Think You Don't Need PPC?
Yep, pricey as Hell-o and it's a mindblower to track conversions because of all kinds of "integration" requirements.
But if you happen to pay attention to how Google is displaying search results these days, it's pretty obvious that their business model is far from free search.
These days what any searcher sees first is a long list of ads. THEN you see the "free" listings (organic for SEO types). Then you see more ads. Which makes it increasingly tougher to show up on page 1 without paying.
PPC Cost Science
PPC ads can cost pennies or dollars or many tens of dollars. What you pay per ad click is calculated by a lot of things. Things like your bid (of course), the ad Quality Score (bigger deal than you think), the number of clicks your ad gets, the content and headlines on the page the ad goes to and probably a few other things like how big of a spender you've been over the course of your account life.
In any case, setting those ad group budgets is not for the faint-hearted.
The End Point of the Click
Novices will link an ad to their homepage. BAD idea. Those who have been around the block will link to a relevant page. Those who have been around the block a couple of times will pay a lot of attention to ad headlines and page headlines to make sure they are very similar.
Those who are into controlling the process the most take a trek into the land of dedicated landing pages where you have ample opportunity to match up headlines, track conversions and keep your PPC clicker focused. (They will wander all over the place on your site without direction and frequently do nothing but leave.)
So Where Is This Going?
- You need PPC to compete because your competitors are sharks!
- Google is in the profit making business so if you wanna play, you gotta pay.
- You need landing pages to keep your QScore high and your lead funnel tight.
- Low quality scores make an ad click cost up to 600% more than benchmark.
- NOTHING stays the same in search for any extended length of time, so be flexible and willing to step outside your comfort zone.
- Oh, and you can post ads that link to your email campaigns and increase subscriber numbers, too.