Pay-Per-Click campaigns are an immediate source of traffic to your Web site or blog, and can potentially be a crucial part of your marketing success. Before you jump in head first, though, I would like to provide a guide on how to go about starting a PPC program.

Determine the Goals and Objectives of your PPC campaign
Determine your budget
Create a landing page
Choose a PPC network
Research keywords and key phrases
Create the ads you will use
Turn your ads on
Measure your success
Revisit, and make one change to your campaign
Repeat steps 8 and 9

Determine the Goals and Objectives of your PPC campaign

This obvious, yet crucial step is necessary to determine the success of your campaign. Typically, the major objectives are:

To make a sale
To obtain a lead
To get a phone call or visit to your business
To brand your company, blog, Web site
To make money from your Web site through affiliate programs, etc.

If you take the “I’ll just get traffic, and see what happens” approach, you do not have clearly defined or measurable goals. Some of the above objectives are easier to measure than others, but success in anything has some sort of relative measurement, So, determine what your goal is, and make future changes accordingly.

Determine Your Budget

This step is a bit like taking a trip to Vegas. Take as much as you can afford to lose. The first time you start a PPC campaign, you need to realize that just because you are paying for clicks does not guarantee anything. You must be able to afford to lose money for a short time, until you are able to measure, analyze, and adjust your campaign until you reach scalable metrics.

Create a Landing Page

This is yet another crucial step that you should not ignore. A landing page is the page that your visitors will reach when they click on your ad. The landing page should include a means to your end goal or objective. For instance, if your objective is to make a sale, your landing page should include the product(s) you wish to sell, a clear call-to-action, and a quick and easy way to make a purchase. If you want to acquire a lead, you must present a need or desire that will be fulfilled by the user submitting their information, and a form that is either on the page or maximum 1 click away, and is as simple as you can possibly make it. I will explain more about landing pages in a later post, as this is another topic that can be greatly expanded upon, but the poing of creating a landing page is to send your visitors directly to what they were looking for when they typed in a search term, and then clicked on your ad.

Choose a PPC network

There are many PPC networks to choose from, but to start, choosing one of major search engines is your best bet, as you will get the best measurement of success, more volume, and higher-quality clicks. If you haven’t already heard, the top 3 are Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing, and Microsoft adCenter. You can typically find deals for signing up, like free credits.

Research Search Terms

Once you sign up with your provider, you will be able to use their built-in keyword tools to find keywords to add to your campaign. You want to choose the most relevant terms for your campaign, and determine how popular your search terms are. You can also do this without opening an account by using some of the free keyword research tools, such as Yahoo’s keyword suggestion tool or Google’s free keyword tool. There are also many great programs out there like WordTracker and Web CEO. Use these tools by entering some of the key phrases in your landing page. For instance, this blog is about PPC campaigns, so I would type that in, and the tool will give you other suggestions, and an average number of searches you can expect. This helps to broaden your keyword base, but getting too broad will result in non-relevant clicks to your site, which have less potential to create conversions. Try different combinations of keywords and key phrases, and measure which ones give you the best conversions.

This is the conclusion of “How to Start a Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Part 1″. Check back or better yet, subscribe to this blog for Part 2. In the meantime, start on these first steps, get your goals set, and do your research. If you have any questions or comments, please let me know your thoughts. Happy marketing!

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If you are looking to start a pay-per-click campaign as a part of your internet marketing plan, these resources will help you get off to a great start. The first three are the main 3 networks (first-tier, tier A).

Google AdWords

This is the most popular network for online advertising, although cost-per-click is usually much higher.

Yahoo! Search Marketing

Yahoo! Sponsored Search connects businesses and customers online. Sign up and get a $25 credit.

Microsoft AdCenter

Advertising on AdCenter network seems to have lower volume, but I have experienced higher conversion rates. The cost-per-click for keywords tends to be cheaper than Google or Yahoo.

Enhance Interactive

Pay-per-click traffic for only $0.03 per click. Enhance Interactive knows your needs. Signup today and get $25 in Free Clicks!

Miva

Get $25 Bonus Pay-Per-Click Ad Credits.Click here.

Search123

Extend your reach with Search 123.

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3.4

Tags: ad campaign, Adcenter, Adwords, conversion rates, cost per click, Enhance, Google, google adwords, great resources, Internet, Internet marketing, internet marketing campaigns, internet marketing resources, internet marketing strategy, internet resources, internet strategy, Marketing, marketing campaign, marketing plan, marketing web, Miva, online, online marketing, Pay, Pay Per Click, pay per click ad, pay per click advertising, pay per click campaign, Pay-Per-Click (PPC), Per-Click, PPC, ppc programs, ppc search engine, Programs, Resources, Search Engine Marketing, search engines, SEM, sponsored search, web, web marketing, Yahoo, yahoo search marketing

If you are looking to start a pay-per-click campaign as a part of your internet marketing plan, these resources will help you get off to a great start. The first three are the main 3 networks (first-tier, tier A).

Google AdWords

This is the most popular network for online advertising, although cost-per-click is usually much higher.

Yahoo! Search Marketing

Yahoo! Sponsored Search connects businesses and customers online. Sign up and get a $25 credit.

Microsoft AdCenter

Advertising on AdCenter network seems to have lower volume, but I have experienced higher conversion rates. The cost-per-click for keywords tends to be cheaper than Google or Yahoo.

Tier 2 Networks:

Enhance Interactive

Pay-per-click traffic for only $0.03 per click. Enhance Interactive knows your needs. Signup today and get $25 in Free Clicks!

Miva

Get $25 Bonus Pay-Per-Click Ad Credits.Click here.

Search123

Extend your reach with Search 123.

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If you are trying to learn more about Internet Marketing, is important to learn the key terms used in the Internet marketing Industry. This glossary will be updated and added to often, so be sure to bookmark it and check back for more!

Affiliate Marketing - A marketing tactic in which you pay a partner on a performance basis, who hosts a link or banner ad on their website to yours. There are several pay-for-performance models, but the most popular are pay-per-sale, and pay-per-lead.

Organic Lisitngs or Organic Results -Web site listings that appear in the search engines “naturally”, meaning the search engines found and indexed the pages by crawling through your code and content, not by a purchased ad campaign.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) - An online marketing model in which the advertiser pays an ad server for each time the advertisers ad is clicked, bringing visitors to their website. The most popular PPC programs are through the search engine programs, Google Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing, and MSN Adcenter.

Pay-Per-Sale - An online marketing model in which the advertiser pays the referring Web site for each sale that was sent from their site. The typical Pay-Per-Sale modal is usually done through Affiliate programs such as Commission Junction and LinkShare.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) - The practice of improving the friendliness of your Web site or web pages for the search engines in order to achieve higher search engine ranking positions (SERPs). SEO includes ensuring the coding, linking, structure, and content of your site are able to be spidered and indexed by the search engines.

Social Media Marketing (SMM) - An online marketing strategy that includes utilizing Blogs, Forums, Wikis, and Social Networking sites to drive popularity of your Webs ite, and in turn, more visitors through users interacting with your Web site, by bookmarking, adding comments, and forwarding to other community members.