In the world of online advertising, nothing is more effective at traffic generation than pay-per-click marketing. For decades, advertisers and marketers have been searching for ways to deliver targeted ads to consumers. In the past, magazine, newspaper, 
television and radio ads have delivered that content beautifully. Then, the internet came along. Pay-per-click advertising platforms soon followed and advertisers were hooked. Finally, ads can be delivered to consumers in real time and they can be targeted specifically towards the search engine users’ interests. If you’re selling power tools, your ads are going to show up whenever someone searches for electronic drills, nail guns and cordless sanders. However, for PPC marketing to be effective you must learn the basics. The following will help you get your PPC marketing campaign started so that you can get your Internet business off the ground.
Research Is The Backbone Of Your Success
Before you can begin a successful pay-per-click campaign, you must conduct the proper research. We’re not talking about going online and looking at a few search results. We mean intensive, thorough research using all the latest tools and techniques.
The biggest PPC platform in existence is Google Adwords and the best keyword research tool is Google’s Adwords keyword tool. It’s free to use, you only need to make a Google Adwords advertiser account.
Keywords are going to be the cornerstone of your PPC campaigns. Without the proper keywords, your ads won’t be as targeted as you’d like. And even if your ads are a little off, they won’t hit their mark and you won’t be as successful.
The keywords you need will have a high monthly search score, a low competitor score and they’ll be relevant buying words. Google’s Adwords keyword tool will help you find these exact terms.
Put Yourself In Your Customers’ Shoes
When conducting research, you’ll want to think like your customers. Pretend you are one of your customers and you want to find your products and services online. What terms would you use to conduct that search? For instance, if your company sells patio furniture, you might choose keywords like:
- Buy patios and chairs in Phoenix
- How to find patios and chairs near Phoenix
- How to order patios and chairs online
- Patio and chair retailer near Phoenix, Arizona
You get the picture. Of course, if yours isn’t a local business you can leave off the geographic modifier. If you are a local business you will want to use it. Again, find those terms your customers are searching for, plug them into the Google Adwords tool and analyze the results until you have a list of highly searched for terms.
Research The Competition
Notice how we haven’t even created an ad yet. That’s how important research is. Now you have to research your competition. With your list of keywords that you found using your keyword tool, conduct a few Google searches with each keyword in quotes.
Each keyword term you search for will bring up a certain number of search res
ults. These are your competitors. You will only want the keyword terms that return less than 20,000 results. Your number may be higher or lower than that based on your preference, but that’s a good number to go by so that you don’t choose terms that are too competitive.
You may find that your terms are too competitive and that you need to start over with your research. This happens from time to time. The more time you spend searching for your terms, the higher the chances of you finding the perfect terms that you will allow you to dominate your niche.
When you find good keyword terms, take a look at the PPC ads that are appearing in the search results. Click through those ads and examine the landing pages. These are the pages you are going to have to beat if you hope to dominate your competition.
Engaging Ads
Google Adwords is but one PPC platform. There is also MSN, AOL, Yahoo!, Google, Facebook and more. The PPC platform you choose will allow you to create ads of varying sizes. The size you choose may change as you progress and as you test the results you get from each size. Your titles must be relevant to your consumers’ interests, but they must be highly engaging as well. The bodies of the ads should be equally as engaging. If your consumers don’t want to click on your ads, you’re wasting your time. Spend some time looking at your competitors’ ads to determine what’s working and what’s not.
Daily Limits
Set daily limits on your PPC campaigns so that you don’t lose your shirt. Daily limits will pause your campaign if your daily minimum is met. If your ads are $4.00 a piece and your daily limit is $12, your ad campaign will pause when your ad is clicked three times. Set those limits or you could go broke very fast.
Quality Landing Pages
Your landing pages must be relevant to your ads, they should match in color scheme and they should deliver the goods to your visitors. Make sure that your consumers find whatever they expect to find when they click-through to your site. Otherwise, you could receive a penalty or slap from Google and all of your efforts will go down the drain.
If your landing pages are top-notch and they deliver the goods, you’ll soon see the traffic flowing in.
The Experts Test Their PPC Campaigns
You should never set your PPC campaign and forget about it. You should be analyzing your data daily and testing your ads so that you know what works. 
Split-testing is the best way to determine what’s working with your pay-per-click campaigns. Take two ads, identical in every way except for the title or the body or the landing page, and alternate between them. You’ll soon see which title is better, which body and which landing page.
Eventually, you’ll get to know your audience so well that you’ll be able to create highly-engaging ads that always reach their mark. Then, stand back and watch the traffic levels truly flow. That’s how the experts do it and that’s what you should do if you hope to succeed at pay-per-click marketing for your Internet business.
Use these PPC basics and you’ll soon see just how effective this form of online advertising can be.
