As the end of 2008 approaches I thought it would be interesting to show some compelling data that we have discovered when looking at many of our pay per click accounts. By doing a ‘side by side’ analysis in the ‘Account Snapshot’ area within Google Adword’s we were able to uncover some very common trends when comparing data from 2007 with 2008.
Although we are showing only one account here, the information is typical of many of the accounts that we currently manage. With this data we can also outline to our readers how to continue to improve your own paid search campaigns.
Below is the 4 PPC lessons we learned in 2008.
1. Clicks to Impressions – as you can see in our test we got far less clicks in 2008 when comparing the data to 2007. At the same time, however, we got far less impressions.
Here are the improvements we made to achieve this result:
2. Click Through Rate Improved – we improved our CTR by over 166%.
3. Average Cost Per Click jumped by almost 100%!
4. Conversion Rate, Cost Per Conversion and Total Conversions all improved drastically!
In summary, we received 25% less clicks, paid 47% more money but managed to improve both our conversion rate by more than 135% and as a result improved both our cost per conversion and our total conversions dramatically!
Trends moving into 2009?
I predict the volume of advertisers will continue to rapidly increase. The result will be a rise in the importance of proper measurement of this medium, goal visualization, improved landing pages and general attention given to PPC campaigns.
We have all seen that pay per click works. As competition increases the need to measure an end goal will become even more important. Want to measure emails and phone calls that come from pay per click? It is all very possible now!
DJ has been a high profile Internet Marketer since 2001. He is the CEO of TechWyse and as a passionate member of the internet marketing industry is a key contributor on the 'Rise To The Top' Blog.
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on
I can certainly see the need to improve conversions and relevance for people that click through on ads. Why would anyone want to see something that is general. Id prefer to spend the time making nice landing pages then waste my money!
on
In my view 2009 is going to be a promising year for professional internet marketing firms like TechWyse as companies are going to depend more heavily on them. As more and more companies implement PPC campaigns, there will higher competition for important key phrases, this will make professional PPC management necessary as campaigns will need to be stepped up to remain competitive.
on
Interesting review DJ. I think CPC rates are going to come down as companies get better at targeting and converting. Some of the rates that we see today are simply not sustainable. People are already spending less on account of the economic downturn and in such a situation companies will be busy getting better at converting the traffic they get rather than chase more traffic.
on
Both the number of advertisers and the budget allocations for online advertising will greatly increase over the coming years. The present economic downturn has made online advertising a better preferred option due to its several advantages. We are merely witnessing the emerging trend in 2008 itself. Your predictions ”The result will be a rise in the importance of proper measurement of this medium, goal visualization, improved landing pages and general attention given to PPC campaigns” seem rather very apt at this juncture.
on
Striking and interesting findings. By bidding wisely, I think we will be able to get the greatest advantage from the money we do spend on marketing and promotion in adwords. Your findings show the strongest reason why more and more people are turning to adwords. Thanks for picking up this information.