Crush AdWords: The Smart Way to Drive Traffic With Pay-Per-Click Ads. (Part 1 of 5)

I’ve gotten an interesting question recently: Do I recommend using PPC ads to drive traffic to a blog?

This is a loaded question, so the short answer is “Yes. Maybe.”

In actuality, the answer is much more complicated. But as a general rule of thumb, here’s my take: if you have monetized your blog, or if you have a well-structured “sales funnel” that takes the prospect step-by-step through the sales process, then yes. By all means, use PPC to drive traffic.

CAVEAT: Be SMART about it.

Most people approach PPC advertising the way they’d approach putting bumper stickers on a rusted-out old VW bus. They open an AdWords account. They create a new campaign, they either pick 3 or 4 general keywords OR go nuts and pick every possible variation on keywords that they can possibly think of (in about 20 minutes). They create an ad. Then (maybe) they create 4-to-7 different ads to test against one another. They set their budget and launch the campaign.

…How am I doing so far? Sound familiar?

If so, don’t worry. PPC ads are a great, economical solution if you’re trying to wrap your head around this whole “online marketing” thing. But I’d bet you’re running a click-through rate of between 1.7% and 2.9%, on your best day, right? And your conversions, if you’re even tracking them, are between 3% and 7%?

Since I’ve received this questions a couple of times, I know many business bloggers are thinking about this. So I’ve decided to run a new series for the next week. A series that will help you CRUSH ADWORDS. You should be getting a BASELINE click-through of 4% to 6%, and a conversion rate baseline of 10%-15%, right out of the gate, while dramatically decreasing the cost of your campaign.

Let’s compare those numbers. If you’re doing well on the initial numbers I gave: 2.9% click-through with a 7% conversion…that means for every 1000 impressions, you get 29 click-throughs, and two conversions. Now, if we take a conservative line on the second set of numbers—4% click-through with a 10% conversion–then 1000 impressions gives you 40 click-throughs and 4 conversions.

Now, at 50 cents per click in the first series, those 2 conversions are going to cost you roughly $14. Or $7 per sale. Not too bad, I guess. But at 10 cents per click in the second series, those four conversions are going to cost you just $4. A buck a piece.

Not only is this possible, but running your campaign in this manner will reduce both the ambiguity and the stress of maintaining your pay-per-click campaign. And these are just your baseline numbers. We’re going to lay down a strategy that will help you increase these numbers over time. I’ve done this for a number of clients, and they are consistently amazed both at how effective it is, AND how simple.

START WITH A PLAN.
Makes sense, no? I’ve said it about blogging, and it’s ten times as true with PPC. If you don’t know where you’re going, how are you going to know when you get there? Before you even open your browser and pull up AdWords, you need to answer the following 5 questions, as specifically as possible.

1. What do we want the prospect to do?
It seems so simple, but it really is critical. Do you want them to buy a product off of your site? Do you want them to opt into your mailing list? Do you want them to pick up the phone and call you? Do you want them to enroll in a free trial? This distinction is crucial to the success of your campaign. But you’d be amazed at the number of people who don’t even focus on this before they run their campaign. I’m sure it’s rolling around in their head somewhere, but you need to define it explicitly.

2. How do they do that?
Your blog might be focused so that, juts by visiting it, the reader can get a feel for you as an expert and sign up for your mailing list to receive valuable information. Or you might want to steer them to a sales page. Or a landing page that steers them to buy a product or call a rep. If you’re just blindly steering them to your site and hoping they’ll find their way to the action you want them to take, you’re setting yourself up for failure.

3. What do they care about?
I can promise you it’s not about you. Or your company’s rich history. Or your amazing product. They are looking for something out there. They are looking for the solution to a problem. What is that problem, and how is it affecting their life? Come up with 5 to 10 things that they care about, that your product can affect positively. Hang onto your list.

4. Where are they going?
Is there a place that they are going to search for this answer? Or places? If you’re not sure about this, Google can probably tell you what they are. Just type your question in and see what its top 5 results are. Check them out to see if they fit the bill.

5. Why should they listen to me?
Knowing what they are looking for, and where they’re going to look for it, what do you possibly have to offer that could convince them to listen to what you have to say. Come up with 15 reasons.

Again, this list isn’t sexy. But it lays the foundation of an AdWords campaign that will get results. If you don’t know what you’re saying, to whom and why, then you might as well take that 25-cents-per-click and go play quarter slots somewhere. You’ll get better results.

Tomorrow, I’m going to show you how to choose keywords so that they are not only relevant, but you’re going to know how many searches they get each day, so you can pick a handful of keywords that you KNOW will drive traffic.

Stay tuned…

[PHOTO CREDIT: Source – SXC.hu