Simply put the ROI for PPC campaigns is the Return on Investment; basically what you received or are receiving back from a marketing campaign that your business is paying out for. It makes good business sense to monitor PPC (pay per click) results regularly to ensure that money is well spent and that any changes required are made swiftly.

Assuming a pay per click is properly set up with appropriate key words and similar data it has the potential to be a highly efficient way to target an audience and meet business goals. As with all forms of advertising however things do change in the digital world very quickly therefore keeping on top of changes is paramount.

This type of advertising offers an easy and targeted way to direct traffic to your website which in turn should, if the website is set up properly, increase successful lead conversation i.e. more sales. Where these ads are shown, what time, how frequently and to which people determines how successful they will be. Keywords change popularity very quickly and monitoring your ROI shows just how effective current keywords are in terms of locating and encouraging profitable click-throughs.

Ads may need to be changed to focus on current events, new products, services or developments pertaining to the business and of course altered if they are simply not hitting the mark as expected. While there is a lot of science and expertise required when putting together a goal-orientated pay per click campaign there is also an element of the unknown as regardless of how targeted an ad is, your PPC agency cannot physically make someone click and visit your website. Changing an ad placement, keyword or the time of showing could however make it more visible and therefore clickable.

To ensure that all bases are indeed covered keeping a daily check on the ROI of a campaign will monitor effectiveness and so determine if changes to the ad need to be made while also providing data that the business owner and PPC agency may look at to decide on future directions and whether a larger budget might be advantageous.

There are a number of online tools which assess key metric in terms of what the ROI for a campaign is which are used by PPC agencies and business owners alike. Google Adwords is a key piece of programming which helps to set up and monitor the effectiveness of a PPC campaign and in turn the ROI for the business owner.

If you bought a property or a classic car as an investment you would keep an eye on whether your investment was paying off, how quickly and would base additional financial decision on this, especially in terms of future investments. Investing in a pay per click campaign for your business works the same way and therefore monitoring the ROI here too is a necessary task.

Written by Cayenne Red, digital marketing agency. Cayenne Red specialise in PPC, SEO, Web Design and Development, Affiliate Management & Social Marketing.

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When you invest in a PPC agency you expect your investment to reap the rewards. Often your goals are geared towards increasing profits.  If you see that the bottom line is not improving, you may want to review your agency’s performance.  The following are considerations given as an aid to reviewing your PPC agency.

Getting Started and setting goals

When you first met or spoke to the PPC agency did you feel that they asked for enough information about your business? Was there adequate discussion regarding your goals and did you feel these goals were understood? When you signed on the dotted line, did you receive a plan of action detailing what your money would be paying for and how the company were planning to tackle any hurdles and achieve your goals?

Communication & Reporting

Are you kept in the loop at all times? Do you receive regular reports outlining performance and changes to the PPC campaign aimed at improving performance?  It’s essential your agency out lines on-going performance changes.

Ad Copy Testing

Does your agency continually test and optimise adcopy?  Do they constantly look to improve your campaign’s click through rate (ctr)?  It’s important your agency demonstrate how they are testing new advertising copy.  The higher your campaign’s CTR, the lower cost per click you will pay.

Managing and Reducing your cost per click

Does your agency overly use broad matching when setting up your campaign? Broad matching allows an agency to target many related keywords.  However, there is a down side to using broad matching and that is your advert may be shown on irrelevant keywords costing you needless money.

Your PPC agency must demonstrate how they use negative matching to remove unrelated keywords picked up through broad matching.  Your agency should demonstrate how they are saving you money and reducing your cost per click.

Onsite Optimisation

Has your agency made any recommendations on how to improve the sales conversion performance from your PPC traffic?  It is essential your agency understand how well your PPC traffic converts.  They should review your website and understand how well it will convert and provide recommendations on improvements.  There is no point paying for traffic if that traffic does not convert.

Do you need to review your PPC agency?

If any of this sounds familiar and your agency is undertaking some of the considerations outlined, it is more than likely they are doing a good job.  If not, then it may be time to review your PPC agency.  If you have any questions regarding PPC management, CayenneRed will happily answer those questions.

Cayenne Red is a Digital Marketing Agency specialising in Bespoke Web Design, SEO, PPC, Affiliate Marketing Management & Social Media Marketing

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Indeed, one reason to use a pay per click agency is to get results in a very short period of time and get a good return on investment.

This is why a PPC campaign (one that can be described as non-organic) and takes literally minutes to start producing the result, is pitched as the direct alternative to a SEO campaign (organic) which can take a month, if not three, to gain traction.

But the speed of PPC creates the key problem with this fundamental element of the digital marketing mix.

Whereas a SEO strategy can be fine tuned over weeks, if not months, a PPC campaign highlights mistakes within minutes and the big downside about that is quickly emptying pockets.

PPC has to be effective for it to work. There is no room for mistakes and errors will be punished very quickly indeed. So, no-one should contemplate an Adwords campaign until they have got their ducks in a row.

So, sound keyword research is vitally important if money is not going to be wasted. Wording of the ads then has to be equally precise, as people need to be quickly convinced in a short number of words. That is no easy task and takes even the best copywriters a while to perform.

But, get those two elements right, and PPC can be an instant and very lucrative success.

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Okay, enough of the smirking; we’re trying to be serious here. Now, .xxx domain names were created so that people could no longer complain that they had wandered onto sites full of inappropriate content.

Great idea. The big elephant in the online world is that the great portal of the 21st Century is actually there to provide a steady stream of porn. Separating the dubious sites away from the so called more legit sites is a way of trying to keep the elephant sat firmly in its box.

But the problem is that many companies would be more appreciative of the .xxx suffix if they didn’t have to fork out a whole load more notes to protect their brands and IPs from being exploited by pornographers.

Companies, organisations and quite a few individuals feel like moving targets every time a new batch of domain names become available. So, okay, people were given the opportunity to register for the .xxx name once they were announced, in order to protect their brands. But the cost of protecting each and every single version of a .xxx domain name that could be connected with a brand, or identity, is significant. And it’s the domain name providers who are rubbing their hands with glee, not the people having to buy them.

So, understandably, it’s not just that Virgin are concerned about their boss being connected with some adult site, but that they have to fork out a load more money to keep protecting their online position.

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But when our eyes do glance on the listings of jobs for the digital marketing industry, it does amuse us to read some of the more innocent listings.

We tend to break down the ‘postees’ as a mixture of the over confident, over ambitious, or outright ignorant.

The over confident tend to display an almost naive and ill-informed approach to the whole sector, especially within PPC. The great wheeze is of course that few employers out there really understand just what Pay Per Click means, nevermind how it should be properly exploited commercially.

So, we were amused to see one recent advertiser offering a PPC Agency position to someone with ten years experience. In a new industry and one which was born out of Google’s recent cleverness, there are no people out there with ten years under their belt. Ten months is a long time in this business.

Then there’s the over ambitious potential employer who believes that one person can radically revitalise their business and turn lead into gold. The business might be on its knees, but a stout PPC strategy can turn around the sinking ship.

Last is the plainly ignorant hasn’t got a clue what Pay Per Click means, and so hedge their bets, telling the potential candidates that as well as PPC, they would also have to make the coffee, clean the bosses’ car and take the dog for a walk.

Yes, the joys of looking for a PPC job!

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We’d like to list a number of massive developments which will rock the world to its foundation, but, to be honest; it’s steady as she goes, as long as the good ship Google keeps filling the coffers. Or, at least, that’s what we see looking ahead at the moment.

And we say Google because that will remain the major PPC platform throughout the year and Adwords is a pure money making machine for Google, and what ain’t broke, doesn’t need fixing. It was the way that Google monetised the internet and although it might like to radically redesign its babies like YouTube, don’t expect radical changes to its money making machine. The investors and money making men wouldn’t like that at all.

So expect tweaks and refinements, and a due nod of the head towards quality and relevancy. Google, as with organic searches, is on a pilgrimage to the quality Altar. The internet has got to, according to Google, pull up its socks and start to improve its game. There’s too much junk in the ether and unless some of it starts to get removed, the internet is going to seize.

No dramatic changes, but keep an eye open for subtle PPC algorithm changes, such as the one introduced in the latter half of 2011. This ‘rewards’ people who run PPC campaigns with better click through scores if they have relevant and strong landing pages. In other words, give your website visitor what they want straightaway and don’t make them read a largely irrelevant Home Page.

So, here’s looking for a good year in this pay per click agency.

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For example, search for Google Adwords guide and, low and behold, you get their own online guide, and the usual websites saying that they will explain everything, but usually if you buy their own pay per click agency services, but not much else of any use.

Search for a Dummies Guide on Google Adwords and you’ll find the latest version came out in 2008 (in digital marketing terms, a lifetime ago).

So, is this a gap in the market, a conspiracy by all us PPC agencies to keep people in the dark, or an attempt by Google to keep the subject somewhat obscure?

If you check out the Google guide for their service, it’s an online video which goes into about as much detail to get you started and that’s about it. Indeed, at times it’s quite unintentionally hilarious, as two women with West Coast American accents quiz each other about just exactly how Google Adwords works. All jolly good stuff and it will get you started, but if you try to delve much deeper, there is a marked lack of detail when it comes to building profitable strategies.

It may be some kind of fluke of course, but you can’t help thinking that Google prefers it that way; that they expect people to learn by trial and error and that way, spend a load of money trying to get it right.

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Indeed, although it certainly has not replaced CTR as one of the key indicators of a campaigns’ success, Google does now place far more weight on the landing page which makes sense, agrees the SEO and PPC gurus, if you are planning a detailed campaign.

Let’s say you want to shift a certain box of chocolates within your range. Now, you can build your PPC campaign on the back of directing traffic to the Home Page, but if you’re really clever and want Google’s approbation, then now want you do is build a specific landing page for that box of chocolates you are shifting.

It makes a great deal of sense of course. Why should your potential customer want to land on a Home Page which lists all the corporate stuff, as well as the complete range of chocs you sell? When they click on your PPC advertisement, what they really want to do is go straight to the offer concerned.

This of course goes counter to retail shopping theory which likes to place a whole load of products around the one you want to buy, just in case you want to buy something else. And that still works, but in the internet, when time is precious and people want to crack on, homing into the sweet spot is all the more important.

So, if you’re about to plan a PPC campaign, always remember where you are going to land.

Attribute to: Neil Martin, Cayenne Red.

Neil Martin is a member of the digital marketing team at London based Pay Per Click agency Cayenne Red. He is a regular contributor to the media on how companies market themselves in the digital age.

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Google Adwords is the search engine’s main way of raising revenue and it’s basically a Pay Per Click. And Google know that if you get people hooked, then they should stay for some time.

So, they send you a letter giving the chance to get a set amount of Google Adwords for free. Say £75 worth, for free.

In the scheme of things £75 is nothing and will disappear like sand running through open fingers. So, don’t waste this opportunity.

Okay, if you’re a seasoned PPC hand then cash in the voucher and add it into your campaign. But, if you’re a novice, or don’t know your PPC from your CPC, then use them wisely; don’t flitter them away.

For the uninitiated, planning a PPC marketing campaign is not an easy experience. You have to really grasp the basics and see how they can be exploited to deliver results. There are short cuts, tricks of the trade and a large number of don’t do that. You live and learn.

So the best thing to do is to use your free 75 smackers to learn the house rules. Take up Google’s kind generosity and use that small figure to practice on creating a viable PPC marketing strategy.

Remember, act in haste, repent as leisure!

Attribute to: Neil Martin, Cayenne Red.

Neil Martin is a member of the digital marketing team at Reading based PPC agency Cayenne Red. He is a regular contributor to the media on how companies market themselves in the digital age.

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Now, okay, you might be all familiar with the latest terms, but the problems with acronyms, is that much can get lost in translation.

Take SEO and SEM. They seemed to vie some years ago in becoming the term to best describe digital marketing. Search engine marketing has a nice ring to it and has indeed, become a catch-all for many people in the industry. But, arguably, search engine marketing has a wider reach although for many people, this actually refers to pay per click (mostly Adword campaigns).

Okay, that’s fair enough, but when you stray into the world of the affiliate marketing executive, then things really hot up. Take the trio of acronyms which are commonly banded around by these guys: CTR, CPL and CPA.

The first, Click Through Rate, refers to the number of clicks and the number of impressions. Cost Per Lead is a rate by which a client will pay to an affiliate for every lead generated. Whereas, Cost Per Acquisition is a rate based on a commission for an actual sale. Confused, well don’t worry, you’re not alone!

By the way, for those of you who don’t know what Def Con means (I admit it, I had to Google it), it refers to a state of readiness in terms of a nation’s defense. Or, to be more precise, a definition of the readiness of the United States Armed Forces. So there you are, you learn something new every day!

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