Pay-per-click (PPC) Search

Google Adwords and Yahoo! Search Marketing

Alphasearch Halifax offers more than just SEO services. We also provide Pay-per-click (PPC) services and consulting for Google Adwords and Yahoo! Search Marketing. But what is PPC?

Paid Search Promotion: Buying your way to the top. Pay-per-click, pay-for-performance, cost-per-action, and other Paid Search and Paid Promotion methods are paid online advertising methods that may appear as search results (or on the search results page). Paid search results are sold to the highest bidder and so are not 'natural'.

Paid Search Campaigns are typically ideal for projects with larger budgets (a minimum spend of $1,000-$5,000/month is recommended), and with a specific end in mind such as increasing online purchases, developing brand awareness in a certain market segment, driving traffic to a new product or contest, or building a contact name (email) list.  (If this doesn't match your situation, see natural search engine optimization.)

The most common of the paid search methods (such as Google Adwords and Yahoo! Search Marketing), pay-per-click (PPC) has become a huge success for many advertisers with stronger ROI then other traditional forms of advertising. It also has the strengths that ads are targeted only to specific audiences (those that run a particular search), and that ad campaigns may be adjusted based on realtime feedback. 

Paid search has a one-time set-up fee for the research and strategy that creates the campaign. This includes the following:

Keyword and Keyphrase Research
Choosing the right keywords and keyphrases is crucial, not just to finding your target audience, but to maximizing your return on investment. Since you pay a set amount for each site visitor (unlike 'natural' search where there are not unit costs), we need to make sure that the terms are the right ones.  Usually PPC campaigns target a wider number of terms than organic search engine optimization.

Bid Strategy
Bid strategy is crucial to your campaign's success.  For example, a company that sells only outerwear would probably not be wise to target the term 'clothing', since the majority of 'clothing' searches are not likely to be looking for outerwear (and yet you would pay for every click).  A better strategy would be to target a large number of words and phrases that perfectly match your product or service (in this case jacket, coat, sport coat, ladies coat, etc.).

Competitor analysis
We study what your competition is doing, and gather 'bid data' - the maximum and minimum bids for key target terms. We also look for hidden opportunities - spaces in the market not yet crowded, where ads are most cost-effective.

Online Market Analysis
Bringing together market research and our own analysis we sketch the opportunity - and the ideal target for your campaign.

Search Engine Network Placement
There are several paid search advertising networks. We select the one that is best for your campaign, your budget, your audience, and your needs.

Promotional Ad Copywriting
Tiny but powerful! That's the definition of a good PPC ad. Paid search campaigns are very competitive and yet your ad has to stand out in a small space. Our copywriting team knows how to make your ads stand out - and then we test them.

Target Pages
We create an individual page matched to each ad, which allows us to track the in-coming traffic and see which ads are working best.  Traffic numbers are compared to ad impressions (how many times the ad is viewed) across the ad network, making for a fun date with some (always) interesting statistics. 

Ad Adjustment
Those ads that perform the best are used to replace any under-performing ads. Ads may also be rewritten or 'tweaked'; in some cases, changing a single word has been known to take an ad from zero to hero.

Campaign Management
Once the campaign is launched, it is carefully monitored to maximize your return on investment. On-going activities include:

• Account Monitoring
• Analysis and Reporting
• Click Fraud monitoring
• Return on Investment assessment
• On-going Reporting
• Campaign Adjustment

Most on-going activities are charged as a percentage of ad spend. Certain additional services such as expanding a campaign, or adding new products, etc., are charged separately.

In some cases, the campaign may also include landing page creation and other advanced strategies to track or capture in-coming traffic.

Interested? Contact us to find out more.

 

PPC | Pay-per-click services | Google Adwords | Halifax.