Pay Per Click Marketing:
a beginner's roadmap!

By Matt Lopilato

Pay Per Click Marketing (also known as PPC advertising) is a key staple in the Internet search marketing arena and is without a doubt the fastest, most effective method for getting your marketing message out to your target audience in 10 minutes or less.

That being said, there is still alot of misinformation relative to the proper guidelines in utilizing PPC marketing to its fullest potential.

Hundreds of ebooks and courses teaching PPC marketing and Search advertising have been published and with that came much confusion. Each promoting his or her favorite ways of winning the PPC marketing game.

This "beginners" article will identify the 7 critical elements you need to pin down, in order to produce a winning PPC marketing campaign...and dispell many of the existing myths and falsehoods surrounding PPC search marketing.

All of which I have proven through hundreds of campaigns involving many different niche markets.

1) It all starts with your keywords: Determine your "1" top keyword. This is your "theme" keyword. From there, have 3-6 related second-tier category keywords. Group them into separate "ad group silos", where each silo has just a small handful of only the most tightly focused and related terms. When finished, you should have maybe six groups - each containing 3-10 closely related keywords.

2)  Chose a battle you can win: Select less competitive and less expensive keywords to start off with. Don't use broad terms that cost a fortune for every click just because they receive a ton of traffic. Concentrate on second-tier keywords that bring  a minimum of 100 searches a day but cost much less per click. Become the big fish in a small pond. Master this and you'll be hugely successful.

3) Each ad group shall have two different ads so you can split test and optimize to find the winner. Once you have determined which ad in each group is performing better, delete the poor performing ad and replace it with a new ad and monitor the results agin. You must track your PPC metrics. Until you reach an optimal level of performance you should be looking at your numbers every day. At a mimimum, you should be seeking a .05% click-through rate and ideally, greater than 1%.

4) Writing ads searchers want to click on: Try to put your best keyword in the title; and the title will be your best attention-grabbing USP (unique selling proposition). The first line shall contain your top benefit...what's in it for them. Get your selling point out there quick. Then on line two use your product's best feature. Lastly, have a domain name that is your theme keyword if available. So if you sell a book on Mexican food recipes try to secure a domain that has these words because it will help increase your quality score, which reduces costs and helps placement.

5) Sensible budgeting: Keep control on your daily spend budget. Ramp up only based on successful results. Never bite off more than you can afford to lose. If all you can afford is $20 a day then that's what you set it at. Through hundreds of tests I have proven that you are best served by setting your cost per click budget at whatever the figure is that allows you to maintain positions 3-6 on the first page of the SERPS. By doing so, you greatly reduce your costs while weeding out the click happy folks.

6) The bottom line doesn't lie: After 100-200 click throughs you now will be able to determine if you have a potential winner or not. As a rule of thumb, you need to be making at least one sale for every 200 click-throughs. If for example, you receive 200 clicks but no sales, you have a problem. The message to market is wrong or the product is not a fit for your audience. By examining your numbers, ultimatley your ROI, you can determine this and adjust accordingly.

7) When to incorporate content networks: Once you have fine-tuned your ads and your offer and you're hitting your numbers, then turn on the content network to dramatically increase your exposure. Content network advertising using CPM instead of CPC so as a general rule you should set your cost per click at half of your current PPC search bid. If you're paying .50 a click on Google search then set your budget on their content network at .25 and watch the numbers. You'll receive more traffic on the content network but it isn't quite as targeted so this is why we adjust for this factor.

I hope this article has opened your eyes a little bit more to what it takes to becoming successful at PPC marketing.

To your success,

Matt Lopilato
 © Matt Lopilato, All Rights Reserved.

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Matt Lopilato is President of Results Marketing International, an Internet
Marketing & Web Business Training & Consulting Firm.
Contact Matt for a free 1 on 1 phone consultation & marketing review
( normally $350 but yours free for a limited time!)
Contact Matt at: mlopilato@resultsmarketinginternational.com
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