Dirty Little Secrets of a Successful Pay-Per-Click ad

by Kevin adams, DexterityMedia

Pay-per-Click is such a hot commodity that I wanted to share one of my little secrets. My clients include a nationwide retailer chain, a successful medical firm in California, and a UK-based translation company that operates internationally. I stare at numbers, charts, and keyword lists all day long simply hoping to glean a few extra nuggets of information to help promote these companies better. My dirty little secret is that my greatest successes aren’t even of my doing.

I transform searchers into visitors and hopefully, visitors into buyers. but there are two things I cannot do. I cannot make users search, and I cannot make them buy a product. Sure, there are searches being done, but those searches are inspired by factors outside of my control.

I have co-workers and partners spending long hours on hundreds of websites spreading the word. They have contacts and friends that are doing the same. Videos are often spread that seem to the general user to be naturally viral, wonderful descriptions appear in ratings across the web, and glowing descriptions are passed from one poster to the next in everyday online conversations. It takes work to create buzz about a product. It takes work to make searches really start. I simply capitalize on this fact.

Sure, I’ll take the credit. "Yes sir, your conversation rate has quadrupled in the last month. I’m glad I could make my experience work in your favor." I still have to put in the time and effort to capitalize on this, but it doesn’t have the same effect without someone else behind the scenes. For those familiar with Social Media, that is exactly what I am describing. For those that are not familiar with Social Media I suggest become acquainted with it.

Imagine, for the last three months you have been spending $10k, and you’ve been getting $20k back in return. For whatever reason you have found that your once great successes can’t go any higher. However, if your conversion rate suddenly doubled one month, you could be getting back $40k or more. Wouldn’t that be worth spending another $5k to make that happen?

My intention isn’t to devalue what I do, but if you’re a marketer thinking about spending on PPC and natural search results, or you’re an SEM or SEO professional and just want to get more production out of your clients’ ads, you will thank yourself for leaving some of your marketing budget to create some well-placed buzz.

Photo Credit: Quinn Commandroid of Strangecode