One
of the absolute best online marketing processes available to any business today
is Google's AdWords Select advertising program. It produces immediate results
within minutes after being setup, drives highly qualified traffic via selected
keywords and can be monitored and modified on a 24/7 basis via Google's excellent
online interface. There are no hidden fees - it costs a mere $5. USD to setup
a campaign and requires a credit card submission at startup. We highly recommend
this interactive marketing process to all of our clients and incorporate an AdWords
Select component with all of our marketing campaigns.
Google's Pricing Model
Google charges you on a CPC
("Cost per Click") basis - you only pay for each clickthrough
to your web site from Google's, no more no less. You don't pay
for "impressions" (number of times someone views your
ad) like many first generation Internet advertising models -
it's truly a results driven marketing process.
Keywords
costs can vary tremendously ranging from $.05 to $11. USD or more per keyword
- Google assigns a "minimum cost per click" for specific keywords based
on "market value" and "performance history" via Google's AdWords
Select program history. Be prepared to pay a much higher rate for very popular
keywords and this is a moving target all of the time - the more popular this program
becomes the more you will be forced to pay for selected popular keywords.
Creating your Sponsorship Ad
Your Ad's position is based
on a combination of the CPC ("Cost per Click") you
selected and relevancy of your ad - if your ad and keywords
are relevant and drive clickthroughs, then your ad will rise
in position on the sponsored column versus your competitors.
This is an innovative feature and helps to distinguish Google's
program from all other PPC ("Pay per Click") campaigns
(Overture and their primary competitors) - most of these programs
have an "economic bias" built into them; i.e. whoever
pays the highest fees gets the top placement.
Dynamic Ad Placement
Google's unique AdWords Discounter
keeps track of your costs per click versus your competitors.
You select the maximum amount you want to pay for your keywords
and the ranking algorithm keeps track of your keyword costs,
ensuring you only pay one cent above the CPC ("Cost per
Click") cost you specified when you setup the campaign
versus your competitors.
Setup Process - Sponsored Link Ad
and Keywords
AdWords Select is based upon
driving highly targeted traffic to a web site via a set of keywords
that are selected via Google's account management interface.
There are two primary components to the setup process, creating
your "sponsored link" ad and selecting your keywords.
You start by creating a "sponsored link" ad that is
subsequently inserted into Google's search results on the right
hand column - targeted by keywords that you have selected. It
only takes a few minutes to have your campaign go "live"
after you've completed the setup process.
It's very important to spend quality time creating
your sponsored link as this is the "online ad" that people will view
in the midst of search results and competing sponsored links (in some cases).
You have the ability to create a short headline coupled with two lines of text
with approximately 35 characters per line - the headline must be succinct and
hard hitting and the related text should backfill the headline with supporting
words that convey what goods or services your company provides. Keyword
selection can be the most daunting task for setting up a new campaign - be prepared
to spend some focused time working through multiple keywords to find those that
you can afford. It typically takes 1-3 hours to find 10-20 keywords that are relatively
low cost - however, if your budget is open-ended and you have sufficient marketing
funds to pay $1-8. USD per keyword then it can take much less time. Your market
focus is also another important variable that can impact the keyword selection
process - if you're in a narrow market niche with only a small number of competitors
then it is much easier and faster to setup a campaign. Finally,
be aware you can find some keywords that are very inexpensive, but Google will
disallow these if they don't drive a minimum clickthrough amount of roughly less
than 1% - you can start off with them, but they will be turned off after 7-14
days if they aren't driving sufficient clickthrough volume.
Wordtracker Keyword Research Tool
You may want to utilize other
keyword analysis tools that will give you a broader selection
and help you to understand what keywords are popular and searched
on, which in turn ensures the keywords you do select will drive
traffic and will not be disallowed by Google. Wordtracker (www.wordtracker.com)
is an industry standard keyword analysis tool that those of
us in the online advertising world (and many others) have used
for years to help us understand what keywords are popular -
their service is very low cost and easy to utilize via their
web site.
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Lee Traupel has 20 plus years of marketing experience.
He is the co-founder of a Northern California and Brussels
Belgium based, privately held, Marketing Services and
Software Company, Intelective Communications, Inc., http://www.intelective.com.
Intelective focuses exclusively on providing services
to small-to-medium-sized companies that need strategic
and tactical marketing services. He can be reached at
Lee@intelective.com.
Please click here to Contact us or call toll free 530.432.8764
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