campaign be monitored regularly, since positions can and do change every day. The competition for the top positions on Google and
Yahoo can be fierce, and bidding wars are common. It is vital that you never pay too much for each visitor even if it means abandoning a top performing keyword. Apart from position monitoring, it is important to track and analyse the effectiveness of individual keywords. Viewing click-through rates and studying visitor habits can provide valuable data, and thus help to further refine a Pay-Per-Click campaign.
Log File Analysis
Analysing a site’s log files or using analytics software are 2 ways of discovering more about the site's visitors. They provide information regarding the exact search phrase used by a visitor to find your site. This allows you to further expand both your keyword list and your negative keyword list. Additionally, you can determine which pages on your site are not fully optimised if large numbers of visitors exited your site from those pages. Log files also provide proof of click fraud.
Click Fraud
Click fraud is when someone, like a competitor, intentionally clicks on your PPC adverts in order to increase your costs in the hope of driving you off. By carefully monitoring your PPC campaign, any sudden spikes in clicks can be detected. This is the first indication of click fraud. If click fraud is suspected, the site’s log files should be analysed. If a large number of visitors came from the same IP address (an IP address is like a unique telephone number for a computer) then this is proof of click fraud. The next step would be to report this to your PPC provider and they will give you a refund for those click. Google claims to monitor for click fraud, but also states that it is still possible to be a victim of click fraud when using Adwords.
Conclusion
Pay-Per-Click campaigns can drive large numbers of highly targeted visitors to your website. However, these campaigns can become expensive. The bottom line for any PPC campaign is the cost per customer acquisition. If customers are acquired profitably then a PPC campaign is a success. If not, other avenues of advertising should be pursued.
< Previous: Part 2
