As we’ve been analyzing our most successful clients and working on marketing plans, we’ve seen a pattern…. Pay per click advertising. It’s true. If you can optimize your pay per click campaign it can be very successful and sometimes the results are exponential. Spend a dollar and make two I often say. Who wouldn’t take that? That’s a much better return on investment than I’ve seen on any of my stocks in the last few years! Pay Per Click advertising can be scary, so we really do need to take a good look to understand what it’s all about and how we can reduce risk. It’s all about stats and numbers. It’s not a guessing game and if you make it one you’re setting yourself up to potentially lose a significant chuck of cash. Spending $5,000 a month or $200,000 a month can seem out of the question, but it’s not when the ROI (return on investment) is there. In this article we’ll look more in depth on whether PPC (pay per click) is a method of advertising you may be interested in and if you feel it’s a method that’ll work in your business model.

Will PPC work for me? This depends on a few factors. I’ve listed the main factors below:

1) Conversion Rate (what percent of users purchase after visiting) - A typical conversion rate is 1.5% on the low end. We usually use this number.
2) CPC (cost per click) - How much will it cost for each visit
3) Average Sale - How much is the average sale
4) Profit Margin - How much do you make on each dollar purchased
4) Potential Visitors - How many visitors do your keywords allow you to receive. Each market and industry has a certain amount of searches per day.

These 3 variables can usually tell you if you’ll make money. An example is a client’s marketing plan we’ve been working on.

We’ll do this based on 10,000 visitors purchased.

20,000 visitors @ $.50 (CPC) = $10,000.
20,000 visits at 1.5% conversion rate = 300 orders.
300 orders X $340 (average order) = $102,000 in sales.
$102,000 (total sales) X .30 (30% profit margin) = $30,600 profit.

Well, the numbers don’t lie. That’s a lot of money to make. Yes, it was a $10,000 investment but it was a 300% return! This is how you make money. The saying “you have to spend money to make money” is the first thing ever business man and business woman knows. PPC is the perfect example.

The biggest thing to look at is whether or not you have a product with a decent profit margin. If you don’t, any advertising is tough. The next variable we need to take into consideration is the CPC. The cost per click is going to let us know if this is possible. If the most per click was $3 for the industry in the example above, PPC wouldn’t be profitable. As you see, it’s a science and not a guessing game. Guessing is expensive. Guessing loses our clients money.

The next step in pay per click optimization is looking at the conversation rate. A 3% conversion rate in the example above would yield results that would be out of the world. Huge numbers. The numbers we’d all like to see. The way to achieve a conversion rate above and beyond the industry average is to optimize the pay per click campaign. The way this is done is to remove keyword that are not converting, run ads move often during times that visitors purchase the most and be sure clients are being driven to the page on the website that converts on the highest level for the keyword. This is done through constantly monitoring and updating the campaign. Creating powerful landing page for specific keywords that have clear calls of action (COA) is also a very important step.

Remember, spending money to make money is necessary, but spend wisely. If you’d like help in creating a successful PPC campaign, contact us.

Lately we’ve been working on and developing multiple videos and rich media presentations for various applications and I felt I’d be beneficial to discuss some of the benefits video can bring to the table and what we’ve seen happening. I believe video is the best way to quickly educate a visitor on your service or product, but it also has a lot of value in other respects.

For many of who run (or advertise) eCommerce websites / online stores or even a serviced based business, it’s not always easy for the owners or partners to meet with each client and give your customers the warm feeling that you’re there for them and you genuinely care about them. Online video is the perfect way to say “hello”, introduce your company and build that personal connection. The personal touch may be a larger benefit to a service based business while product demo may be more powerful for the eCommerce industry.

Working with Germ Guardian on their most recent site launch we not only developed a custom eCommerce website, but also put together a rich media piece that incorporate a presentation and also has video embedded. The rich media piece has been used on their website but will also be featured on Cosco, Lowes, Walmart and other various outlets in which they sell. Within days of the launch we saw the presentation almost double their sales of the featured product. Why? Because a buyer wants to know what they are getting into. They want to lear all they can about the product and we need to make them excited!

Keeping a visitor on your website and engaging them in one of the toughest parts to developing any website and we’ve found that video make it much easier to accomplish that at a high level. Simply offering video on the homepage will often double the time a visitor may spend on that page and in the end increase your conversion rate. As we all know, in the end it’s about the conversion rate! Below are a few tips to consider when developing an online video:

• Be to the point. If the video drag on too long your visitor may lose interest. Say what you need to say or show what you need to show in order for someone to make the decision of buying from you or requesting more information. I believe product demo should be short while a company introduction or overview may be longer.
• Quality is Key. We’ve all seen the attempts at web video that look like they were shot on a web cam. If the video is not as professional or as high of quality as your products or services, don’t use it! Spending the money on professional video recording is the best money spent.
• Brand it well. When shoot and editing the video be sure to include contact information at the end, your website address and of course your logo. Use company colors throughout and be sure there is a call to action (purchasing, calling, filling out a quote request, etc.)
• Share it! Once your video is done it may have a powerful impact on social media sites, You Tube and all over the web. Don’t put the video on your website and no where else. You have it, show it!

1. Your website is hosted with GoDaddy. Just because it’s free, doesn’t mean it’s worth the trade for pop-ups and nasty ad banners to welcome your visitors.

2. Your product pages display, “coming soon” and there is a flashing “road work” sign in the middle of the page. What are you doing!?! That icon is at least 7 years old!

3. Background music is playing. Sorry, music is for elevators and unless your name is Brian Adams, nobody wants to hear your music.

4. “Last Updated March 2001″

5. Your checkout page opens up in five separate windows. Is this even safe?

6. You have a links page with URL’s to all of your competitors. Why are you advertising for them!?!

7. There is a “counter” on the bottom left of all your pages, letting the visitor know they are the 13th person to view your site since 2004.

8. A starburst graphic is claiming that the Webmaster, who built your site in 1997, won an award. Award for what? Please do them a favor and save them the from the embarrassment of their first HTML project..ever

9. There is a disclaimer at the footer that says “Designed for Microsoft Internet Explorer Version 6.x” Why? You’re loosing over 40% of potential visitors because they’re using a different web browser.

10. Your contact email address is Jeff2285370923857134593485793@yahoo.com.

If you made it through without your website meeting any of these characteristics on the list, Congratulations! But, you’ll still need a new website in the next 2-3 years.

For the unfortunate, please contact us. We’re here to help!