Is PPC Possible In This Niche? Possible, Yes, But I Mean Affordable

[Jayson L]

I use Yahoo ppc right now to get leads in the auto insurance niche and I generated 49 clicks over the past 7 days @ $1.36 per click and average about 2 leads/day. Is this good? Also, could I generate leads with Google at an affordable price? Everytime I try to setup a campaign, the keyword bids are extremely high to get traffic. Also, I only spend $30 per day max.

[redstapler]

I'd try going with a smaller PPC company first than jumping into Google. Everyone uses google.
I've heard that RevenueGateway is doing verticals with auto insurance. I think it was Access warrenty.

Also, start looking into referral programs. That's how people start making money.

[Jayson L]

To clearify a little. I don't sell the leads, I generate them for my insurance agency.

[steveweber]

The real questiond are how much those leads are worth to you and what their conversion rate is. In your biz, one conversion could lead to hundreds or even thousands of dollars in income.

[Lucid]

Steve is right. That's why in the auto insurance (insurance industry in general), they are willing to pay high for leads.

If you got 2 leads in 49 clicks (4%), I think you are doing a good job at converting them. Not great but good. They cost you $33.32 each. Is that high or low in your industry? I'm guessing it's worth it as you would make a profit selling car insurance to each. Would be nice to get more leads and reduce your CPC however, if possible. What was your click rate and ad position on those 49 clicks by the way?

[Jayson L]

I appreciate the help from everyone. Here are some more stats.
1. CTR=1%
2. Leads generated from the 49 clicks about 10
3. Sales 3
4. Revenue from sales is about $300 every 6 months in commisions.

I just can't seem to generate more clicks. I have my maximum bid up to $4.00 per click and am paying about 1.36 per click.

Am I on the right track?

[Jayson L]

Well I wasn't putting the signature in, because I'm not trying to post this to get backlinks, or anything else, but I forgot to click on the don't show signature link so there it is. The landing page I'm using is the one in my signature-Michigan Auto Insurance.

[warrior123]

Not really enough clicks or data yet to start analyzing but you're profitable so far. Depending on the population size of your town you probably won't see many clicks.

Are you just bidding on the search network or are you using the content as well?

How many keywords are you bidding on? Just targeting locally I assume?

Remember car insurance is a service that is needed by the majority of the population so you can expand beyond the expensive PPC keywords that everyone already goes after and seek out cheaper advertising networks and even making direct deals with local websites in your area. You can contact them and see about putting up a banner or text link.

Also, not sure how much you have optimized for SEO but the local market is for the most part, WIDE open.

- start a blog about related car insurance topics and tips to lower your coverage. Make around 1 post a week and Google will award you with crawling and ranking the site quickly.

- create a bunch of web 2.0 properties about your service and link it back to your main site (there are many people here and elsewhere to outsource this for little $$)

- offer to make guest posts on blogs or other sites in your town with a link back to your site

These are just a few suggestions for more traffic...

[Jayson L]

I actually sell in the whole state of Michigan. My customers are pretty much scattered throughout the state. This opens up my search terms quite a bit.

[Lucid]

Originally Posted by Jayson L

I just can't seem to generate more clicks. I have my maximum bid up to $4.00 per click and am paying about 1.36 per click.

Am I on the right track?

Personally, I think you are on the right track. A good start anyway although as mentioned, very small sample, not enough data to be confident that will continue.

Would 3 sales out of 10 leads be considered good in your business?

Three sales out of 49 clicks is good in my book. That's 6%. You may want to try and improve you sales message. One thing I recommend is making the width of the text shorter. It would be easier to read. I'd get rid of the URL banner at the top. Put your "save hundreds" line there, centered, the "how much can you save" below, also centered. Try to come up with better headings. Sometimes little changes may bring that 6% rate to 7% or 8%.

You want more clicks. The way to do this is with better ads. Remember, every little bit helps. If your CTR was 2%, you double your sales. If your conversion rate goes up as well, there's a multiplying effect. So instead of 1x6=6, a 2% CTR at a 7% conversion rate, that's 2x7=14 or 2.33 times more sales.

Also look into other traffic generating ideas like SEO, blogs. Using the content network may work in your case but get search working well first.

[insuranceman]

insurance is very competitive in Ohio. i would be thrilled with 3 sales out of 10 leads. ken in sunny cincinnati. I buy leads for $6 a lead but would rather work toward generating my own.

[Jayson L]

Originally Posted by insuranceman

insurance is very competitive in Ohio. i would be thrilled with 3 sales out of 10 leads. ken in sunny cincinnati. I buy leads for $6 a lead but would rather work toward generating my own.

Ken, I was closing about 10 percent, maybe.. with purchased leads. I generate all my own leads now (about 50 per month) and have incresed my closing rate to about 25-30% as of the last 2 months. If you don't use a quote tool, ez-lynx is awesome! You can have the quote tool setup in your website and you get an email when you receive a new quote. You can compare quotes with all your carriers in about 5 minutes and don't have to input the information as the prospect already did on your website. You should deffinately start generating your own leads. PM me if you have any questions. I am learning and have a long way to go, but I wouldn't mind another sidekick to bounce ideas off. We are in different States, so we don't have to worry about being competition!

Have a good one,

Jayson L

[bigbyte]

You need more traffic and more data to make informed decisions. You might want to look at your refer reports and check from where your traffic is coming. Yahoo has so-called partner sites that are really just a pile of crap. If you clean up keywords and refering sites you can eventually reduce your cost and expand your campaigns.