Tag Archives: Pay Per Click

What’s New for October 17, 2013 – PPC Analysis, Good News & Bad News for Yahoo!

Posted on by

PPC Can Make You Smarter

PPC (Pay Per Click) campaigns are a great way to gather data on your web marketing campaigns and consumer use of keyword streams while also testing different website conversion strategies.

1. PPC Analysis can be a great way to test sales strategies. You could gain insight on things like:

  • Deciding to focus on one product or service over another based on sales cycle, margin, and customer satisfaction.
  • Testing pricing strategies to determine the online “sweet spot” for pricing your services.
  • Testing different specials and coupons to determine which convert more often and bring you repeat customers.

2. PPC will give you quick and accurate answers to the marketing questions that you have. Your ideas will get quick exposure to an audience already looking for the goods and services that you provide.
3. A PPC campaign will allow you to analyze not only CTR (Click Through Rate), Quality Scores, impression shares, ad position, cost per conversion, conversion rate, and more, but will also give you meaningful statistics that can be utilized to evaluate your marketing campaigns.

Pay Per Click Spend

Where is your dollar best spent for PPC?

Photo Credit: photosteve101 via Compfight cc

Good News: Yahoo CEO Announces Yahoo Traffic Increases

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer revealed that Yahoo properties hit a two-year high in September, saying that Yahoo’s “product sprint and increased engagement effectively erased two years of traffic declines.” Mayer also announced that Yahoo now has 800 million global monthly unique users and that Yahoo has more than 390 million monthly mobile users, up 15 percent from the second quarter of 2013.

Yahoo Global Daily Page Views
Yahoo US Daily Page Views

Bad News: Mayer Announces that Yahoo Search Volume is Down

Mayer also announced that the US share of the search market was just 11.3% in September, according to comScore, an all-time low equal to the numbers posted this past July. Mayer stated that:

“It is true that, over the past several years, our search share has declined. In terms of the search alliance, we’re trading share with Microsoft.”

Mayer also stated that the future for Yahoo is bright, in part because of the following initiatives:

Mayer said the company will try to reverse its continuing declines in search by creating more relevant results for users.

Bottom Line: Yahoo is living the good news/bad news scenario, but stockholders think that Marisa Mayer can help to revive this sleeping giant. Online marketers have always known that PPC advertising is a consistent, measurable proving ground for good marketing ideas. With the new “not provided” from Google, Google Adwords becomes a strong proving ground for keyword stream testing as well as offering an online sales analysis.

Eric Van Cleave is a Partner in Zenergy Works, a Santa Rosa, California based SEO, Online Marketing and Website Development Firm.

Local Firms Should Also Pursue PPC Advertising

Posted on by

How can a local business benefit from Pay Per Click Advertising if the business already has an organic search program?  Studies show that click through ratios are higher on PPC ads, and even if a local business has a comprehensive SEO campaign that delivers excellent rankings, PPC gives that advertiser a chance to dominate the results for that search term and gain a synergy between the two campaigns. Unlike organic SEO that requires an extended period of time to gain rankings, and is subject to changes in search engine algorithms and other online marketing perils, PPC is relatively quick to set up and deliver results. Below are some additional reasons that a local business may want to use PPC and SEO together.

Pay Per Click

  • Using PPC and organic SEO together can help to gain click-throughs for both mediums.   If studies are accurate and those that are in “buying phase” search organic results first and then review the PPC ads, being exposed to your business or website and then finding a strong call to action offer in your Pay Per Click Ads can definitely increase web conversions.
  • If you have certain search terms that rank well in one search engine as opposed to another, or if you have search terms that are tough to rank in, PPC can give you a quick first page presence while you bolster your organic SEO campaign to improve rankings.
  • Using PPC, you can pinpoint the zip codes and local areas that you wish to see your ads.  You have greater control of what areas view your online ads and who responds to them.

Bottom Line: Pay Per Click can augment even successful SEO campaigns, but the greatest success is gained when the PPC ads contain a strong call to action or financial offer that makes your business stand out from the crowd.  Do not be afraid to experiment with the call to action, you may change it frequently to find the offer that works for you and your business.  If new search terms emerge in your industry, like the “check engine light” campaigns that have become popular in the auto repair industry of late, lead with PPC ads at least until your organic rankings become prominent.

Eric Van Cleave is a Partner in Zenergy Works, a Santa Rosa, California SEO, PPC, and Online Marketing Firm.

Zenergy Works is a Google Engage Agency!

Posted on by

Zenergy Works becomes a Google Engage AgencyBecoming a Google Engage Agency to Support Our Clients

As of this week, Zenergy Works is ecstatic to announce that we’ve become a Google Engage Agency, entering the ranks of companies dedicated to serving their customers with tippy-top-tier extra service. Google Engage is a program that exists to help agencies provide their small and mid-size clients gain even better traction with their paid search engine marketing. The benefits of working with this program are clear: better support, access to Google’s own Pay-Per-Click experts, and great discounts. Not only do they help us, but we get to pass this fantastic coverage and discounting down to our clients.

Best of all, it means even stronger and more targeted paid Google advertising.

If done poorly or incorrectly, AdWords campaigns can quickly become a money-suck. When you’re paying for every click, it’s important to make sure you’re targeting the correct keywords, monitoring for click fraud, and keeping an eye on which ads are pulling their weight. This is an important process that really needs weekly, if not daily, maintenance to ensure everything is operating optimally and not working against you rather than for you.

AdWords is one of those slippery creatures where you can know just enough to be dangerous with it. Before you know it, your costs are climbing but the clicks you’re paying for aren’t converting. There are a number of different tools that can help you achieve better results and control who sees your ads, but they’re not much use unless you know they’re there and know how to use them effectively. If you know what you’re doing, your search engine marketing can be dialed down to posting specific ads at specific times to specific locations. If you’re not sure how to utilize those features, it can be a big headache with no rhyme or reason. It’s not easy, but that’s what we’re here for. Now that we’re operating as a Google Engage Agency, we will rock the socks off your marketing efforts.

We’ve always existed to take the pain out of online marketing for our clients. The murky world of search engines and websites and keywords and display advertising can just get to be too much. We get it, and we’re always happy to take that stress away, as any good marketing agency should. Google Engage will play an integral part in making us even better at our job, and we’re beyond excited to get to put it to use.

Our goal isn’t to be the best gosh darn Google Engage Agency in the Universe or anything. We’ll settle for Planet Earth. Either way, we going to give our clients the very best in Internet and search engine marketing. What have you been hearing about Google Engage?

Yahoo Bing Network Share of Paid Search Clicks Growing

Posted on by

Search Agency’s State of Paid Search report for the third quarter has been released, and it shows continued growth in click share by the Yahoo Bing Network (YBN). Click share is defined as the share of a single entity in the universal clicks for a business category.

In the third quarter of this year, click share on Google dropped to 78.7% and the Yahoo Bing Network rose to 21.3%. This represents the fourth quarter in a row that YBN posted gains. Here’s a look at click share over the past 12 months:

Data and Image by The Search Agency.

The report also showed a 27% increase in click traffic. In the 3rd Quarter of this year, click traffic increased 27%. This means that although Google’s share of the traffic is less than in the past, it comes from a greater amount of traffic and therefore may still represent growth. In fact, the report says that according to another metric, “click traffic,” Google is outpacing YBN:

Bottom Line:  This study shows that pay per click usage is growing, which is no great surprise, and that clicks for YBN are increasing a little faster that for Google.  But both Google and YBN are working for a share of a growing amount of traffic.  This is a shift that needs to be watched by online marketers that work in the Pay Per Click (PPC) world and shows subtle shift towards YBN network.

Eric Van Cleave is a Partner in Zenergy Works, a Santa Rosa, California SEO, Website Design, PPC Management and Online Marketing Firm.

Translate »