What’s a Paper Clip Daddy?

Dad Explains Pay Per Click Advertising?

Kids are great, I love em! I am blessed with 2 beautiful, intelligent daughters. In my business world I am up for any challenge. Ask me anything you want about internet marketing and I can talk with you. It is a passion and a product of over 20 years of marketing experience. Many of my close friends and associates tell me that I speak with authority and have a natural ability to quickly get to the heart of the matter. To me, it’s just me! Where I find myself digging into the inner depths of my cranium is when my children ask me WHY? Now that is tough, especially when it is followed by 2 more why’s.

The other day my youngest daughter asked me...

Sarah: “What do you do at Work Daddy?” I quickly responded

Daddy: “I a SEM manager, Sarah” Of course I knew what the next question was so, for once, I was ready.

Sarah: “What’s a SEM manager Daddy” Dad responds quickly

Daddy: “Well SEM is short form for Search Engine Marketing” A few seconds pass and the next predicable question is asked.

Sarah: “What’s Search Engine Marketing, daddy?” I’m on a role here cos I know what she is going to say, hence prepared with answers.

Daddy: “Well, Sarah, it is when you help other people that have business websites get other people to visit their website. Ummmm, when other people visit website’s the owner of the website makes more money. When they make more money they can feed their children better, give better schooling, buy better toys, etc.” My Sweet little Sarah is taking this all in. Being an internet savvy little girl herself she asks,

Sarah “How do you make people go to other people’s sites?” I admit, I thought we would move onto another subject after my answer but she wants to really know.

Daddy: “OK, here’s some really cool words I am going to tell you now, are you listening?”

Sarah: “Yes dad”

Daddy: “SEO (search engine optimization), full, in-house production website design, website hosting, internet marketing research, and Pay per click. Did you get that Sarah?” I could tell she was listening very closely to everything I said but she had a very curious look about something I said.

Sarah: “How do you make money with a paper clip?” I could not help but chuckle and think about what I said and how it was interpreted. I went on to tell her that I probably talked too fast but what I said was,

Daddy: “Pay-Per-Click, Sarah. It is when we can bring traffic (visitors) to almost any website with advertising. You know when you go to Google and search for Webkins or Club Penguins, and then you see those rectangles on the right side or top with words in them?”

Sarah: “Yes”

Daddy: “Well, those are pay per click advertisements, Sarah. I manage those for other website owners. They pay me money to make sure they get the best advertising rectangles that make them money ”

The story above is a true story and I thought it may help explain a simplistic understanding of pay per click advertising. The next time you see one of these ads you will know exactly what those rectangles with text in them are and how they got there...because I put them there to make you money.

It is amazing what you can measure in PPC. Unlike most forms of advertising, timely delivery and countless free tools allow you to measure and tweak profitability. Google has played a serious trump card with free "connect the dots" webmaster tools designed to increase revenue. Try conversion optimizer, website optimizer, and Google Analytics I think you'll see ways to improve any advertising campaign.

Here’s 2 Quick PPC ROI Rub Down Ideas

1. Expanding High Performance Adgroups- Gaining insights into which ads are generating sales or leads is one of my first areas I look at when I do a conversion sweep through PPC accounts. I like to examine the ads and find which keywords are triggering the best clicks. Once you understand what and why you can expand on it. Create another Ad groups and expand on the performance factors of the model Adgroup.
2. Squeeze ROI out of Conversion Data- Find what keywords are the highest converting keywords. You may also want to take a look at CTR (click thru Rate). Create content pages using the keywords as a theme keyword topic for content. These content pages can serve as additional landing pages for PPC and Organic to AB test. Essentially what you are doing is placing a magnifying glass over the high performance keywords and elaborating on it.

Other PPC Options

For website owners placing ads linking to their great deals Google AdWords will likely yield the finest results, especially when strategies and keyword matching options are united. Google is not the only game in town though. What it comes down to is cost per conversion. A few other PPC options include Yahoo! Marketing, Bing adCenter or Facebook. I admit their user interfaces all lack the usability of Google AdWords, but what about CPA (cost per action)? What I have discovered is that certain business types convert on Facebook better than others. When a conversion occurs from Facebook the CPA is a fraction of the cost of Google usually. I have found similarities with Bing. In both cases the search volume is not close to Google but CPA is amazing when the right match is made.

Here’s my Usability Ratings for My Top 4 PPC Engines

1) Google AdWords

2) Bing adCenter

3) Facebook

4) Yahoo! Network

This is just an opinion of mine from a user’s perspective. With any Pay per click campaign it can be launched almost instantly but there are other forms of advertising that must not be overlooked.

• Direct mail- Brochures, postcards, mailers, etc
• Radio- Find best suited audience
• Television- Try infomercials
• Newspapers- Advertise locally or nationallyTip: Include your web address on all of these forms of advertising and monitor it with Google Analytics.

Pay per click involves psychology, in that you need to get in the minds of people that use the internet to find stuff. It really begins when the phrase is entered and ends when that same person converted through your goal conversion goal funnel. The good news is there are people known as conversion specialist that can accelerate the conversion process.