Is your PPC campaign making or costing you money?

We often see paid keyword campaigns (PPC) not delivering leads that marketers expect. Using well managed keyword campaigns, ROI can be dismal even with many clicks being generated. A quick check of your website analytics could help uncover the problem.

First marketing issue is your PPC bounce rate. We like to work in the below 20% bounce rate range. Higher rates indicate that the destination page does not connect with what enticed them to click in the first place. If the arrival page does not quickly connect with the just seen and clicked on text ad, the prospect will quickly click away from your site (i.e., “bounce”). The most common error we see with our clients’ unoptimized PPC campaigns is that they direct all clicks back to their site’s homepage. Few homepages connect the arrival page with the clicked-on keyword message. You will need to set up conversion tracking to monitor keyword clicks to the site. If the bounce rates are too high, it means that you’re not connecting the dots for your readers, and your marketing expenses and opportunity are lost.

Solving the problem can be as easy as either linking the PPC ad to more relevant pages within the site’s existing structure, or specifically creating landing pages that more closely connect to your keyword ad messages in your visitor’s minds. Really great landing pages can convert business by themselves. They deliver the clear “call to action” about your product or service and build excitement, provide more information, outline benefits or features and close the sale. Optimizing these landing pages can generate organic search traffic, increase quality score, and drive more ROI to search marketing.

Marketers who have failed or have limited PPC results should re-examine their programs and go beyond keyword selection to address the entire PPC conversion cycle and all its marketing points. Understanding the entire PPC process can take a paid keyword program from an expense to a ROI superstar.

Google has built a $23 Billion dollar business by understanding what their users want or will want in the near future – think about the YouTube acquisition!

Google has built an important user franchise for their Google Maps, the ultimate “local search engine offering”. Every day, this terrific tool helps millions of searchers find local locations of restaurants, doctors, paint stores, building contractors and drug stores in their neighborhood. Google has the database that tells them a whole lot about what people want to find locally online.

Not surprising, there is data to support this fast-growing activity in Local Search. Nielsen (2009) reported that 72% of consumers are using search engines more often to find a local business or service. Compared to other options, only 16% said they were using Yellow Pages more. This speaks volumes about what is happening to the traditional Yellow Pages franchise.

Google and search engines in general are quickly becoming the default method that people use to search for local information and with a map to boot.

When you add in the increasing wave of mobile device usage, the trend becomes even clearer.

Marketers need to recognize this seismic shift, particularly if they market through a network of locations like stores and offices. Determining how to create Local Search programs, both in search engine optimization (SEO) or paid keyword programs (PPC), is now a critically important marketing tool and medium. Not acting on this shift, is a very big missed business opportunity. And, it may be an opportunity that competition is pursuing.

FDA in Focus

Serving a broad range of businesses, we come up against many unusual or difficult situations that clients face with their on-line marketing initiatives, and in particular, search engine marketing (SEM). Recently, our pharmaceutical clients were affected by an unexpected FDA Warning Letter barrage that went to 14 pharmaceutical companies targeting 48 of their brands’ use of Pay Per Click (PPC) campaigns on the major search engines.

Essentially, the FDA took a 20th Century approach to a 21st Century medium – the Internet, and in particular, search engines. The FDA stated that pharmaceutical manufacturers were not providing sufficient information in their search marketing text ads. The FDA’s April Warning Letters didn’t take into consideration how the average Web user searches for information or the limitations of pay-for-click advertising. In my judgment, the FDA was lost in cyberspace on this issue.

To address this very important subject, Stu Friedel, an attorney and partner in the Advertising, Marketing and Promotion group of Davis & Gilbert LLP, and I co-authored an article for DTC Perspectives magazine regarding the FDA’s action.

I invite everyone to read the article and draw your own conclusion and even some insight in how to handle problems with Washington regulators.

Please click here to read the “FDA and Search Engines” article PDF now.