|
Traditional Internet marketing wisdom states that website owners should take
advantage of pay per click search engines. With their highly targeted, keyword
driven traffic, pay per click search engines are no doubt a quality candidate
for bringing in new business. But this wisdom is often taken for granted, without
considering whether pay per click search engines are worth their total cost
for an individual marketing campaign.
Pay per click search engines certainly take their place in the arena of Internet
marketing. But what place they take in developing your marketing campaign needs
to be considered. Many website owners, inspired by the wave of Internet marketing
experts who have written articles praising the unfaltering results of pay per
click search engines, throw their money indiscriminately at pay per click search
engines, surrendering per click costs of enormous magnitudes. These website
owners are wasting money that can be applied to other, more effective venues.
"the bid price for the keyword "web hosting" was in excess
of $12"
Recently, on one very well known pay per click search engine, the bid price
for the keyword "web hosting" was in excess of $12. The keyterm of
"casino" exceeded $15.
If you read those last two sentences quickly, go back and read them again.
Advertisers are spending as much as $15 for every click they receive. Is this
too much?
Obviously $15 is an extreme in the realm of normal pay per click prices. But
what is reasonable? Is $3 reasonable? What about $1.50? The question of how
much you should be spending on advertising is a rather ambiguous one. In fact,
no article or expert will be able to pontificate the ideal per click price.
If one were to try, it would sound something like this: one should aim to lower
the amount of money beings spent on marketing, not at the expense of acquiring
new clients, but rather to find an equilibrium between the money spent to acquire
a new client and the number of clients being acquired for that particular business.
Simple, huh?
The actual point being made is to look at CPA, or cost per acquisition. How
much are you spending to acquire a new client? When determining this cost, do
not factor in such expenses such as merchant account fees, phone fees, or general
office fees. The goal is to look carefully at your advertising costs and how
much you are currently spending in advertising to get one client in your virtual
door. Once you know your current CPA, it is then possible to lower your CPA
without affecting your sales revenue.
To lower a company's CPA, one of two things can be done:
Eliminate advertising that does not convert prospects to sales, or
Add new advertising that promises to have a very low CPA. Most companies use
a combination of these two approaches.
To determine how to eliminate high CPA ads that you are running, it is necessary
that you begin tracking the effectiveness of your advertising campaigns. There
is a wide variety of tracking software available, including affiliate software
that can be used to effectively track an ads performance. If you are not tracking
your ads currently, you should begin to do so immediately.
Determine how much you want to spend to acquire a single client. Notice that
this is different than determining how much you are WILLING to spend to acquire
a new client. If you ask yourself the second question, it is pretty much given
that you will spend more than you were originally willing to spend. Any advertising
that carries a CPA higher than you want to spend should be let go, even if it
is producing some results. You are not just after any results; you are after
low-cost results.
To replace your high CPA advertisements that you recently received your pink
slip, it is important to look for new, lower CPA advertisements. Surprisingly,
there are many sources for quality advertising that carry very low CPAs. In
fact, many of them are free.
Web directories offer all sorts of free listings to businesses. Do not limit
yourself to just looking for general web directories, but look for industry
specific directories that deal with your industry, or may be related to your
industry in some way. Chances are there are free listings available with them.
If you believe that you have already listed your website will all the directories
available, then search for some more. New directories are being formed daily;
it is likely that the top businesses within your industry are already located
in them.
Jump on any opportunity to get a free listing for your website, a free link
to your website, and especially free content on other people's websites. PRWeb.com
(http://www.prweb.com) is a great place to advertise your website for free.
Submit press releases to news agencies that deal with your industry, your area,
or even an industry that is related to your website. Many companies submit press
releases on a daily basis. Not all of them will be published. However, a well-placed
press release can bring in more sales than an overpriced pay per click campaign.
Once you have exhausted your free marketing options, take advantage of the
many low-cost options available to you. List your website on low-cost directories
that ask for a nominal listing fee. Add your website to places such as TowerSearch
(http://www.towersearch.com) that offer low fees for guaranteed top placements.
Use pay per click search engines that are effective, but carry lower costs per
click, such as PageSeeker (http://www.pageseeker.com) and Kanoodle (http://www.kanoodle.com).
When developing keyword lists for pay per click search engines, replace high
priced keywords with a high number of less searched, lower cost keywords.
After you have developed a base of quality free and low-cost marketing, experiment
with advertisements on websites that promise to deliver quality traffic to your
site. Measure their effectiveness. If they deliver results, try and negotiate
lower costs by agreeing to long-term advertising contracts. Many websites will
be glad to exchange a discount for guaranteed ad placement for several months.
Overall, when choosing your advertising, think about how you are spending your
money. Be aware of your current CPA and your desired CPA. Realize that many
free opportunities exist for your website, and many more low-cost opportunities
exist as well. But most of all, know your CPA
About the Author:
Mark Daoust
http://ppc-list.com/ |
