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NetLocal Pay Per Click Management
Local Pay Per Click advertising can serve as the ultimate direct marketing channel
for several reasons.
- Your ad is shown only to people who are actively searching for what you offer
- You pay only when someone clicks your ad
- You have full control over the ad copy and can change it quickly
- You can experiment and track results easily
- Your landing page message can be designed to address specific keyword searches
- You can easily track conversions and other analytics
Yet so many still fail at Pay Per Click advertising. This is because the system that allows such great direct marketing also creates a great deal of direct competition. To succeed all aspects of a campaign must be well thought out with your direct competitors in mind. From the keywords that are used, to the landing page and conversion tracking system, every step must be optimized.
NetLocal PPC Management Services and Pricing >>
Pay Per Click Methodology for LOCAL
- Competitive Research
- Keyword Research and Selection
- Ad Writing and Landing Page Design
- Geo Targeting
- Bid Management
- Feedback Loop for Actionable Analytics
1. Competitive Research And Analysis
The first step is to see what the competition is doing in terms of ads, positions, offers, landing pages and spend. A searcher who is ready to buy will click through many ads to see what options are available. We must find a way to engage and influence these searchers in a way the competitors are not. This is because they are located right next to us. We cannot hope that they have happened to find us but not them.
A good analogy is to imagine all your competitors are on the same block right next door to you. The customer can walk down the street and compare every offer. In a market like that you need to be very focused on the searchers intent and needs. You must get them to contact you instead of the other eleven businesses.
2. Keyword Research and Selection
We want to use keywords that will bring a lot of visitors who are ready to purchase to our site. At its core that is what keyword selection should achieve. The keywords that we select should be relevant and be the keywords searchers are using who intend to purchase.
Keyword Selection Methodology:
- Generate a list of probable core keywords
- Assign an Online Commercial Intent Value (OCIV)to each of the top core keywords
- Incorporate Geo-Modifiers
Using online tools
b. Assign an OCIV to each of the top core keywords
The OCIV gives us a great starting point to identify keywords that may become our money makers. These are keywords with proven track records. The higher the OCIV the more likely we are to ad to the group and give a high initial bid for. These are keywords that searchers who are in the buying phase of the purchasing cycle tend to use. They are what we like to call the “money keywords”.
c. Incorporate Geo-Modifiers
Keywords with geo modifiers accomplish two goals for us. First, core keywords with a strong OCIV have an even better conversion rate when combined with a geographic location. It only makes sense that when someone is ready to buy they look for a local provider. Second, it also acts as a form of geo targeting for search engine ad display. The local PPC campaign will already be configured to show ads only to searchers in a specific geographic area. But if someone searchers from outside the geo area and modifies with a town or city the search engine will display the ad.
3. Ad writing and landing page design
The goal when writing PPC ads should not be only be the acquisition of clicks. Ads should be written to prompt searchers who are ready to buy to visit your site and to complete a pre determined goal. Focusing on direct marketing we will want only those who are ready to purchase. It is also important that the landing page what the ad claims to offer.
Once on our website we will want to present easy ways for the searcher to complete the goals and to influence them to take action NOW. With that in mind we must define the offer and present it in a compelling way. That is where the landing page comes in. The landing page should be an extension of the ad and must engage the searcher.
Ads also need to be written with quality score in mind. The ads need to have copy that is relevant to the keywords that are being used to support higher ranking and to reduce cost per click. See bid management below for more detail.
4. Geo Targeting
Goolgle, Yahoo and MSN all offer geographic targeting for Pay Per Click advertising. Each offer deferent levels of granularity and types of approaches. Google allows for the specification of custom shape geo targets so we can zero in on the area that a business services. Yahoo recently added a feature to use zip codes for targeting. Any local Pay Per Click campaign will need to be properly targeted to maximize conversions and minimize spend.
5. Bid Management
Its important to bid according to the commercial value of a keyword to maximize conversions. Using Online Commercial Index and ongoing feedback from analytics the value of a keyword can be determined. A keyword that gets no conversions and scores low for Key Performance Indicators should be bid down in rank or deleted from the campaign.
PPC bids are driven by competitive factors. Demand, profit margin and competition all play a role in the bid price. The higher the profit margin and demand the higher the bids tend to be. And depending on the volatility of the market, bids may change often and quickly.
But bids are not the only factor that effect ad rank. An ad is ranked on a Google search engine results page by a keyword's cost-per-click (CPC) bid and Quality Score, which is calculated from its clickthrough rate (CTR), the relevance of your ad and keyword to the search query, the content of the landing page and other relevance factors. [google help on quality score]
6. Feedback Loop for Actionable Analytics
Once an account has been running long enough to accumulate sufficient data adjustments can be made to optimize results. Conversions and metrics such as bounce rate, time on site and page views can be used to assess keywords, sources, ads, offers and landing pages. Geographic location of searchers and callers may also be used to inform optimization.
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