PPC traffic vs. search engine traffic, which one is better

[jimmychuang]

I am now running 3 PPC campaigns at adcenter, and so far I got 120+ clicks with no sales. The products I promote all top products in clickbank marketplace.


I have heard that PPC is very targeted traffic source, and I also heard some marketers claim their conversion rate normally is higher than 3%. So I have a question, why I can't have that kind of conversion rate promoting affiliate products on adcenter?

[LloydC]

They are both targeted, however people are becoming aware of PPC as advertising, and nobody likes to be blatantly advertised to nowadays, people also know how to avoid adwords as they are obviously at the side and in the yellow box at the top.

Although thats the case, it may be your web page and advertisement quality that could be affecting sales.

[Aussie_Al]

For most of my e-commerce sites PPC is by far the way to go

Way to many tire kickers with SEO - I find people who click on adwords ads usually are 'ready to buy" and have their credit cards in hand.

That said if your site is not set up right to convert you may find people visit and go elsewhere.

With PPC traffic you can very rapidly test your site and see if it converts or not and look to use PPC for immediate traffic and in the mean time optimize your site for the long haul with SEO.

So ultimately you want to use a healthy combination of both.

[Lucid]

Originally Posted by jimmychuang

I have heard that PPC is very targeted traffic

Yes, if you use specific targeted keywords. That's where most people go wrong. Not very targeted: cell phone, it's just too generic. Better targeted: Ericson cell phone. Even better: Ericson AB123 cell phone.

Your sales message will affect your conversion too. If you can't convince someone to buy from you and a competitor does, where are they most likely to buy? I'm trying to convince a client to say more than "round aluminum widget $29.99" with a picture on his landing pages. I think he's finally getting it and can't wait for him to see his conversion rates increase from the current 2%. It was about 1% before just by optimizing his campaign.

Being aware of PPC as advertising has nothing to do with it. If they are looking for what you sell and make a good offer in your ad, they'll click. If Lloyd was right, no way I'd see CTRs as high as 40% in the top positions.

Aussie Al is right, use and optimize both for maximum effect.

[ocvseo]

I think it depends on what niche, but If I where you, I will invest on SEO, because it is more economical, and easy to implement, rather than the expensive PPC campaign.

[LloydC]

Originally Posted by Lucid

Being aware of PPC as advertising has nothing to do with it. If they are looking for what you sell and make a good offer in your ad, they'll click. If Lloyd was right, no way I'd see CTRs as high as 40% in the top positions.

Don't misunderstand, It still works effectively, however it requires a lot of skill and time to create campaigns, and whittle away non-performing keywords etc.

I'm not sure about you guys but i'd much rather trust google to present me with a relevant page than someone who paid to be there.

Just my two cents but as said, utilize both effectively for maximum potential

[jimmychuang]

Actually I am now testing some 3 top clickbank products in different niches. Bay far I got 68 clicks on a SEO product, 48 clicks on some kind of hype product in IM niche. Also one campaign about weight loss diet. And one is about panic relief.


By far the panic ad got only 700 ad impressions. And the internet marketing ad got 30k impressions in one week, but only 0.15% CTR.


The cpc is not as high as I thought, most of them below 0.1. I guess PPC is not as expensive as 4 years ago. But I am not sure about adwords, since last time I used it I found it's about 3 times expensive than YSM 4 years ago.


And guys I also tested adsense arbitrage before, I used YSM and I got about 20-30% CTR on adsense ads(and got banned within 4 months of course). But I never profit from promoting affiliate products from PPC.


However, I will still test my campaigns, just need to know if it's a good idea to direct PPC traffic to affiliate url.

[grangonzo]

They are both targeted, but seach engine traffic is free...
I would go with the free option.

[jimmychuang]

Originally Posted by Lucid

Yes, if you use specific targeted keywords. That's where most people go wrong. Not very targeted: cell phone, it's just too generic. Better targeted: Ericson cell phone. Even better: Ericson AB123 cell phone.
.

I have a campaign which is about SEO. I bid on most of the keywords related to SEO. But the product only does on-page SEO, and it's a wordpress plugin. I got about 20K traffic in 4 days and 61 clicks, no sale...