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Recently, Google started sending pay per click marketers their account performance data via email. This information has always been available to PPC marketers, but you had to log into your account to get it.

The reason getting this information via email is so important is because it:
(i) reminds you to check on your pay per click campaigns; and (ii) allows you to take a few minutes to tweak what may not be working.

So if you see an email with the following subject line land in your inbox, take a break and see what it says, for one or two insights gleaned from these reports can significantly increase your ROI. AdWords Oct 2009 Account Performance. Customer ID: (Your Customer ID Number)?

This is for October 2009, obviously.
Following is one way to quickly use the info in your Google’s Account Performance Reports to increase your ROI.

The report is categorized into four sections, ie: Account Overview; Keywords with the Most Clicks; Ad with the Most Clicks; and Content Sites with the Most Clicks.

If you’re pressed for time and can’t analyze all the data, as keywords drive success in pay per click marketing, go directly to the “Keywords with the Most Clicks” section. Using the info there, you can make do two things:

I. Increase Organic Traffic: As you have a list of your high-performing keywords there, use this to create keyword-rich copy for your website. You’ll drive organic traffic, in addition to the traffic you’re paying for.

II. Tweak Poorer Performing Ads: Add these high-performing keywords to ads that aren’t performing as well as you thought.

If you get in the habit of checking your pay per click ads when your Google Account Performance Report lands in your inbox, you don’t have to worry about settling into a pattern many PPC marketers fall into, ie, “set it and forget it” marketing.

It’s not hard to make money with Google AdWords, but many fail to do so because they make it more complicated than it needs to be.

Keep it simple by doing the following:

Decide On Your Offer: Putting together a successful AdWords campaign starts NOT with keywords, but with your offer. Why? Because you have to be very clear about this before you move on to selecting your keywords.

For example, if you operated an online bookstore, do you want to send readers to the romance section, the science fiction section or the history section? “But,” you may be thinking, “I don’t care what they buy, as long as they buy something.”

We counter with, in order to get browsers to “buy something,” you have to first get them interested in “buying what interests them.” And, this is where you get specific.

Think of it like a local bookstore they may wander into. A reader may pop in to buy a specific book, but once there, they start to browse and come out with two, three or four things.

The bottom line here is – web surfers don’t care about making a purchase from you. What they do care about is getting that book that their friend, mother, aunt, etc. recommended.

If your specific pay per click ad landed them in your online store, you have a chance of making that sale.
Use Keywords Effectively: Once you have tightly focused your offer, now you can move on to doing effective keyword research. Here again, be specific. When choosing keywords remember, it’s not about how much traffic a keyword will bring, but how much “qualified” traffic it will bring.

Rock the Landing Page! Round out your campaign by having a clear, concise, professional landing page that gets prospects where they want to be. Don’t make them surf to find what your ad promised. Land them there directly.

If you do these three things, you will be well on your way to Google AdWords campaign success.

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About the Author
Want to out perform your Google AdWords competitors? Attend the AdWords Advantage Online Summit (Dec. 1-17) and learn how to fast-track your pay per click marketing profits. Register now and save 40% at http://www.AdWordsAdvantage.com.

Last week here, we explained how video ads work. Now that you know that, this week we wanted to give you two specific tips for making them work for you.

Memorable Image: “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Many pay per click marketers who use video advertising forget this. They get so caught up in the medium that they forget that the medium should serve an end purpose – ie, convert the viewer.

Your image should immediately capture your viewers in some way – intrigue them, amuse them, enlighten them.

How can you make an image memorable? A lot of what you do will depend on your type of business, but following are two quick ideas:

(i) Use Bright Colors: This is particularly effective if you use a black background in your ad.
(ii) Sparse Text: Many PPC marketers try to cram too much text into their ad. But sparsely worded ads can be very powerful. In fact, one famous copywriter used just two words in a headline once (Free. Money.) No explanation, no details, nothing. It was very effective.

Once you have their attention, you can . . .
Make Them Act: This is where a call-to-action statement comes into play. Just because it’s video does not mean you abandon some tried-and-true marketing practices. Do you want them to sign up to your newsletter, request more information, make an immediate purchase, call you, etc.? Whatever it is, let them know.

If you do these two things – at a minimum – you will be well on your way to creating very successful pay per click video ads. Want to learn more? Don’t miss Pay Per Click Summit coming to the Double Tree Hotel in Chicago, IL on November 4-5, 2009.

When most people think of pay per click marketing, they think of tiny little “word” ads that you click on. Video doesn’t usually enter the picture. However, “PPC video marketing,” so to speak, has been around for a couple of years.

In 2006, Google bought YouTube (for an astounding $1.65 billion, no less). This allows it to offer a very valuable service to internet marketers via an already established outlet – loyal “YouTubers” who like receiving content via video.

The Beginning of Video in Pay Per Click Advertising
It took Google about a year and a half to capitalize on their acquisition of YouTube. In February 2008, they started testing the use of video ads in their pay per click advertising model. Now, video ads appear as display ads on MySpace and other social media networks.

How Video Ads Appear in Pay Per Click Ads
Experts generally agree that it is very easy rich medium platform to master. Video ads show up as a single link under a normal pay per click ad.  This link is next to a plus-sign icon, indicating that there is a video (or more information to be found if the surfer clicks).

When a web surfer does click, a small window (about 160×140 in size) appears in which the video will show.  A timer shows how long the video is. Most are very short – less than 30 seconds. At the end of the video, a URL of the advertiser’s site appears.

Ready to Set Up Your Own Video Pay Per Click Marketing Campaign?
Learn more about how to set up and run a PPC video campaign (via Google). If pay per click marketing confuses you altogether, it’s a good idea to invest in some training (Pay Per Click Summit is coming up soon in Chicago on Nov. 4-5) to make sure you’re doing it right – from the beginning.

It’s October, which in some cases, means that you’re already late to the game if you haven’t put together a PPC holiday marketing plan.

The great thing about pay per click marketing though is that you can be up and running in minutes.

Following are three things you can do to ensure more profits this holiday season.

Holiday Keywords: Add holiday keywords to your PPC campaigns. This is a basic that many pay per click marketers forget – especially newbies. What are some of these: pre-Christmas sale; post-holiday sale; black Friday deals; holiday fragrances; holiday gifts for her/him; etc.

Bundle Products & Services: Last-minute shoppers tend to be stressed out because they’ve waited until — well, the last minute. The more you can pack into an offer, usually the easier the sale. This is why things like gift baskets tend to be great sellers. You ostensibly get “more for your money.” And, this is what every shopper wants – especially the procrastinators. Give it to’em!

Sell the Ease; Not Your Product: Many pay per click marketers are hyper-focused on selling their particular product or services. But again, especially around the holidays, shoppers are looking for more than this. What are they particularly looking for? Ease and convenience.

So sell the ease of online shopping – and live up to it. The easier you make it for prospects to order from you, the better. So do as much as you can to entice them, eg, offer free shipping, offer a generous return policy, offer a discount for ordering online, etc.

Note: Don’t offer services that are detrimental to your bottom line just to secure a sale; but make every effort to sell as much ease and convenience as you can.

By following these basic pay per click holiday marketing tips, you can help to ensure a profitable holiday season.

Last week at PPC Summit in Los Angeles, the Search Marketing expert trainers shared a wealth of Pay Per Click knowledge with the 100+ marketers attending the event. Keyword targeting is always a hot topic and the use of long tail keywords was one of the tips discussed.  

In our last post, Long-Tail Keywords In Pay Per Click Advertising Works, we covered the value of using long-tail keywords. Today, we want to continue this discussion, highlighting how to get more value out of the long-tail keywords your visitors may already be using to find you.

How to Get More Value Out of the Long-Tail Keywords Visitors Are Already Using to Find You
Many pay per click marketers don’t realize that a lot of their traffic may already be coming from some long-tail keywords. This presents a golden opportunity to get even more traffic and sales. How?

Quite simply, your web presence already has good search engine juice (ie, good organic rankings) for this term. However, it may not be ranked as high as it could be, since you have spent any time specifically optimizing it for that/those specific long-tail keywords.

Once you do this, you can exponentially build on traffic you are already getting. Following are two ways to do this.

Write More Content: Writing and distributing articles is one way to optimize a site quickly for popular long-tail keywords. This will give your site higher visibility quickly, especially if you distribute the content far and wide (eg, article directories).

Put Together More Offers: If a popular long-tail keyword is bringing you more traffic, look to see if you have any special deals, discounts, or other offers that can convert this traffic into sales. If not, put together one (some).

These are just two ways to make your pay per click campaign pay off with traffic you may already be receiving. 

Even novices to pay per click marketing know that the profit – or loss – is in the keyword selection. To learn more about keyword selection, read, [How to] Classify Your Keywords for Better Pay Per Click Results. Building on the lessons in this article is another piece of the keyword selection puzzle, ie, long tail keywords.

In case you don’t know, long tail keywords are simply multi-phrase search queries web surfers type in to find stuff, eg, “antique car parts mercedes” is a phrase someone who is restoring an old Mercedes might type in to find parts.

Following is the number one reason to spend time ferreting out long-tail keywords.
Long Tail Keywords Signal Serious BuyersThis may be the most important reason to focus on long-tail keywords. It makes sense when you think about how web surfers search for and make purchasing decisions on the web. The more serious a web surfer is about buying, the more focused their search gets.

In the long-tail keyword phrase above, a non-serious surfer might have typed in simply “antique car parts.” But, this surfer qualified it with a car make. To get more specific, they may type in something like “antique car parts mercedes” and “1956 carburetor”.

See how specificity tends to mean the buyer is serious. They’re looking for specific information for a reason – they have a problem they need solved.

So, the next time you sit down to do keyword research for your pay per click campaign, don’t forget that the long-tail is a very profitable keyword center. Don’t ignore it. 

In the post, Pay Per Click Advertising: 3 Things for the Busy Fall Season, we discussed some areas to assess to improve your pay per click marketing results when the fall season rolls around. And, although it’s technically still summer, the busy fall season IS here (after Labor Day is when things tend to kick off).

Now that it is, you may be wondering, “What specifically do I need to do to increase sales with my PPC campaign?” Rather than give you a list of tips – which you may or may not get around to following – we thought it best to share with you three traits we’ve identified that almost every successful pay per click marketer has – or should develop.

Diligence: The hardest part of success is the monotony of doing what it takes – day in and day out – to succeed. This means doing your keyword research, setting up different landing pages, tweaking your website, etc. In short, doing what’s necessary to succeed as a PPC marketer.

Patience: This trait is closely tied to diligence, for you have to test, test and retest pay per click advertising to know what’s working, what’s not working, what may work, what did not work, why, etc. Nothing about pay per click marketing is “set it and forget it.”

It is hands on, which makes it exciting – and frustrating – at the same time.

Knowledge Seeker: As pay per click marketing is a form of internet marketing, it constantly changes. This means staying abreast of emerging technologies, PPC marketing rules, search engine guidelines, etc.

If you have – or can develop – these three traits, then pair it with some basic pay per click marketing knowledge, you will be well on your way to succeeding as an online marketer.

Learn more pay per click marketing by attending the next PPC Summit coming to Los Angeles Sept. 23-24 and Chicago Nov. 4-5. Check out the excting new session topics and agenda at www.ppcsummit/agenda. Register by Sept. 15th and SAVE 35% with code LI.

Pay Per Click marketing is fundamentally paying for search engine positioning. And, one of the ways Google – the leading search engine – determines where to return your site in results is based on what they call a Quality Score.

Pay Per Click Marketing: What is Quality Score?

A quality score is simply a measuring tool used by Google to determine how relevant your keyword(s) are to your ad text and to a user’s search query.

Following are three quick, easy ways to improve this all-important score.

1. Create Smaller Ad Groups: Having too many keywords in your ad group can negatively impact your Quality Score, even if they are related.

This is because they may not be related enough to what’s on a particular landing page in order to be ranked highly by Google. So it’s better to create smaller, more tightly focused ad groups. One of the cardinal rules of internet marketing – especially in PPC – is niche, niche, niche. The more relevant your keywords and the landing page, the higher Google will rank it.

2. Landing Page Title: The title of your landing page should include your keyword(s).

3. Introduce Keywords Quickly: Piggybacking on the point just above, according to accepted internet marketing wisdom, your keyword(s) should be mentioned on the first quarter of your page. This is because when search engines spider/index your page, they’re looking for relevancy.

If your landing page is relevant to your PPC ad, it makes sense that the keyword would be mentioned as soon as possible, right? If they’re not, the search engines may read it as irrelevant/not too relevant.

There are many, many factors that affect a Quality Score. It’s one of the reasons that you should closely monitor — and forever test — your pay per click marketing campaigns.

The title of this post sounds like an oxymoron, we know. But we’ll explain why it’s really not. You really can use your Pay Per Click (PPC) campaign to drive free traffic to your site.

Successful Affiliate Marketer Explains How Pay Per Click Marketing Drives Free Traffic
No matter how much money you invest in pay per click marketing, only a certain percentage of it will come from these efforts. Now, it may be significant, for sure. For example, one successful affiliate marketer says that about 60% of her traffic comes from PPC advertising.

She goes on to explain that she uses PPC to drive traffic to her sites initially. And then, something amazing happens. She says that once you drive traffic using this paid method, the search engines stand up and take notice of your site. The reason is simple – search engines pay attention to sites that get traffic; they rank them higher.

Now, it’s like that success feeds on itself. Once you start to get traffic, search engines notice. Once search engines notice, they rank your site higher – which means it gets even more traffic.

This last part is significant because it means you start showing up higher in organic traffic results – ie, getting free traffic.

The bottom line — even with a small budget, pay per click marketing is a great way to start getting traffic to your site. As discussed here, this initial push can get you on the path to getting free (ie, organic) traffic.