Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising

PPC advertising is one of the fastest growing segments of online marketing and advertising industry. Investment firm Piper Jaffray forecasts sales in paid search of over 20 Billion US in 2011 alone and will continue to grow at an astounding rate of 37% each year. While Google, Yahoo and Microsoft, all three of them are trying hard to grab the biggest share of PPC advertising, Google leads the way with its increasing share of paid search, primarily because it controls over 60% of all search engine market. Google also runs a very efficient PPC program known as AdWords that is simple to use and provides good results.

PPC advertising simple, easy and produces results quickly. One of the key factors in the popularity of PPC advertising is its simplicity. Anyone with some understanding of internet can create an account and get up and running in less than 15 minutes. Google AdWords and Yahoo Search Marketing, both work in a similar way so there isn't much of a learning curve from one program to another. While it is fairly simple to set up and run a campaign, getting the best out of it requires help of professionals. For example, in the past highest bidder always got the top spot for a keyword but that's not the case anymore. There are other factors such as quality scores, click thru rates or CTRs that search engines value more than a flat bid amount.

How to Create Effective PPC Campaigns

Finding the Right Keywords

A Good keyword list is heart and soul of your PPC campaign. You end results will have a big influence from these keywords. A poorly compile keyword list is not only going to cost you money, it will also trigger a poor quality score flag that will make it almost impossible to continue to run your PPC campaign. A PPC professional on the other hand can create a concise and effective keyword list that will generate targeted traffic to your website. PPC professionals can also manage your campaign on a monthly basis and they monitor results, CTR, quality score and overall health of your campaign.

Writing Good PPC Ads

A good PPC campaign requires not only good writing skills but a good understanding of the target market. PPC professionals can help write an ad that is a true reflection of your products and services. If your PPC ads deliver what they promise, your conversion rate will go up as more and more visitors will buy your products and services. However, if your PPC ads do not match the content on your website, you're likely to suffer from poor quality score and you will end up with a campaign that is very expensive to run.

Good Targeting and Timing

A good targeting scheme is important for any PPC campaign. For example, if you offer local plumbing services in New York area, your ads are not going to generate any sales if they are running in LA market. You need to clearly understand who your customers are and where to find them. A PPC professional can set up proper geographical area to target and maximize your return. Timing of your ads in also important. For example, if you expect most of your customers to be online in the evening, there is no need to run your campaign in the morning or all day long. PPC professional also have industry specific knowledge and experience from their past work and can help you by providing proper recommendations.

Why Do I Need Professional Help?

While PPC can quickly generate sales and profits, it can also run through your budget and cash quickly. Some of the keywords require bids as high as $150 per click so it is important that you know what you're doing before running a campaign that can cost you thousands of dollars in a very short timeframe. While professional help is not cheap, PPC experts can save you thousands pf dollars in long run while delivering results.

In summary, it makes sense to hire a PPC professional on a monthly basis if you're going to be spending at least US$500 or more each month. For smaller budgets, you can hire them to create and set up your PPC campaigns. Good PPC professionals are not cheap and can easily cost as much as 20% of your monthly budget. However, this money is well worth spending as you should already know, Good help is rarely cheap and cheap help is rarely good.