Pay Per Click

[joe]

PPC

Does anyone have any experience with this new advertising medium. I'm getting ready to give a try and would like to see if anyone else has experience. It's going to replace lots of Yellow Page Ads.

If you would like to investigate the subject, try Google.

Joe
www.normansignco.com

[kivimagi]

Joe,

It certainly has its place. It can be expensive, and one should spend time improving your html pages for organic search placement as well.

I can help if you are interested, but I'm guessing you have it figured out already??

Good Luck

[joe]

Ryan,

Thanks very much for the offer. No I haven't figured out anything yet.

Here's my thoughts. Since I only make dimensional signs and letters it seems as though I could target my markets. That way I control who responded. Does this make since?

Last year I became aware of the need for CNC services in my area but didn't know how to approace it. Perhaps this might be the medium.

Any input would be appreciated. Also, there might be other SBers who would like to hear more about PPC.

Joe Crumly
www.normansignco.com

[dana_swift]

Joe- I expect you will find that your idea of potential clients is a lot different than the vendors of this service.

First question is what constitutes a "click". Because advertisers get paid for any "pass through" a counting site, this encourages fraud. Last night I was out on the net looking up info on hardware, and clicked on a link for "more information". It led me to a site on bras. I'm sure the bra vendor paid for my "view". I was annoyed. The link was a fraud. And tragically common.

For years the easiest way a advertising group could get lots of traffic was to claim to have X materials, then have links to PPC counters on images that can be fairly labeled "misleading". If you looked up "fishing gear" the links would take you to X sites. PPC is why.

You may have a great experience with it, google is making a lot of money from the service, but I find most of their "suggested links" to be poor choices for my needs. Occasionally they do provide a valuable "sponsored link", however I suspect the ratio is over 100:1 against it.

Years ago, I wrote a commercial children's web browser, one of its features was to remove advertising. It was not difficult to do, and worked quite well. As much "spam" as occurs on the web now, I figure its just a matter of time before there is a Firefox plug-in that works just as well. When that goes into common use, the idea of a click-view means you will be paying mostly for robot web-crawlers.

I operate my own web server, when I read the logs, about 50% of the hits I get are from web-crawlers, not humans. How many of those go into a PPC billing?

If you give it a try, let us know how it works out. Both the troubles and successes are instructive. I am curious as to how they are billing for that service.. setup fees.. "maintenance" fees, and how much per "view"?

On the positive side, I know a company that used PPC advertising and got good and effective responses, however they could use a very "wide net" in their case.

Good luck with the experiment-

D

[mims]

I've been using Ablock Plus for Firefox (it's free) for years. I do actually turn on advertising for websites that I frequent and may possibly have ads that interest me (like cnc related sites, woodworking sites, etc). But, on 99.999% of other sites, I have no idea that ads are even trying to be shown. You can even get free 'filter subscriptions' that keep your ad filters up-to-date (so if websites change their ad server names, you still filter them properly).

[joe]

Thanks for the posts fellows.

Eric, PPC isn't a blocking device. It's an extension to your electronic yellow book.

Dana, It's my understanding you aren't on the hook unless a prospective client calls you and you pick up the phone and talk to them. If they visit your website, you aren't charged. The way it works is, you choose a monthly budget, which can be changed, up or down, at any time. There isn't any annual contract. You can start or stop anytime.

Unlike broadcast advertising, such as Yellow Book, which goes to everyone, PPC is targeted. For Example: You could direct search engines to show your company website when a customer is looking for Key Words. If the're interested in your product, pick up the phone and call, you're charged.

My understanding is, you can have as many Key Words as you want (Free). The area covered can be your local town, all the way up to covering the USA.(Free) There isn't a charge for the region size. They're in the business of getting as many customres to your website, and making phone calls as possible.

Key Words are the trick. Lets say you want to reach Dentists, Horse Ranches, Golf Courses, Restraunts, etc. then those words are put in your Q.

I've been looking over this type of for a few days. It seems not many folks know much about it, just like me.

Do we have ANYONE who is a current PPC user and how it going?

[Gary Campbell]

Hey Joe...
I will take a shot at it for you. I am not now, but have been a PPC Google Adwords subscriber. I will give you a few of the things I learned both for and against.

You can set the price that you wish to pay for any of your "keywords". remember that if you want to pay .25 or .50 per click that a major nationwide entity may be paying a dollar, or in some cases, 20% more than the highest other price.

You can set your area... city, county, state, selected states or nationwide.

You can set your budget per month. You will receive reminders to your limit and the advantages of raising it. Remember, these are advertising salespersons, and they put out emails like the internet telemarketers they are.

You pay when they click on the link to your site... period.

I have seen nothing that has anything to do with phones or calls.

Remember if you wish your site to be listed on the first page, then you need to pay more than all but 8 or 9 of 17 pages full of like advertisers. They may not mention that you are basically bidding for clicks against all persons with like goals. Some of these may have very substantial ad budgets.

In a year of paying $100 to $200 per month, with an average of 1500 to 2000 "clicks" and 4 to 5000 "shows" I received 1 email. This was good, it turned into a $20K job. Never got another email, never got a phone call.

In that same year... according to the stats from my website, I received 30-35% as many referrals from nonpaid sites as I did google.

The largest referrer to my site has consistanly been "talkshopbot.com", although I havent sold many cabinets to its members.


I have NEVER been able to enter one of my keywords or groups of keywords and have my website shown on the 1st 10 pages, NEVER, from my, or anyone else' computer.

I did however get an email per day reminding me that I shouldn't be able to see it, unless I spent more.

I should also note that I did not acquire any professional help to set this up, and as an amatuer, may have screwed it all up on my own.

Joe, this is advertising, just like billboards, he who spends the most, for the most, will receive the most... exposure.

You can set a budget... you can start or stop as you wish, there is very little risk, I simply feel that the results may be proportional to the outlay.
Gary

[joe]

Thanks Gary,

Your post was spot on target and I sure appreciate you input.

Did you have a large coverage area and what would you do to make the PPC more effctive? I may not take the plunge but since there isn't much risk, I may have a go at it.

Joe

[Gary Campbell]

Joe...
I first started with the county I am in, and then later raised my limit and added the state of FL as majority of homes here are 2nd homes of those with primary residence elsewhere.

I think that a good strategy would be to find keywords that are appropriate and unique to your product. Problem may be that all the people with big budgets may have research gurus to choose perfect keywords.

If I were to do it again, I would first post testamonials on our site, select the county as my area, and use higher per click amount. This would allow tie in to word of mouth. Target buyers rather than lookers. Internet is full of the discount sites... separate yourself from them as local.

and I would make more SAMPLES SAMPLES SAMPLES. These should be easier for myself than you due to the fact I use VACUUM hold down.

Gary (sorry couldn't resist that one!)

[dakers]

Joe, briefly, we have a full time person who does only internet sales. We have many websites. The one site is only for internet sales. He does what ever it takes to get our rankings high. Whatever he does is working. He said anyone could learn what he does if they spend time. He told me to google how to get high rankings and study everything i could. He is going to retire soon and will show us what he does. I will talk to him today and see if he can email you. I tried the click to pay sites and did not lose money There are niche markets that botters can enter. We started the internet company about 10 years ago and it is growing each year.