Thanks to the 40 of you who completed the activity this week; you will find that you are better prepared for the exam than those who did not (and you have a free mark!).
Key ideas in PPC
You are advertising next to expressed demand - people want what you are selling
Google sells ad space through an auction based on price, effectiveness and landing page quality
You have lots of control: geographical targeting, destination, creative, price
You can choose how tightly your keywords are matched to search queries through broad, phase and exact matches
PPC can reveal demand and trends and keywords that should be fed into your SEO activity
Buying keywords
Consider carefully the difference between broad and narrow phrases; in my example “Kingston” versus “Kingston holidays” or “Kingston memory”. Fewer people will be looking for the later but they are likely to become customers.
Learn how to write adverts and optimise the site
Headlines were often too long; you have 25 characters
Copy lines were sometimes far too long; you have 2x 35 characters
Adverts broke Google’s editorial; Best products ever! is never going to be allowed
Think carefully about where the ad will go: landing pages, products, collections
Do add the text to the landing page to improve the ads quality score
Most sites can be improved to better fit the ad or vica versa
Don’t overstuff the page with keywords; you will be punished by Google
Provide clear calls to action that respond to the message started in the ad - remember customer journeys
Some of you clearly cannot copy the format of a Google Ad: Compelling headline + two lines of copy + URL
Some of your keywords were terrible: computers, store locator, fashion, security, canada, deals - each keyword or phrase should express a complete demand
Some of you clearly did not understand the exercise and wanted Flash animation etc in your ads. This exercise was simply about PPC
A few of you thought the ads were on the client site and not on Google. This is possible if you extend your advertising to Google's content network but that was not the point of the exercise.
Experiment with different ads and different keywords
How much would you pay for ad click and how much would you expect to make from each sale?
I wanted you to start thinking about basic ecommerce economics.
You make money when your revenue is greater than your costs (obviously).
This can be in the short or medium term (may be worth having a “loss-leader” to capture a customer, if you can get them to buy in the future)
Average order values are different for every site. For Market Quarter they are around £30 including shipping.
The costs include products, packaging, shipping, labour, wastage, advertising, cost of ecommerce site, hosting etc
Conversion rate: Only 1-3% of customers to a site buy (2 in every hundred visitors)
Click-through rate: Perhaps 5% of people who see an ad click (1 in every 1,000 who see the ad, buy - assuming a 2% conversion)
10,000 impressions might cost £200 and generate £60 in sales (bad business!)
Your questions
Why is PPC considered to be a good form of advertising if fewer than 5% of people click through? How effective is PPC? Do these ads really work? Surely no one clicks on them because they are so boring.
It's an auction. 100 advertisers can bid on the same term. Those with the highest mix of price, quality and ad history will win the ad auction and have their ads shown.
Would it be beneficial if my key word is the same as my title on the google ad ?
Yes and you can do that automatically using the format
What difference does it make when you decide to pay 4p for PPC than £1?
Whether you ad is shown How high up the page your ad is shown How often your ad is shown
Why is Google only allowing 25 characters for the headline and why capitalization is not allowed?
To fit in with Search results and to stop everyone shouting.
adSense is entirely dependent on the traffic you have to your site. If you have decent traffic for a blog you might make $100 per month.
How does this compare with banner advertising?
Banner advertising is typically "push advertising" rather than pulled by demand and often less relevant. Banners are useful if you are brand building but less useful to attract a specific action. Increasingly banner ads are using the same sorts of tracking techniques as adwords. Indeed Google now owns the biggest ad network Doubleclick.
How does this compare with advertising in a newspaper?
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About this site
This site is an educational resource, a research project and a publication channel written by Jonathan Briggs, Professor of eCommerce at Kingston University. As well as being Professor at Kingston, Jonathan...
