Clicks 'n Conversions Blog

This article was first published  March 26, 2008 on the Tatum Marketing blog

Okay. This isn’t really a guide yet. It’s more like a list of steps. But if you’re a technology marketer who wants to increase website traffic and you’re not currently using pay-per-click advertising, this article will get you started.

What’s so great about pay-per-click advertising? Two things really.

First, these days nearly all business technology purchases involve an internet search. Pay per click advertising is a way to make sure you’re visible when prospects are actively looking for your type of solution.

Second, pay-per-click advertising is a marketer’s dream because it allows you to monitor response, make adjustments and increase results in nearly real time.

It’s possible to waste money with pay-per-click advertising but that’s mostly the result of neglect. If you set your campaign up correctly and monitor a few metrics on an automated report you’ll be fine.

Most high tech marketers begin their pay-per-click programs with Google Adwords. This makes sense because a) more searches are conducted on Google than anywhere else and b) Google Adwords makes it really, really simple to set up and manage your campaign. You’ll eventually want to expand to Yahoo, MSN and others; but for now let’s stick with Google.

Here are the steps you’ll follow to get your Google Adwords campaign designed, set-up and running. We’ll look at each of these in more detail over the next few days.

• Select your keywords. To do this right, you’ll need to consider your target audience as well as your competition.
• Determine your budget. Google allows you to set a maximum click fee for each key word phrase as well as a daily limit for the entire campaign.
• Set up your Adwords account. Google’s interface is highly intuitive and you can get plenty of help from the learning center should you get stuck. But we’ll walk you through the setup to simplify it even more.
• Write two ads. Actually, you’ll write two versions of a single ad and test them against each other for the best response.
• Create landing pages. Probably the most common error we see – even with “professionally” managed pay-per-click campaigns — is sending click traffic to a homepage or product page. By creating specialized landing pages, you’re guaranteed to increase your success rate.
• Turn the campaign on. A click of a button is pretty much all it takes.
• Manage your campaign. Just because Adwords is easy doesn’t mean you can put it on autopilot. You need to watch position, cost, click-through rates and conversion rates to maximize your investment.

More to come over the next few days.