Why is there never talk about getting leads using PPC?

9 years ago

Originally Posted by sitefurnace

There are endless threads discussing cold calling, direct mail and Email to obtain our web design/SEO clients for our business but never any mention of using PPC

If you could get a campaign working it would be an incredibly effective way of getting clients. All inbound leads plus the ability to turn on and off in an instant.

In basic theory it should work. Here's an example for web design

CPC of keywords in the web design niche = £3-4
Average conversion for campaign = 2%
Value of conversion = whatever you charge I.e. £250 setup fee+ £15/month hosting

100 clicks cost £350
2 conversions = 2 x 250 = £500 + £30/month recurring

More than enough to cover the cost of acquiring a customer and then some. Not even taking into account any upsells over the lifetime of the customer.

Obviously these figures are the subject of the discussion and I've just estimated these as closely as possible. Clearly there's not a lot of room for these figures to deviate and the campaign would need to be very well optimised.

So why does no one do this or does it actually work really well and is kept quiet...!?

The first rule of fight club is ....

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iAmNameLess

9 years ago

It works well I think. I've used it for myself but for my clients it's a bit iffy. Certain niches have different conversions and different sites have different conversions.

A lot of people try PPC but don't stick with it because it's tough to get right. I'd say the majority of people lose money overall. I always have recommended a 1,000 click testing period. It reduces CPC over the long run and you can see which keywords are profitable and which ones aren't.

For me, I only have a couple profitable keywords. Most are not profitable so it is a LOT of evaluating and maintenance. Cold calling is probably easier in a sense that you know you can make a certain amount of calls and get a sale. PPC is a little different because you're waiting, and it just seems like less control.

It's really a tough deal... I used to have insane ROI, and then it dropped, then it went back up, and it's an on going battle.

I think the main reason it isn't talked about much around here is because there are a lot of people just starting out and don't have the money to invest in it so they look for more cost effective ways.

Right now... I literally only have 2 keywords that I target in the web design niche because they are the most profitable. Other keywords I have are kind of hit or miss. I have about an additional 4-5 that are still kind of profitable but it's more hit or miss. If I play the numbers for the long haul, it works out but if I'm ever in need of a few additional sales to meet my goals, sometimes I get burned.

You know what's REALLY interesting though.. I've just started this a few weeks ago but I've really been going hard on bing... I have better conversions, I wonder if bing users are more likely to buy when they click? My conversions are 2X better than on Google. Of course, it's a small sample size so we'll see more in like a month but I find it interesting so far.

PPC on linkedin has sucked for me. PPC on 7search hasn't done well for me at all, haven't really tried out facebook yet but I'm tempted. I hear FB is good for events and branding but not selling services. I wonder if anyone here has some experience with FB PPC for offline services?

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sitefurnace

9 years ago

Thanks for the comprehensive insight.

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econnors

9 years ago

Well this is an offline marketing forum and many folks are targeting business owners who may not be very technically savvy...or they don't spend much time on the computer...

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mr2monster

9 years ago

PPC is one of the fastest ways to start generating leads. I never use it as a sole traffic method, but I do use it to weed out keywords that would be worth putting organic efforts into.

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sloanjim

9 years ago

so test it then!

In basic theory it should work.

So you haven't even tried it?

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sitefurnace 9 years ago

Originally Posted by sloanjim

so test it then!

So you haven't even tried it?

No I haven't that's why I'm asking if anyone else has. What I've given is just a guess. I may try it but as Iamnameless said it does cost a lot of money and puts a lot of people off. I am no exception and I realise I will probably have to drop £1000 to truly test.

Just wanna get as much advice as possible before I burn a load of cash.
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tryinhere

9 years ago

I would probably aim at a 1% overall conversion to start with in your maths, and your budget does not need to be a static one per say but more an ongoing one. Many people fall over with that.

Many campaigns take a while before they start to show a profit especially as your new, so what happens with a static budget say your 1K is you may get to a point where your campaign is ready to make money, but now you stop because your budgets dry.

Plan for a ongoing budget over time set a comfortable amount each week and then as your campaign improves and profits flow then increase your spend.

Start slow and smaller to learn what and how / why then increase.

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sitefurnace

9 years ago

Ok so if the conversion rate is more like 1% then that means I would need to price my websites at £350 to break even

I understand about the ongoing budget but when you say start off slow and find out what works, I don't. Is it not more to do with the overall amount of clicks that you throw at the campaign irrespective of the timescale that you send them over.Could you explain more?

Thanks
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kenmichaels

9 years ago

Originally Posted by sitefurnace

Ok so if the conversion rate is more like 1% then that means I would need to price my websites at £350 to break even

I understand about the ongoing budget but when you say start off slow and find out what works, I don't. Is it not more to do with the overall amount of clicks that you throw at the campaign irrespective of the timescale that you send them over.Could you explain more?

If your gong to do this, one of the top things i would suggest you do
is hire a copy writer... a good one, and make sure you have
a dynamite call to action.

give them a buy now, opt in now and call now options.

its easy to assume your not converting because you haven't sent enough
traffic. That is a pitfall i see many beginners fall into.

test , test , and then test some more, so that you have numbers before you start. its the only guarenteed way not to lose money off the bat...
and even that's not guaranteed.

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tryinhere

9 years ago

Originally Posted by sitefurnace

I don't. Is it not more to do with the overall amount of clicks that you throw at the campaign irrespective of the timescale that you send them over.Could you explain more?

Yes sure by start slow / small has a few angles first keys, it can take ( depending on your preferences / settings ) up to 100 clicks before a key is ruled in or out as an example given that an average click is 3.50 then to test one key may cost 350 / your 1K now looks pretty small.

/\ a example but in that the more keywords you use the more dollars you are going to need to test them effectively. Many newbies think that they need 1000 keywords all broken down into 1000 ad groups with umpteen dozen ads hanging of each one.

The reality is to test all of that on a low budget of 1000 is not even probably going to see many of the keys get over one or two clicks and there is no way you can tell exactly what works and what does not work given that outcome.

The common war cry from that is ppc does not work and you will waste your money.

The second part is your daily budget, climbing for the first time into the cockpit of a fighter pilot and expecting to fly that plane like your a top gun is silly, in fact even getting the thing off the ground would be a miracle, with all of the knobs and buttons.

With that analogy people climb into the giggle cockpit of adwords and not only make the mistake as above but then also expect to be tom cruise in seconds and they blast the thrusters on this baby, full power away we go.

It only takes days to wipe your full account if that and you wonder where you lost control of the plane before you hit the eject seat.

So rather than be top gun, be a learner pilot and throttle back, learn to get the thing of the ground and flying in a straight line while you learn to master the cp, then start to do your barrel rolls add more keys.

Its not complicated but just stepping back and slowly making some changes and growing will see you a lot further in front down the line and maybe ongoing with ppc rather than bombing out.

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Matthew Iannotti

9 years ago

I know Matt Benwell (I think thats who it was) did very well with a PPC campaign for some google loophole keyword and I bet he made a killing on building a mailing list.. Was a few years back and do not remember the exact particulars.

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Adwizard

9 years ago

this thread is probably a great place to test via a pole some different ads... without wasting money first. the actual copywriting or ad has more to do with results than the number of clicks

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PPC-Coach

9 years ago

I do this daily for my ppc agency and for a lot of other sites.

It works very well if you know what you're doing.

I get a lot of leads from it, but for offline clients I like to have a funnel in place first.

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sitefurnace

9 years ago

OK so you would suggest starting with just a few keywords rather than lots. So would you start off with the obvious ones like "web design" "buy website" and throw 100 clicks at those - how would you choose?

Let's say you have potentially 500 keywords that could be profitable for you. At this stage we don't know which of those are going to work. The only way to find out is to throw plenty of clicks at them.

If we decide to give each keyword 100 clicks then we need to buy 50000 clicks @ £3.50 = £175,000!!!

Obviously were not going to do that immediately. Maybe over the lifetime of a successful campaign (No wonder Google is so rich!) So we have got to pick out a few to start with.

Now I don't know but I bet that the keywords that end up being profitable are probably not the obvious ones you might think. A KW like "web design" is probably bid on by everyone and so is too expensive.

Seems to me like the only way to find the winners is to either get lucky or spend the money to test. And setting your daily budget low will only slow down your testing?

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tryinhere

9 years ago

Originally Posted by sitefurnace

OK so you would suggest starting with just a few keywords rather than lots. So would you start off with the obvious ones like "web design" "buy website" and throw 100 clicks at those - how would you choose?

Let's say you have potentially 500 keywords that could be profitable for you. At this stage we don't know which of those are going to work. The only way to find out is to throw plenty of clicks at them.

If we decide to give each keyword 100 clicks then we need to buy 50000 clicks @ £3.50 = £175,000!!!

Obviously were not going to do that immediately. Maybe over the lifetime of a successful campaign (No wonder Google is so rich!) So we have got to pick out a few to start with.

Now I don't know but I bet that the keywords that end up being profitable are probably not the obvious ones you might think. A KW like "web design" is probably bid on by everyone and so is too expensive.

Seems to me like the only way to find the winners is to either get lucky or spend the money to test. And setting your daily budget low will only slow down your testing?

You have covered a lot there , so first how would you pick some keys, i suppose i would look for keys that best described exactly what your product or service is. go for black and white

As for testing I gave some exapmles but a campaign does not work like a machine, very early you will start to see what works and what is not working, a bit like reading the future so yes testing is needed but its not a block of exacts.

keywords expensive ? is a false and often misunderstood term, I ask you is a key word which costs me .20c to bid on better than a $2 keyword to bid on ? the $2 one could be considered expensive ? in relation tis example

Well it could be very much the other way around, if i spent .20 on a key all day everyday and it was never converting, it could cost me hundreds of dollars, but if I spent $2 a click and had a good conversion rate and made a profit then it is not expensive at all.

Finding a winner has nothing to do with luck. If i wanted luck I would go to the casino and roll a dice.

Yes slowing daily budget does slow down testing time and thats a good point, it will also slow your loss if your a green horn, once you have become used to what your doing of course you can up the anti.

Good luck with it all your asking lots of questions so I am sure you will get things sorted sooner rather than later.

Thanks

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iAmNameLess

9 years ago

Originally Posted by sitefurnace

OK so you would suggest starting with just a few keywords rather than lots. So would you start off with the obvious ones like "web design" "buy website" and throw 100 clicks at those - how would you choose?

Let's say you have potentially 500 keywords that could be profitable for you. At this stage we don't know which of those are going to work. The only way to find out is to throw plenty of clicks at them.

If we decide to give each keyword 100 clicks then we need to buy 50000 clicks @ £3.50 = £175,000!!!

Obviously were not going to do that immediately. Maybe over the lifetime of a successful campaign (No wonder Google is so rich!) So we have got to pick out a few to start with.

Now I don't know but I bet that the keywords that end up being profitable are probably not the obvious ones you might think. A KW like "web design" is probably bid on by everyone and so is too expensive.

Seems to me like the only way to find the winners is to either get lucky or spend the money to test. And setting your daily budget low will only slow down your testing?

In the US, you will likely not run a profitable campaign if you target those keywords, it might be different in the UK though.

For me when I test out keywords, I don't use broad match, I use exact or phrase match. I also only pick out 5-10 different keywords, set up 3-5 ads for each keyword, each keyword is in its own ad group so I am able to test the effectiveness of an ad, and keyword. I also don't set up display network at first either because I feel the display network doesn't give me the stats I need to make decisions. Once I do use display network, I make sure to have IMAGE ads as well, since you usually have less competition with image ads.

The main mistake people make is going TOO slow in my opinion... your goal is to ultimately find out what keywords are profitable, but a BIG part of that is lowering your CPC.

Only a very FEW keywords are profitable at their initial CPC. Adwords is all about CTR, CPC, and QS.

Make your max CPC higher at first so you have a higher CTR which improves your QS... the better you QS is the cheaper your cost per click is.. the cheaper CPC you have, the more profitable you can be. You can lower your max CPC and end up paying less than your competitors, even though you have a higher position.

A lot of tweaking, and testing. It takes a lot to stay on top of your campaigns.. I've ignored a campaign for a few days thinking everything was fine since it's a campaign that's been running for 2 years and I lost over $1,300 because of those couple days of not staying on top of it.

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mayankgangwal

9 years ago

Nice sugesstion as we can make a try on PPC as we are giving a try on cold calling. I would say give a try for PPC for a month and you will surely see a good result.

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ryanmckinney

9 years ago

Read the initial question. Saw nameless has responded, so I am sure he covered your question well - without reading any other post reply on here I am going to answer you question: "why is there never talk about getting leads using PPC'

A. It takes "work" - you have to test and split test and spend lots of money before you know you have a winner -
B. People don't know how to A.
C. It's more than just testing copy/keywords , it is also testing the landing pages
D. People don't know how to do A and C

The bottom line is PPC is not shiny enough, and like buidling a business, you actually have to do some work, and you have to spend money way before you ever make money. Most people here are looking for a super duper button to 10K a month - PPC ain't that button.

Ry

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wolfmmiii

9 years ago

Originally Posted by sitefurnace

There are endless threads discussing cold calling, direct mail and Email to obtain our web design/SEO clients for our business but never any mention of using PPC

If you could get a campaign working it would be an incredibly effective way of getting clients. All inbound leads plus the ability to turn on and off in an instant.

In basic theory it should work. Here's an example for web design

CPC of keywords in the web design niche = £3-4
Average conversion for campaign = 2%
Value of conversion = whatever you charge I.e. £250 setup fee+ £15/month hosting

100 clicks cost £350
2 conversions = 2 x 250 = £500 + £30/month recurring

More than enough to cover the cost of acquiring a customer and then some. Not even taking into account any upsells over the lifetime of the customer.

Obviously these figures are the subject of the discussion and I've just estimated these as closely as possible. Clearly there's not a lot of room for these figures to deviate and the campaign would need to be very well optimised.

So why does no one do this or does it actually work really well and is kept quiet...!?

Most people are not any good at even getting such campaigns approved, let alone make them profitable.

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