SEM An Introduction To Pay Per Click Search Marketing

SEM
An Introduction to Pay-Per- Click

Search Marketing
kissmetrics.com
An Introduction to
Pay-Per-Click Search
Marketing
Everyone else is spending money on pay per click (PPC). So,
where do you start?
This marketing guide, because it will show you what it takes to

spend marketing dollars intelligently on your PPC channel. In
preparing this guide, I sought out the business acumen of suc-
cessful entrepreneurs (both real and fictional) and chose to fol-
low Tony Montanas infamous and proven three-step approach.
Here it is (paraphrased):
Step 1. First you get the money Tony Montana spent his way
to building the right network and finding his target audience.
The same rule applies to PPC marketing: test, learn, refine.
Step 2. Then you get the power Be empowered by the data

acquired in Step 1 and scale your online marketing strategy.
Step 3. Then you get the customers Customer acquisition is

the name of the game. Heres how to stay ahead of your com-
petitors in order to ensure you keep attracting new customers.
2 An Introduction to PPC Search Marketing kissmetrics.com

Before we start, lets go over a short glossary of commonly used
terms in online marketing:
PPC Pay-Per-Click marketing (also known as paid search

marketing) an advertising channel on search engines where
businesses/individuals may bid on keywords that consumers use
in searches.
SEM Search Engine Marketing commonly used to describe

both PPC and SEO but also often used synonymously with PPC
marketing.
SEO Search Engine Optimization the practice of optimizing

website pages for search engines.

1. First You Get
the Money
Customer acquisition costs money. Whether you write a check
for a billboard, open an account with a radio station, or invest
in online marketing, advertising costs money. The good news is
that PPC marketing is one of THE most accountable and mea-
surable forms of marketing. So start spending. Create a budget
youre comfortable with, spend money to buy test traffic, and
take copious notes on what works and what doesnt.
Tip: Dont count on immediate financial success from your initial

PPC test. Consider your test buy as a necessary education cost
and remember that early learning will pay dividends in the fu-
ture.
The process of acquiring a customer on a major search engine

(Google, Bing, Yahoo) typically follows this pattern of events:
A. Consumer searches on Google/Bing/Yahoo and views

search results with ads.
B. Consumer clicks on ad.
C. Consumer lands on your site and decides in seconds if the
click was worthwhile and if he/she should stick around.

Lets break this down further.
A. Consumer searches on Google/Bing/Yahoo and

views search results with ads
How? Cast a net of keywords and phrases, aka keyword re-
search. The size of the net is entirely up to you.
Well use two fictional golf equipment businesses to illustrate

events A through C.
The first golf business specializes in mens left handed golf

clubs. As the owner of this business, you wouldnt want to cast
too wide of a net and attract unqualified customers looking for
other types of golf equipment. If this is you, start with a small
list of keywords and phrases that attract only your customer.
Sample keywords may include:
Left handed golf clubs

Mens left handed golf clubs
Left hand golf clubs
Mens left hand golf clubs
Lefty golf clubs
Conversely, if you are Mr. Pro Golf Shop with an online golf shop
that sells everything from kids golf socks to senior flex wedges,
youll need to be more strategic about generating a broader list
of keywords and phrases.

Should you generate keywords based on every piece of equip-
ment you sell?
Absolutely not! Start with top-selling and high-margin items.

Top sellers wont have trouble generating search traffic volume
and should provide results quickly. High-margin items will allow
you to run longer tests while enabling you to recoup your adver-
tising dollars once sales are made.
Sample keywords may include:
Callaway irons
Beginner golf clubs
Senior flex wedges
Goal: In either scenario, your primary objective is to find key-

words that will drive qualified traffic with the highest potential
to convert (buy, sign-up, etc.).
B. Consumer clicks on ad
How? Hook consumers with your ad copy, aka ad testing and
optimization. How attractive you make your ad is (again) en-
tirely up to you.
Using the same golf equipment businesses as above, if your goal

is to attract mainly consumers looking for mens left handed golf
clubs, make your ad very specific and undesirable/unclickable to
everyone but your target consumer.

For example:
Tip: Always start with more than one version of your ad. The
risk of running only one ad is that the success or failure of your
entire paid search test rests on one single ad.
If you are Mr. Pro Golf Shop, you want ads that appeal to the
masses, and your ads may look like the following:
A common mistake made by many new PPC marketers is to

disregard the keyword-ad relationship. If your list of keywords is
specific and thematic, make sure that is communicated in your
ad copy.
Goal: Always be qualifying. The objective is to spend money

intelligently. Given that youre paying for each ad click, make
sure your ads attract users most likely to convert.

C. Consumer lands on your site and decides in sec-
onds if the click was worthwhile and if he/she should
stick around
You invited the potential customer to click on your ad and visit
your online store. Do you have control over what happens next?
Yes, but not until the consumer has left your site. What matters
most is what happens between the time he/she clicks on your
ad and the time he/she exits. This is one possible sequence of
events:
Consumer searches for the phrase left handed golf clubs in

Google/Bing/Yahoo.
Consumer sees your ad (in position #1) for Left Handed Golf
Clubs! and clicks.
Consumer should see a landing page that shows a selection
of Yes, left handed golf clubs. Anything else (like the home
page of your site, a sign-up page, etc.) may cause the user to
immediately bounce.

Lets go over three different examples of landing
page user experiences:
Bad: Consumer immediately hits the back button or closes the
window/tab. This is what search engines consider a bounce.
The trigger for the action in this case is the content on the page
which the consumer first sees (also called the landing page)
is not relevant to what they initially searched for on the search
engine.
The landing page from the #1 ad is shown below. I expect to see

left handed golf clubs, but instead, I am given options of cat-
egories that do not include any left handed golf clubs. BOUNCE.

Good: Consumer stays on your site and browses around with a
relatively good pageviews per visit or time on site. The trig-
ger here is the content on the landing page is relevant enough
to keep the consumer interested for a few more clicks and/or a
few more seconds/minutes of browsing.
The landing page from #2 ad is shown below. Again, I expect

to see left handed golf clubs, and yet again, I am shown a page
full of content not directly related to my search term. The only
reason I would let this slide as a good experience is because it
presents three major brands (along with a deal) on the landing
page, which may convince me to invest a few more clicks to find
what Im looking for.

Great: Consumer completes a desired transaction (purchase,
sign-up, download, etc.), which is called a conversion. The trig-
ger here is the content on the landing page provides the con-
sumer with exactly what he/she expects to see.
The landing page from #3 ad is shown below. Finally, a page

with content relevant to my original search!
Goal: Provide a high-quality and relevant user experience on

your landing page. Dont expect the user to navigate through
ANY additional pages to find what theyre looking for. It is far
too easy to hit the back button.

Conclusion: Get the money, spend the money
Pay-per-click marketing is not about blindly paying Google to
drive clicks to your site. It is about knowing how much to pay for
each click and understanding the type of consumer you want to
spend money to attract. It also is about capturing information
provided by clicks that result in both bounces AND your desired
conversion goals so you can make the necessary changes to
your keyword lists, ads, and landing pages.
Everyone might be doing paid search, but very few do it well.

According to Google, the average AdWords click-through rate
is 2%, meaning only two clicks occur for every one hundred ad
impressions. Dont expect immediate success from your test but
expect to walk away with education. The single most important
goal in this first step is to find the formula of keywords, ads, and
user experiences that works for your business.
1. Test Invest time in generating a list of keywords and ad

variations.
2. Learn Test, stop, measure information from your consum-
ers.
3. Refine Modify what doesnt work, repeat steps 1 and 2.
So weve covered how to spend intelligently as you begin your

journey in PPC marketing. We took you step-by-step through
how a user on Google would find his or her way to your website
via paid search ads. We also highlighted the importance of ana-
lyzing each individual step to minimize unqualified users from
costing you clicks. Now lets move on to Step 2.

Step 2: Then You Get
the Power
Be empowered by the data acquired in Step 1 and scale your
online marketing strategy. In Step 2, we will delve into testing
concepts from Step 1 to further develop and expand your PPC
strategy.
Our friend, Tony Montana, didnt start out as a powerful man,

but he leveraged his resourceful and scrappy ways to elevate
himself to a position of power. Mr. Montanas knowledge of his
product, customers, and competitors helped him stay in power.
This section will be the most helpful after youve spent some
time and money on a PPC test buy and have data readily avail-
able for analysis.
We will start at the top of the conversion funnel and work our
way down:
Impressions -> Clicks -> Conversion

I hope you are ready to roll up your sleeves and spend a little
time analyzing results from your PPC test, specifically looking at
KPIs (key performance indicators) from your campaign:
A. Impressions vs. impression share (IS)

B. Clicks: CTR and QS (Quality Score)
Tip: Try to avoid Analysis Paralysis by over analyzing every

single metric. Instead, create a story that can be explained using
your KPIs.
A. Impressions vs. impression share (IS):

First, lets define a term:
Impression when an ad is shown to a consumer/user.
Basic question: How many impressions did my campaign gener-

ate?
Looking at the count of impressions will provide you the total

number of instances where keywords triggered ads to be shown
on a search engine results page (SERP). When a search is per-
formed in Google for the phrase Hawaiian vacation with kids,
the following advertisers (1-3) each increased their impression
count by one (+1) because of the search.

While the gross number of impressions your campaign receives
may seem important, it is much more useful when you have ad-
ditional data points that provide context.
So, now, lets define another term:
Impression Share the percentage of times your ads were

shown (i.e., your total impressions) out of the total number of
page impressions (i.e., pages where your ad appeared or could
have appeared) in the market you were targeting. Bing refers to
Impression Share as the Share of Voice.
Advanced question: Did my campaign get enough impressions?

This question looks beyond the raw number of impressions and
addresses the more important goal of making each impression
matter.
Were your ads shown in a position that met your expecta-

tions?
Most importantly, did your ads serve when you expected
them to, and how does this compare to your competitors?
Generally speaking, ad position is influenced by the amount

you are willing to pay (max CPC bid) and the relevancy of the
ad to the keywords in your ad group (Quality Score). Quality
Score is a numeric representation of the relevancy of your ads
and keywords (assigned independently by both Google and
Bing).
It is important to note that, currently, only Googles Quality

Score impacts ad position. Bings Quality Score serves only as a
guideline to improve your ad/keyword relevancy. We will discuss
Quality Score in further detail in Part B.
To answer the second question, turn your attention to the Im-

pression Share (IS) metric in the AdWords interface.
Impression Share stats can be generated only at the Campaign

level (in AdWords) and in the Share of Voice report in Bing
Ads. Keep this in mind as you structure your Campaigns and
Ad Groups. Impression Share metrics will be less useful in Cam-
paigns consisting of Ad Groups with little to no relevance to one
another.

Tip: To enable Impression Share metrics in your AdWords inter-
face: 1) select a Campaign, 2) click on the Dimensions tab, and
3) check all boxes.

In plain English, the above can be translated as:
1. Impression Share: My ads showed up 84.41% of the time they

were qualified to show on Google.
2. Exact match IS: If all of my keywords were set to Exact
Match, my ads would have shown up 9 out of 10 searches
(89.95%) for keywords in my campaign.
3. Lost IS (budget): My ads did not stop serving during this
time due to my budget maxing out.
4. Lost IS (rank): (Ad Rank = CPC bid x Quality Score) My ads
did not serve 15.59% of the time because either my CPC bids
or Quality Scores were low.
As illustrated in the example above:
Impression share + Lost IS (budget) + Lost IS (rank) should

always = 100%.
If you want to reach your potential customers at all times, your

goal should be to have an Impression Share number close to
100% and the two Lost IS numbers close to 0%.
If your Impression Share is far from 100%, here are some tips to
help you recover your lost impressions:
Lost IS (rank), aka CPC bids too low Look at the average
position of each keyword. Is it above minimum bid (Bing Ads
calls it minimum bid, AdWords calls it first page bid)? With
bids below these thresholds, your ads will not show up on
search results pages.

Lost IS (rank), aka Quality Score too low Are your Key-
word Quality Scores (QS) below 5/10? According to Google,
since Ad Rank is a calculation of your Bid and QS, it would
behoove you to improve Quality Scores by focusing on in-
creasing CTRs in your Ads and Keywords. Improve CTRs by
tightening up Ad Groups that consist only of closely related
keywords and ads that are the most relevant to these key-
words.
Lost IS (budget), aka budget too low Do your cam-
paigns have set daily/monthly budget caps? If so, are your
campaigns hitting their caps frequently? Budget caps help
pace PPC spending but also can suppress your ads from be-
ing shown if set too low. Google calls it throttling whereas
AdWords wont serve up ads every time they are eligible to
be shown in an effort to allow your account to evenly pace
through the daily budget.
How does this impression data help empower you?

Now you know the difference between impressions and Impres-
sion Share (IS). Regularly monitor your Impression Share metrics
and quickly fix issues as they arise. Low Impression Share hurts
your chance for success by allowing your competitors to gain
greater market share.
Chances are, your competitors already are closely monitoring

their IS and actively optimizing to 100% Impression Share. PPC
is a dynamic platform. Always look for opportunities to make
gains over your competitors.

B. Clicks: CTR and QS (Quality Score)
Before we continue, lets define another term:
Click-through Rate number of clicks your ad receives divided

by the number of impressions.
Basic Question: What is my average click-through rate (CTR)?
At a high level, click-through rate gauges how convincing your

ad is to your target audience. Many marketers often focus only
on writing convincing ads. An equally important aspect of CTR
is to target ads to the right audience.
Steps for building a PPC campaign include:
1. Creating Ad Groups
2. Selecting and grouping keywords into Ad Groups
3. Creating ads for Ad Groups.
As discussed in Step 1, every Ad Group should consist of closely

related keywords and a minimum of two ad variations. And as
suggested in a Tip above, every campaign should be comprised
of closely themed Ad Groups.
This all seems pretty elementary Whats my point?
Tight keyword groups (target your audience) + relevant ads (be

convincing) = higher CTR.
Dont just build. Build your campaigns and ad groups intelligently.

Take a look at the following sample Ad Group:
Given that the theme of this Ad Group is Hawaii Vacation,

the keywords in this Ad Group seem pretty relevant to each
other, and the two ad variations also appear to be pertinent to
the keywords. Is this a targeted Ad Group?
Now look at example #2:

If you are searching for the term flights to Hawaii, which
keyword-ad combination is most likely to win your click? If you
chose the second group, you are correct for the following reasons:
(In other words, assuming keyword bids are all equal, why is the
second group likely to outperform the first group?)
Tight keyword groups all keywords in the second group

pertain specifically to airfare.
Relevant ads both versions of the ad pertain to airfare.
Display URL is more relevant to airfare.
Higher CTR will result in higher Quality Score, which, in turn,
improves Ad Rank and lowers CPCs, which enables you to
bid to a higher position.**
**Note: The following is a simplification of the relationship be-

tween CTR and Googles Quality Score and should be used only
as a high-level reference. Please refer to Googles Quality Score
documentation for additional detail.

Advanced Question: Why does CTR matter?
We discussed earlier that click-through rate is a measure of

how convincing your ad is to your target audience. Google calls
this relevancy and assigns a numeric value called the Quality
Score.
According to Google, Quality Score is made up of the following

core components:
The historical click-through rate (CTR) of the keyword and

the matched ad on Google; note that CTR on the Google
Network impacts only Quality Score on the Google Network,
not on Google
Your account history, which is measured by the CTR of all the
ads and keywords in your account
The historical CTR of the display URLs in the ad group
The quality of your landing page
The relevance of the keyword to the ads in its ad group
The relevance of the keyword and the matched ad to the
search query
Your accounts performance in the geographical region
where the ad will be shown
How well your ad has been performing on different devices;
youll get a Quality Score for each device
Other relevant factors
It is no accident that CTR is mentioned in three of the core com-

ponents listed above.

CTR matters because it is a metric that can be controlled by
marketers. However, while Googles emphasis on CTR should be
noted, it also is important that marketers dont get tunnel vision
with improving CTR.
It is not an uncommon mistake for marketers to focus primarily

on improving CTR, to their detriment. Creating highly attractive
ads for the sole purpose of increasing CTR could be a costly er-
ror that ultimately impacts your account history, especially if the
ads are misleading and result in high bounce rates.
Note: Bing recently introduced their version of Quality Score. As

stated on Bings site, Quality Score shows you how competitive
your ads are in the marketplace by measuring how relevant your
keywords and landing pages are to customers search queries
and other input. The score, ranked from 1-10, indicates how
competitive the keyword is in the marketplace.
An ad with a score of 1-5 means the ad is less likely to appear

on Bing when the keyword is matched. An ad with a score of 6
means its competitive but its CTR is no better than other ads in
the marketplace. An ad with a score of 7-10 means that it is very
competitive in the marketplace and its CTR is higher than other
ads that target the same keywords.
The key difference between Bing Ads Quality Score and Ad-
Words Quality Score is Bing Ads QS indicates the competitive-
ness of your ad compared with other ads that are targeting a
particular keyword. AdWords Quality Score is an estimate of
how relevant your ads, keywords, and landing pages are to the
person seeing your ad.

The main takeaway is to define your audience with your selec-
tion of keywords and show ads that are relevant and compelling
to that audience.
Conclusion: Get the power, use the power

To some marketers, impressions and clicks are just simple one-
dimensional metrics. You are not that marketer. Like Tony Mon-
tana, you know how to target your customers and are cognizant
of your performance vs. competitors (Impression Share).
At this point, you should be familiar with the following PPC tac-
tics:
Selecting and targeting your audience with tight keyword clusters

Structuring tight campaign ad groups
Building solid ads that are highly relevant and compelling
Analyzing impressions and Impression Share
Optimizing Ad Groups for high CTR, Quality Score, and Ad Rank
I challenge you to apply this knowledge to your campaigns and

try to find the setup best suited for your conversion goals.
1. Test Test your campaign & ad group structures; test your ad

copy variations
2. Learn Familiarize yourself with Impression Share, Quality
Score and Ad Rank; use these metrics as a feedback mecha-
nism to improve your key metrics
3. Optimize/Refine Modify what doesnt work, test new ideas;
repeat steps 1 through 3
Now lets dive into the final part of this series, which will cover
conversions, conversion metrics, and optimization tips.

Step 3: Then You Get
the Customers
In the first two steps, we covered the necessity to spend money
to acquire data and the value of rolling up your sleeves to dig
into the metrics. My hope is that youve used and reused instruc-
tions from the first two steps to establish a solid foundation to
your PPC strategy.
In keeping with Tony Montanas inspirational mantra, this final in-

stallment will discuss a few key strategies to continually acquire
customers. To paraphrase Mr. Montana
In this online marketing space, you gotta spend the money first.
Then when you get your knowledge, you get the power. Then
when you get the power, then you get the CUSTOMERS.
A Brief Recap
In Step 1, we:
1. Looked at effective keyword / ad copy / landing page rela-

tionships
2. Picked through the good, the bad, and the ugly ad copy ex-
periences

3. Talked about the typical consumer clicking behavior
In Step 2, we:
1. Analyzed the importance of click-through rate (CTR)

2. Learned that impression share (IS) is where you may be los-
ing market share
Customer Acquisition
At this juncture, are you able to see the forest for the trees?
Weve covered a lot of material in the first two steps (CTR, Qual-
ity Score, Impression Share, Ad copy, Landing Page relevancy,
etc.) and it is important that you see the end goal through it all:
Success = Customer Acquisition
Were going to take a slightly different approach with this final

segment by stepping through a list of things to not do if you
want to succeed in PPC marketing as a means of customer ac-
quisition.
The ABCs of failing at successful customer acquisi-

tion:
A. Assuming you know it all
B. Blocking and tackling gets you only so far
C. Calling it quits

A. Assuming you know it all
Assumption is an enemy of PPC marketing and is a sin commit-
ted by even the most experienced marketers. An astute PPC
marketer may unexpectedly find himself/herself surrounded by
stagnant keyword lists, dated ad copy, and uninspiring landing
pages, without a clue as to how he or she got there.
Where did we go wrong?
Optimized keywords and match types CHECK

Optimized ad groups and ad copy CHECK
Optimized landing pages CHECK
Optimized budgets and let the campaign run CHECK
Sit back and watch the money pour into your bank account
WRONG
The PPC marketplace is a living, breathing ecosystem that de-

mands constant (and I mean constant) attention. There is no
set it and forget it strategy in PPC.
Relevance is a moving target and you need to make sure your

customers find it in your campaigns. Always, always be check-
ing (another ABC acronym to remember!).
1. Check see search terms to see which terms triggered your

ads. Using this tool provides a high probability of discovering
new keywords to add to your existing campaigns.

2. Check your ads (and your competitors ads). Do you know
about Googles opinion on things like longer headlines and add-
ing Sitelinks?
Longer Headlines
The advantage of longer headlines is to display more infor-
mation where its most likely to be noticed in the headline.
(Google said it best.)

Ads 1 and 3 in the real-life example above are not taking advan-
tage of longer headlines.
Sitelinks
According to Google, advertisers have seen upwards of a 30%

lift in CTR through the use of Sitelinks.
1-800-Flowerss use of sitelinks takes up twice the real estate as

the FTD ad.

3. Have a discerning eye: learn from every landing page you vis-
it. This applies to your casual surfing, online shopping, research,
and competitive analysis. After youve clicked on a paid ad, take
a few extra seconds to observe the landing page and try to pick
it apart.
What works well on the landing page? What doesnt? Take these
observations and try to apply them to your site. It just might
give you an edge over your competitors!
The bottom line is that between a steady influx of beta tests from
Google/Bing and innovations of PPC ads and landing pages from
other search marketers, you simply dont and cant know every-
thing. Never assume youve figured it out. You will get left behind.
B. Blocking and tackling gets you only so far

This section can be summed up in two words: GO BIG. Blocking
and tackling is a phrase that emphasizes the need to excel at
fundamentals. We covered many PPC marketing fundamentals
in the first two segments and it is important to note that you
should always strive to block and tackle your way to success.
However, dont let the routine of blocking and tackling impede

your creative and innovative side. Constantly remind yourself
that the end goal is customer acquisition and that your ongoing
challenge is to build a better mouse trap.
Let us be clear that GOING BIG does not mean to be reckless. It

means to think outside the box and take calculated risks. How?
Collect data and create a test plan.

Collecting Data
Tim Ash, founder of SiteTuners and a world-renowned optimiza-
tion expert, often asks the question Who should be in charge of
designing landing pages?
C-level executives (CEO/COO/CTO/CMO)? Nope.
Engineers and Developers? Negative.
Marketers and designers? Keep going.
Creative Agencies? Not quite.
Whos left? Your Customers!
Run an online survey, ask friends and family about what matters
to them (as it relates to your online business), and try to think
from the perspective of your customers. Dont try to think for
the customer. Be the customer.
Create a Test Plan (and Test!)

Be intentional and routine about allocating a small test budget
and force yourself to test new ideas. If finding ideas to test is
challenging, it simply means you need to do more research and
ask more questions.
Once you have a list of items to test, find the simplest way to set
up and run tests. Leverage free tools already available through
AdWords, like Campaign Experiments to perform A/B split tests.
You also can use Content Experiments as a means of testing
five full variations of a single page. Whatever your methodology,

think of the simplest, cheapest way to test that requires minimal
engineering resources.
My parting thought on this topic is: test results are useless if re-
porting and analytics are not reliable. Whether your reporting is
homegrown, off the shelf, or a bit of both, it must be reliable and
trustworthy. If it isnt, fix it.
C. Calling it quits
Lets not sugar coat it. PPC marketing sometimes can be frus-
trating and often unsuccessful. When should you call it quits?
This is not an easy question to address, but I will answer it with
additional questions:
How much have you spent to date?
If your answer is a few hundred bucks, you may not have given
yourself a fair chance at success. Did your few hundred bucks
yield enough clicks? Were you able to collect sufficient cam-
paign data to make the right decision?
If you answered a few thousand dollars or tens of thousands

of dollars, it might behoove you to have a PPC professional
audit your campaigns before you spend more money. Having
a professional help optimize your marketing spending may
make the difference between bleeding money and turning a
profit.
Are your direct competitors continuing to bid on the same key-

words?

If you answered no, it may be an indicator that: 1) youve stum-
bled onto a new and untapped market (somewhat unlikely), 2)
competitors have optimized out of those keywords due to low
conversions, or 3) youre simply targeting the wrong keywords.
If you answered yes, you will want to spend some time analyz-
ing your competitors ads and landing pages to find out exactly
how theyre able to afford to run their campaigns.
Have you sought professional help?
There is no shame in asking for help in PPC marketing (or online

marketing in general). Most business owners wouldnt write and
produce their own radio or TV commercials or design their own
print/billboard ads, so why assume that the failure of a self-de-
signed/managed online campaign was the fault of the medium
and not the marketer?
If youre ready to throw in the towel, please take time to answer

the above questions first.
Conclusion: Get your customers

Get your customers, as in, go acquire customers. You already
know how to Test, Learn, Refine (and repeat). Continually look
for information in your analytics and data for opportunities to
optimize for volume and conversions.
At the same time, get your customers, as in, understand their

mindset, comprehend their goals, and be prepared to test new
ideas that try to convince your potential customers to use your
site over those of your competitors.

This concludes our three-step introductory series on PPC mar-
keting. We covered a lot of material, best practices, and strat-
egies, yet this is just the tip of the iceberg. Relative to other
marketing mediums, pay-per-click marketing still is in its infancy
with a very long, promising future.
As you establish your own history with online marketing and ex-
pand your knowledge base, remind yourself to be like Tony Mon-
tana (only the positive, inspirational qualities; ignore the rest).
Be hungry, scrappy, and aggressive, and work harder and smart-
er than your competitors. As Tony said The World is Yours!

Want to Get Started?
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An Introduction to Pay-Per- Click

This marketing guide, because it will show you what it takes to

Step 2. Then you get the power Be empowered by the data

Step 3. Then you get the customers Customer acquisition is

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PPC Pay-Per-Click marketing (also known as paid search

SEM Search Engine Marketing commonly used to describe

SEO Search Engine Optimization the practice of optimizing

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Tip: Dont count on immediate financial success from your initial

The process of acquiring a customer on a major search engine

A. Consumer searches on Google/Bing/Yahoo and views

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A. Consumer searches on Google/Bing/Yahoo and

Well use two fictional golf equipment businesses to illustrate

The first golf business specializes in mens left handed golf

Sample keywords may include:

Left handed golf clubs

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Absolutely not! Start with top-selling and high-margin items.

Sample keywords may include:

Goal: In either scenario, your primary objective is to find key-

Using the same golf equipment businesses as above, if your goal

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A common mistake made by many new PPC marketers is to

Goal: Always be qualifying. The objective is to spend money

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Consumer searches for the phrase left handed golf clubs in

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The landing page from the #1 ad is shown below. I expect to see

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The landing page from #2 ad is shown below. Again, I expect

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The landing page from #3 ad is shown below. Finally, a page

Goal: Provide a high-quality and relevant user experience on

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Everyone might be doing paid search, but very few do it well.

1. Test Invest time in generating a list of keywords and ad

So weve covered how to spend intelligently as you begin your

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Our friend, Tony Montana, didnt start out as a powerful man,

Impressions -> Clicks -> Conversion

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A. Impressions vs. impression share (IS)

Tip: Try to avoid Analysis Paralysis by over analyzing every

A. Impressions vs. impression share (IS):

Impression when an ad is shown to a consumer/user.

Basic question: How many impressions did my campaign gener-

Looking at the count of impressions will provide you the total

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So, now, lets define another term:

Impression Share the percentage of times your ads were

Advanced question: Did my campaign get enough impressions?

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Were your ads shown in a position that met your expecta-

Generally speaking, ad position is influenced by the amount

It is important to note that, currently, only Googles Quality

To answer the second question, turn your attention to the Im-

Impression Share stats can be generated only at the Campaign

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1. Impression Share: My ads showed up 84.41% of the time they