I have been a Facebook user for a few years along with over 300 million other people. From a marketers point of view I really like the idea of such a captive audience. Currently ppc on Facebook is not scalable but they are working pretty quickly to make it that happen for professionals or agencies. Lately I have been putting my ppc skillz to use on Facebook and want to share a bit of what I have learned.

Pictures are King

When I set up my first Facebook campaign I made two ads with the same image and set it loose. The result was a quick spike of traffic for a few days and then it just quit producing. My solution was to get more images from my client and test those against the ones that I started with. This resulted in a jump in traffic that held for a couple weeks. So when starting a Facebook campaign make sure you have plenty of images, I recommend starting with at least 10 images. The more I test I feel that I could replicate the same ad copy 20 times as long as there was a new image and I would continue to get results.

Targeting Adjustments Forces Ads Through A Review Process

Targeting changes put the ads through a review process, which is far different from the Goog. Google will allow changes to targeting options without having to review the ads for approval because its done at the campaign level. Facebook targeting options are set for each ad so be aware of this before you make those types of strategic changes. It could take 24 hours for your ad to be active again.

One more thing that I found very helpful and one-of-a-kind is Facebook gives me the approximate number of people in my audience for each targeting option and bid amount I set. This is updated live and readjusts each time I change my targeting or bids. For example Facebook is telling me one of my ads says its potential audience is 1,014,700 and my highest impressed ad has actually received 1,199,165 so far this month. So, the targeting seems to be pretty accurate.

Using PPC to turn a local online shopper into a customer can be daunting to a local business owner. Thankfully search engines have made competing locally much easier in the past few years. They’ve added several targeting options that help ensure only local audiences see the ads.Targeting locally can be done on a smaller budget because of reduced competition which translates into lower cost–unless you target New York or LA. I want to go over a few tips that can can help anyone get the most out of local ppc marketing.

1.Use geographic qualifiers in keyword lists

Choosing the right keywords is important for any PPC campaign. When competing in local PPC marketing, it’s important to test a keyword that includes the names of the cities you are trying to target. For example, test “Scranton paper company” rather than “paper company.” Adding “Scranton” significantly decreases both the amount of competition and the cost per click.

2. Use ad copy to show that the company is local

The ad is the only part of the creative process the customers will ever see. Spending several hours to create a perfectly crafted keyword list can be a waste of time if the ads are no good. People spend mere split seconds scanning the entire SERP to find what matches their query best. That’s why something in the ad copy (I prefer the title) has to scream “local business!”

3. Save face and money with ad scheduling

Speaking of ad copy, when an ad’s call to action is to “call right now” or “come in today,” it’s important that the ads only run when someone can actually call or come in. It’s embarrassing when businesses make a promise they can’t keep. “Call now” showing up at 11:30PM or even 5:30PM is pointless, wastes your money, and honestly makes you look like a tool.

4. Set your geo targeting correctly

AdWords makes a few options available for geographic targeting, but not all AdWords are created equal. Targeting for local PPC marketing is a bit tricky because the internet doesn’t see areas as a physical map with county lines and city limits. So asking Adwords to target a 30 mile radius from any given point is not the most accurate way to target. I like to work with locations that the engine already knows by selecting a bundle or using the search tab to select several cities by name that encompass the desired area. That’s where tip #5 comes into play.

5. Geographic report

Because the targeting isn’t perfect, it’s important to take advantage of the geographic report. This report gives insight into where the clicks are coming from and sometimes they are out of the area you want to target. This is especially true in urban areas like parts of California where there are several cities packed in very close to each other.

6.Negative keywords

Negative keywords is one of the most important elements of any successful local PPC marketing campaign. Negative keywords can be especially useful to ensure ads don’t accidentally show up in places they aren’t supposed to. It’s a good idea to add every state’s name and abbreviation except the one you are targeting as a negative keyword. This practice reduces wasteful spending. You don’t want to make decisions for your campaign unless the data you gather is relevant, so excluding the irrelevant searches gives you the most accurate information.

The internet marketing business changes very quickly and Google has been saying for quite some time that “the Internet is going mobile.” So, you may think you have to hurry to AdWords and create some WAP mobile ads to take advantage of this space right? Not necessarily.

WAP Mobile Ads

Let me explain: these mobile ads are meant for small devices like flip phones or a small candy bar phone. You know, the kind of phone that nobody uses to surf the web. The ad copy for WAP mobile ads is limiting as well–36 characters shared between the title and one description line and only 20 characters for the display url. Writing enticing ads with those kinds of limits is practically impossible.

WAP Ad Guidlines:
• 18 character headline.
• 18 character description.
• 20 character display URL.

Aside from the limiting ad structure, consider what happens after the click on one of these ads. Is your website optimized for mobile devices? Is it realistic that anyone would go through a purchase process? Imagine entering your address, and billing information through one of these mobile devices.

Mobile Search With Full Browsers

I don’t want you to get the idea that the Internet is not going mobile, because it is. The key is the type of mobile devices the internet is being used on, enter iPhone OS, Android and Palm. These

devices have full browsers which let you browse the web like you would on your desktop. As an added bonus, people actually use these devices to browse the web–just ask AT&T. More importantly, full internet browsers mean you don’t need to waste your time creating tiny mobile ads, because regular ads are served on these puppies.

Google lets you set your ads to show on these devices at the campaign level in your AdWords settings. It will even segment mobile data from other types of data. This could be a good way to test the amount of traffic you attract from mobile devices.

Keep Mobile Searches From Desktop Searches

To take full advantage of these kinds of devices, create new campaigns specifically for mobile devices with full browsers. You will want to do this to accurately track the success of your mobile ad efforts. You might even want to test ads aimed at people on the go through inviting them to stop by your business.

So, while it is true that the internet is going mobile, it’s going mobile with full browsers. Keeping this data separate from the desktop data is the only way to make good decisions. In my experience mobile data takes a little longer to gather. Be patient, continue to test, and you will find a way to win the mobile customer.

Google is constantly working on ways to improve local and mobile search. In January Google introduced a new way for local businesses to be reached specifically by mobile devices: click-to-call phone numbers right in the ad. This service is free, easy to implement, and super targeted. Since I am a pretty heavy mobile web user, this click-to-call feature gets me all excited inside.

How click-to-call ads work

Click-to-call ads are made specifically for mobile devices with full browsers like iPhone or Android. Also, the business needs to have at least one brick-and-mortar storefront. They can also add an address and phone number for several locations for the same campaign. Google uses these addresses to ensure that the closest store’s phone number shows up in the ad.

For example I was searching on my phone for some clothes as a gift for my wife (risky, I know). The top ad on my screen was an ad for DownEast Basics in Orem, UT. The ad included the phone number just below the display URL in blue text which I could select without clicking on the ad and going to a landing page.

It’s easy to set up click-to-call ads

Enabling click-to-call ads is really easy in AdWords. The address and phone numbers are managed at the campaign level. In the AdWords settings tab you can input business addresses or you can simply import those addresses from your Local Business Center account.

Some click-to-call ad basics

• Made specifically for mobile devices with full browsers like iPhone or Android.
• Businesses need to have at least one brick-and-mortar storefront.
• Google uses the GPS or cellular network to locate and serve the most local phone number in the ad.
• Imports business locations from the Local Business Center
• Manually input addresses right in your AdWords account.

How much do click-to-call ads cost?

Google has decided to make the click-to-call option the same price as a regular click. So, for the same price as a click, Google is giving businesses the chance to get some instant human interaction with potential clients. This is a great way to get in touch with mobile customers and create a good relationship over the phone.

Short post from me today, and many of you will be very tired of reading about this subject. If that’s you, feel free to move on to other posts. You won’t hurt my feelings.

However, there is still a large number of small business owners and marketing folks who persist in the notion that if you rank top-10 organically for a keyword (sometimes even top-20 or 30), that you shouldn’t bid for it with your PPC campaign. The reason is that you don’t want to cannibalize sales from SEO, which makes complete sense.

Except when that doesn’t happen.

Far too many times, people assume that if you’re running PPC and SEO concurrently for a given keyword, PPC is surely gobbling up sales that they would otherwise be getting “for free”. It could be happening, but how do you know? ‘Cuz you better KNOW. In this age of ultra-online-trackability-for-free (thank you again, Google Analytics), why would you assume anything with your business on the line?

Let go of the assumptions, mostly propogated by SEO-philes and SEO-only agencies looking to pad their numbers (you bet I went there).

You have to apply the mantra of online marketing–TEST IT.

A few questions to help you find out what’s really happening:

Have you tested both scenarios (SEO only, SEO and PPC together) long enough to get statistically significant results?

You can’t run both for a week (unless you get a whole heapin’ heck-a-bunch of traffic to your site) and expect to KNOW if PPC is robbing from SEO. You have to test each scenario until your pile of data is bulky enough to be conclusive. Make sure, however, that you’re not testing through seasonal highs and lows that might skew your results.

Are the conversion gains from PPC+SEO noticeably above your SEO-only totals? Are they within your efficiency thresholds?

If you answered ‘yes’ to both of those questions, you should keep running PPC. Even if PPC appears to take a small slice of your conversions from your SEO efforts, who’s going to argue with more overall profitable conversions?

Are your competitors bidding on your high-ranking SEO keywords?

You’re not doing this search thing in a vacuum. Your competitors are trying to make you homeless and they’ll happily accept you not bidding on your SEO sacred-cow keywords so they can skim more PPC conversions for themselves at a lower cost. Something to think about…

It’s all about the data!

I’ll forego the discussion on conversions that result in recurring revenue. Suffice it to say that if customers re-up with no further acquisition cost, this should never have been an issue in the first place.

And let’s not get into the opportunity you have with PPC campaigns to generate more focused content for a landing page that would convert better than just some deep link on your website.

For now, let’s stick to the simple truth that we can all afford to live by–When you can track it, always test it. Always.

Are you new to PPC? Stuck in a rut with some very mature campaigns?

If you’ve recently set up PPC campaigns, or even if you’ve been managing some campaigns for a while, here are some quick and easy tests you can run to try and squeeze some extra goodness out of your paid search campaigns:

1. Cost shaving: try decreasing your max bids slightly to see if you can trim a little cost without sacrificing leads or sales. Depending on your budget, you can save a decent sum and maintain performance by cutting your bids even a few cents.
2. Calls to action: if your click-through rate isn’t as high as you’d expect, create a few new text ads for each ad group and try different calls to action to see if a change sparks an uptick in your click-through rate. Searchers are more likely to click your ad if the CTA clearly indicates what the landing page will enable them to do.
3. Ad scheduling: if you know which hours of the day generally bring you more sales/leads, try implementing ad scheduling for your PPC campaigns during those hours. Sometimes concentrating your budget during peak times will boost response and bring you more business. Those settings are easily changed in both Google and Yahoo.
4. Match Types: running only broad match keywords can obscure which search queries are actually bringing you more business. If you have broad keywords bringing in conversions, try phrase and exact match versions of those keywords (Google only) to see if your conversions are coming from that term exactly or if your conversions are coming mainly from more specific “long-tail” keywords. The results of this test can trim a lot of wasted spending! Conversely, if you’re only running exact match keywords, you may be missing out on a lot of long-tail variations that would otherwise bring conversions. Consider adding a few broad match keywords at lower bids to help you identify long-tail opportunities that can be added as exact match keywords.

If you’ve been reading PPC blogs for any amount of time, you’ll notice that much of what you read seems to be tailored for businesses with big budgets and slick websites. Mind you, there’s tons of great advice and food for thought out there–it just may not help the SMB owner with limited development resources and budget.

Working at OrangeSoda has equipped me with a wealth of experience in dealing with the challenges of using PPC effectively with a less-than-perfect website. Here are a few of the most common problems I’ve come across, along with ideas for how to work around the problem without making wholesale changes to your website:

I can’t track conversions online.

If this doesn’t apply to you, then I applaud you. However, there is still a gargantuan section of the SMB population that hasn’t made it to this benchmark yet.

If you intend to sell products via your website, there is no excuse for not tracking conversions, nor is there a way around it. Go find somebody who can put together a website that will enable you to track conversions via PPC (and any other online marketing channels you intend to use). You must be willing to spend money on a quality solution for this because your business depends on a smooth functioning, scalable website.

For those of you whose products require a longer, more complex offline sales cycle, there is hope here. A simple online form is inexpensive to implement and relatively simple, even for non-techies. Most open-source CMS platforms like Wordpress or Joomla have tons of plugins that supply this type of functionality with a few clicks of the mouse.

If phone calls are your primary source of leads and/or sales, consider a call-tracking solution that allows you to attribute phone calls generated by your website to the proper marketing channel. Some can even attribute phone calls to individual PPC keywords, allowing you to optimize your campaigns much more effectively than flying blind.

I can only spend a few hundred dollars per month on PPC.

Ideally, you’d want to be able to spend several thousand dollars per month on PPC, depending on the amount of search traffic that can be harvested for your industry niche. This enables you to quickly accumulate PPC data  and make optimization decisions that positively impact your ROI.

If you’re a small or micro-business, however, that may not be an option at this point. You’ve got a few hundred bucks and it’s got to generate a positive return or your kids will be eating nothing but Top Ramen for a few weeks. An exaggeration, maybe, but we understand how to make your limited PPC budget work hard for you.

You’ve got to have good tracking (refer to the above section on that), and you’ve got to be smart on which keywords you target.

You can’t hang with deep-pocketed competitors for some of the obvious keywords you might otherwise target.

For example, if you’re starting up a laundry service in the Chicago area, you might not be able to afford to bid on keywords like “chicago laundry service”. These keywords will be hotly contested and more highly searched, meaning the cost per click is going to be much higher.

Instead, you will need to do a bit more work in finding more specific, less competitive keywords. In contrast to the core keyword “chicago laundry service”, you might be able to target keywords with more specific locations like “maywood laundry service” or more specific services that you provide (“laundry pick up service chicago”).

Taking this approach will help you find highly qualified customers at a much lower cost per click, greatly increasing your chances of generating a positive ROI on your limited PPC spend.

Shameless plug

If the thought of going through all of this conjures up vivid images of a root canal, I highly recommend giving OrangeSoda a call. We do this type of work for all kinds of businesses all over the country and we’re quite good at it. You’ll see our phone number at the top right of this page.

I’ve heard some silly things over the past year about pay per click advertising’s ability to boost a brand and it’s time to clarify some of this nonsense whilst propping up the truth about how to use PPC to build your brand.

Here’s a popular “branding” approach to PPC that I’ve heard bandied about:

1. Choose keywords relevant to your business (OK so far).
2. Bid low to stay out of top position (Well, yeah, I suppose that makes sense…sort of.)
3. Write ads in a way to discourage clicks (Gong! You lose, thanks for playing.)

Proponents of this type of “branding” don’t really understand what branding is. For one thing, PPC is primarily a demand-harvesting channel by nature, while branding entails creating demand.

However, the big disconnect here is they’re confusing branding with awareness.

What’s the difference between branding and awareness, you ask?

Let’s start with the ol’ textbook definition of branding and build from there:

“The marketing practice of creating a name, symbol or design that identifies and differentiates a product from other products.”

To illustrate the idea, I’m aware of every Thai food restaurant in the county, but that doesn’t mean that they’re all the same to me. In fact, based on my experiences, I’m now willing to drive much further than the nearest few restaurants in order to get to my favorite Thai place because they’re reasonably priced, have great food, always-clean tables, stylish but comfortable atmosphere and consistently fast service.

In other words, they have distinguished themselves and demonstrated value to me beyond their competition. That’s branding.

Branding means making your business unique, memorable, and attractive to customers. It’s about winning long-term loyalty by giving customers a noteworthy buying experience followed by solid, consistent delivery of the promised benefit of your product.

How does aiming for the 7-10 range on the SERP with ads designed to discourage further interaction with your company constitute branding? I suppose you might be differentiating your company as irrelevant and second-class, but I’ll bet that’s not the outcome you had in mind.

Then how can branding be achieved through pay per click, you PPC nerd? Well, hold your horses and I’ll tell you!

Actually, I’ll help you figure it out for yourself.

Where are you best positioned online to give customers a noteworthy experience followed by solid delivery of the promised benefit of your product?

Did someone just say “my website”? Nailed it!

Your best chance of building positive brand equity through pay per click advertising occurs after a customer clicks your text ad.

It’s true that you must select good keywords that relate well to your product, and you must also write compelling ad copy that persuades people to interact with your company on a deeper level. However, branding cannot be achieved through PPC in a meaningful way until someone has engaged your website.

You must dedicate yourself to creating an air-tight, thoroughly easy and enjoyable shopping experience. Continually test elements of your landing pages, or entirely new pages as appropriate, in the search for the golden online shopping experience (analytics data from your shoppers will tell you when you’re getting closer).

In summary, branding through PPC is achieved not by deviating from tried and true PPC tactics, but by improving the customer experience after they click your PPC ad. Make sure that your website gives them a noteworthy experience that they’ll tell their friends about and that will keep them coming back!

A pay per click text ad may look unimpressive, but as a seasoned PPC professional, I can tell you that no other group of 140 characters can be so confounding to perfect, nor have as much of an impact on your online marketing efforts as your pay per click text ad.

Why is it so tough? With that 140 characters, you have to prove that your offer is relevant to the searcher’s need, your offer is credible, and that you can provide some value missing from your competitors. And you have about 1 second to do so (see the chart).

How can you give yourself the best chance to win a searcher’s click and a chance at a sale? The answer lies in three important factors that I’ve already mentioned, which I like to call the 3 Pillars of Text Ads. Did you catch them? I’ll list them for you:

1. Relevance
2. Credibility
3. Differentiation

By evaluating your text ads through these three lenses, you will find ways to make your text ads more compelling and increase your pay per click ROI.

Relevance

Try an experiment on yourself (don’t worry, this won’t land you in the emergency room): go to Google.com and do a keyword search for whatever you choose. Make a note of the ad that you decide to read first.

Why did your eyes gravitate to that particular ad? I’ll bet dollars to donuts that your ad of choice closely mirrors the keyword you entered in the search box. That’s because the first thing your brain is looking for is validation of your search. Search nerds like me call this factor “message match”. The first thing your text ad has to convey to a searcher is “I’ve got what you are looking for!”

You can accomplish this by including the keyword somewhere in your text ad. The title is a great place for this, but not 100% of the time. I’ll tell you about that in a minute. Let’s just say that as a general rule, your keyword should be in the text ad or your click-through rate is going to be lower than it could be otherwise.

Once you’ve snared the searcher’s attention, you have only a moment to pitch yourself, which brings us to pillars 2 and 3:

Credibility

OK, my brain’s figured out that your text ad relates well with my search. Your second task is to prove that I can trust you. Please understand that I, along with the majority of Internet users, am skeptical of you. Anybody schmoe can put up an ad on Google, so you are guilty until proven innocent. Hurry, your second is almost up.

If you’re a small business, you probably don’t have the benefit of high brand recognition to pull this off like Nike or Sony. That’s OK. You do have a split second to tell me about how long you’ve been in business or perhaps an industry award you won recently. Are you the largest, the fastest, most reliable, most secure, cheapest, or some other superlative? (Don’t even bother with the generic “best” or “leader” – we can all smell empty marketing-speak a mile away.)

Maybe your offer is so compelling that I click right away. If so, nice job!

Sometimes your ad can look promising, but I still want to check out my other options before moving forward. Here’s where our final pillar comes into play:

Differentiation

It’s possible that your great offer is also replicated by other advertisers on the page, or your ad is one of seven that have the keyword as the title. If that’s the case, you’ve sorta blown it. Winning the click becomes a roll of the dice. Maybe I click on your ad because I saw you first. Maybe I look at the ads with a different offer because they appear more unique, which lends them credibility (oooh, see how they interrelate?).

If you do a good job of making your offer unique, odds are that I’ll click your ad and do the online shopping dance with your landing page, but that’s an entirely separate series of articles that have already been written by very smart and successful online marketing gurus.

Keeping your offer unique is an ongoing process. Your competitors ought to be are watching and adjusting their search tactics based on what you’re doing. You should be doing the same. Don’t go overboard and invent a new offer every 2 weeks–unless that works–just to make sure your ads are always different. DO pay attention to what your competitors are advertising and make sure your offer clearly demonstrates your unique strengths and advantages.

The 3 Pillars of Text Ads are a simple way to gauge the strength of your PPC advertising message. Writing your text ads with these factors in mind will help you rise above the noise and reap great returns from your pay per click campaigns. Now go get ‘em!

The case study is about a company called Basement Systems who went from using one channel – the Yellow Pages – to marketing their web site.  It’s been wildly successful – the number of leads skyrocketed 3,477% from the year before. Granted they weren’t doing much the year before – but think of the potential leads they missed out on.

At first the company didn’t think they needed to focus on the web site because people only call them after their basements flood. They didn’t think they would get online leads.

This is a common misunderstanding about how people use the internet. People use it to research purchases along the buying cycle. I’m not convinced that there is any business that can’t benefit from PPC and SEO. But I often hear people claim their business model won’t fit. Usually it’s more that their web site isn’t maximized for the way their customers search and buy online.

Why should businesses do both PPC and SEO? Here’s a quote that illustrates one of the differences – PPC advertising is much more targeted and usually converts better because it gets people as they are ready to purchase. The drawback – once you stop paying your ads disapear. SEO is a long-term strategy to drive more traffic to your site with permanent links.

“Natural search drove most of the traffic to the site, But it didn’t convert quite as much traffic as PPC ads because SEO is not as targeted.”

Here are some other things Basement Systems did for their SEO and PPC campaigns:

• Assessed title tags and metatags and eliminated duplicate or incorrect tags and titles.
• They ran locally-based PPC ads and directed the ads to local dealer’s web sites. In other words, they increased relevancy of their ads. Plus it often costs less to run targeted PPC campaigns rather than compete with national brands. They used dynamic keyword insertion which means the ads change depending on what terms people type into a search engine. This can increase clicks but sometimes quality of leads goes down. So you need to test and bid less on lower converting keywords.
• Tested everything and invest in trying new things. “We test every text line, dynamic content switching on Yahoo! and, of course, placement positions based on bids.” Surprise finding – putting their 1-800 number in the ad didn’t lift conversions, so they took it out.
• Submitted their web site to directories like: Yahoo! Directory, Business.com, DMOZ.org, YellowPages.com, niche and regional directories.
• Added testimonials, awards won, patents, and other trust-building elements to their website.

OrangeSoda Tip for Basement Systems – start blogging! And not just blogging but use targeted keywords to help boost your SEO. Our clients are seeing huge jump in traffic after starting a blog or implementing our suggestions.