The Basics of PPC Advertising

• Why do I need a PPC campaign?

  • PPC advertising is the most revolutionary, targeted and powerful advertising medium in existence. By definition, you only display ads to people who have already expressed interest in what you sell, and you only pay when they choose to learn more. It is a completely fluid marketplace and with eBusiness Local's expertise and technology, we are able to "turn on a dime," optimizing your campaign in real-time. Simply put, PPC advertising is enormously powerful and extremely profitable when executed with precision and efficiency.

• How does a PPC campaign work?

  • Quite simply, you write an ad, select the keywords (user search queries) that you want to trigger your ad, and then you pay each time a user clicks on your ad and is linked to your web site. The amount you pay is dependent on a pre-set "maximum bid." Take this concept, apply it to thousands of keywords, hundreds of ads and make changes based on a variety of data factors, and you have yourself a PPC campaign. Very easy to do, yet very difficult to do well. (Don't worry though as we pay all of these pay-per-click charges from our fees)

• Where will my ads appear?

  • Ads – otherwise known as sponsored links – will show up on the search results pages of basically every major search engine, including Google, Yahoo!, MSN, AOL, Ask, and many others. On the search results pages in all of these search engines, there are two sets of links. The sponsored links appear on the top and bottom of the right hand side of the page, and the "organic results" are listed down the main body of the page; these are chosen and ordered by the search engines complex algorithms. Improving results in the organic links is known as Search Engine Optimization, and managing sponsored link campaigns is known as PPC Management. eBusiness Local, a full-service integrated search firm, excels in both of these areas.

• When do I see results?

  • Quickly! Normally within 24 hours from your account going live.

• I heard that PPC advertising is expensive, how much does it cost per click?

  • With PPC advertising, you get to pick the maximum amount you are willing to pay each time somebody clicks on your ad. This maximum "bid," combined with a myriad of other factors – including the relevance of your ad copy, the structure of your campaign and the historical performance of that keyword – determine exactly what you end up paying and in what position your ad will appear. The more you are able to pay, the higher you will show up in the search results, and the more clicks you will receive. Depending on the competition for a given keyword, each click can range from $.05 to $20 or more, with an industry average of about $1.40 per click. (Once again, you don't have to worry about this as you are never charged any PPC fees)

General Questions

• What PPC search engines do you work with?

  • eBusiness Local manages campaigns in Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing and MSN AdCenter. These search engines in turn power the PPC advertising in AOL, Ask, AltaVista, Excite and many more. There is a second tier of search engines that offer their own paid search platforms, as well as shopping feed management sites that require management. eBusiness Local offers both of these services for additional fees and on a case-by-case basis.

• What are Ebusiness Local's costs? Do you offer other pricing packages?

  • eBusiness Local's PPC Management fees are all inclusive with packages starting at just $79 per month. You can see a package comparison by clicking here

• How exactly do you "optimize" a campaign? What does that mean?

  • PPC campaign optimization refers to the process of making incremental changes to a campaign in order to create a higher average return for each dollar spent. Included under the umbrella of optimization is keyword management, ad copy testing, bid management and more. The end goal is to identify and expand upon the components of a campaign that provide the best return on investment and cut out the components of a campaign that are providing the least return on investment. An example of campaign optimization would be identifying the keywords with the lowest cost per conversion and raise the bids on them, and conversely lowering the bids on the keywords with the highest cost per conversion.

• Can I change my package? Can I add more keywords, products or services?

  • Absolutely! Your budget is entirely fluid and you can adjust your package with ease. If you work with a catalog of products or services, we will want to build a PPC campaign that parallels this catalog and is constantly updated to reflect changes in pricing, features or inventory. This is a key component of an efficient PPC campaign.
    

• What reporting does Ebusiness Local offer?

  • Depending on your level of service with us, you are provided with weekly, monthly, or on-demand reports that summarize campaign activity. This includes impressions, clicks, cost per click, conversions, cost per conversion, ROI, revenue generated, phone calls generated, cost per call generated and more (all if applicable).

Existing Campaign Questions

• What does eBusiness Local do that I can't do myself?

  • Indeed, it is quite easy to open self-service accounts at Google, Yahoo and MSN and run a campaign yourself or in-house. Most campaigns, however, require extensive, ongoing analysis and the expertise of understanding the numerous nuances of PPC marketplace and platforms. eBusiness Local's Essential PPC platform is constantly evolving to stay at the forefront of the PPC marketplace, and is only available to eBusiness Local clients. Our PPC Management services pay for themselves many times over in increased efficiency, not to mention freeing you up to do what you do best: run your business.

• I tried, and this PPC stuff doesn't work. What can you guys do differently?

  • Years ago, it was a snap to run PPC campaigns because the marketplace was so uncompetitive that inefficient campaigns could still generate enormous returns. Today, it can be very difficult requiring a thorough understanding of the complexity of the PPC marketplace. Since the inception of PPC eBusiness Local has had the tools, experience and technology to run massive and highly efficient search campaigns.

• My campaign works already; what more can  eBusiness Local  do?

  • There are numerous ways that we make existing campaigns run better, such as expanding keyword lists and match type variations, ad copy testing, improving account structure, testing landing pages, more active bid optimization, negative keyword utilization and more. We approach every campaign with a broad range of tools at our disposal, identify the areas with the highest degree of need, and start our search for greater ROI.

• I know the most important keywords already; I don't need this "keyword research."

  • While it is easy to identify a handful of the most obvious keywords related to your products or services, they compose just a fraction of the total keywords that will drive high quality traffic to your web site. eBusiness Local can identify the hundreds or even thousands of variations of your primary keywords, which can, in turn, send extremely valuable, high converting traffic to your site.
    

Digging Deep: Questions of Strategy

• How do the search engines rank the PPC ads?

  • Google, Yahoo! and MSN all take into consideration a variety of factors to determine your ad's positioning in the search results. The two primary factors is the maximum you are willing to pay for each click (the "cost per click" or "cpc") and the past performance of the keyword in general. These are primarily measured by the click-thru rate (or CTR), which is the percentage of people that click on your ad versus the total impressions of your ad.

• What is Google's "Quality Score"?

  • Google, like all other search engines, takes into account the maximum price you are willing to bid, as well as a composite metric called the Quality Score. It is a number (which is not revealed to you) comprised from a multitude of aspects, each weighed differently. Some of these factors include the all-time click-thru rate and the "recent" click-thru rate of the keyword, the performance of that keyword historically throughout all of Google, the relevance of your keyword to the ad copy, and the quality of the landing page the ad sends visitors to. Understanding the right way to structure a campaign and how to use these Quality Score factors to your benefit is another advantage of employing eBusiness Local's expertise.

• How do Google's match types work? What is best?

  • Google has several different "match types" which indicate what user search queries should be triggered by a keyword in your account. An exact match limits exposure to the precise keyword, with no variations. A phrase match allows additional words to exist in the search query but requires the ordering of the keywords to remain untouched. A broad match compares your keyword to a wide variety of potential variations, including synonyms, keyword re-orderings and much more. There are also negative keywords, which allow you to manually exclude certain variations. There is no right answer to which match type is best; the best campaigns will utilize a strategic combination of match types to achieve maximize results. eBusiness Local's years of experience comes heavily into play when strategizing the best keyword architecture for a given campaign.

• In Google, should I be using the content network? Site targeting? Image or video ads? Print, radio or TV?

  • Google gives advertisers the ability to advertise in a dizzying array of media and with a large spectrum of ad types, from images and flash to video, audio, print and more. eBusiness Local can help you sort through the myriad of offerings and identify which are worthwhile for your specific industry, needs and goals. We have the capability to help build ads in many formats. eBusiness Local will work with you to track the results and allocate funds to maximize your exposure and results.