The goal of the vast majority of Pay-per-click campaigns is simple; create a customer from someone searching for your product.
Although this may sound simple in theory, many PPC campaigns have a huge lack of target in the way that they try to reach potential customers, by targeting people who are either looking for information or browsing.
As you can see on the buying funnel to the left, consumers go through a cycle when deciding on making a purchase:
- Awareness that they have a problem that needs fixed or a want to be fulfilled
- Research and comparison to find out what the best product or service would be to fix their problem or fulfill their want
- Buying, which consumers know what they need and make the purchasing decision.
You should be fulfilling your awareness portion of the funnel with you outbound methods of marketing (Traditional media and Online Display Advertising) You should get your brand name pushed out the prospects, so when in time of need, your name will be the one they remember when consumers turn to search engines in order to find the product that they want.
For your PPC campaign though, it is a waste of money and clicks for you to be bidding on words that are very generic and informational in nature, because these people are not yet ready to make a purchasing decision (save these high traffic keywords for your SEO campaign, use the free traffic for the highest volume words)
For your pay per click campaign, keep to longer keyword phrases that are call-to-action oriented in nature and contain action verbs. These will be much lower traffic than the shorter, more generic keywords… but when you are paying per click, these highly targeted action keywords are the ones that will generate the highest conversion rate, and ultimately create the best return on investment for your search engine campaign.
Example:
“Impact Windows” – Generic keyword, highly competitive, and usually around $5-10 per click depending on what market you reside in. With Miami Internet Marketing campaigns it is currently around $6-8.
“Hire Impact Window Company” “Buy Impact Windows” “Impact windows quote” – These keywords have a specific call to action, and show that the consumer searching is in the buying section of the funnel… they have already done previous research to look for what they need to solve their problem. And if you’ve done any awareness marketing, they might have already heard of your company too, to boot! Now sit back and watch your conversion rate skyrocket!
And the kicker: Since these highly targeted call-to-action words have significantly less traffic and bidders than the generic words, the cost per click will end up being WAY less…. so let your competition bid each other up and get tons of traffic for “browsers” by bidding on expensive informational keywords like “impact windows”, while you bid on the less expensive longer buying keywords keywords like “hire impact window company” and laugh at their stupidity.
Note: I’m not saying to not bid on generic keywords, you can still close business this way, just bid less on these words so you don’t blow through your budget. Also, you will need many MANY more keywords in order to generate the same amount of traffic as the short generic keywords, but your conversion rate will be ridiculously higher than your competition, and you’ll be spending way less money for your clicks at the same time!
If you’d like me to take a look at any of your campaigns, feel free to contact me anytime for a free consultation. Thanks!
