Pay Per Click Training and Education

One of your first considerations when deciding to launch a PPC campaign should be Internet marketing training and education. Each search engine has its own pay-per-click advertising program and way of doing things.

One of the advantages of using PPC advertising is that it is generally easy to establish an account. Simply follow the instructions and with a little keyword research and creative ad skills, you’re on your way.

Luckily, the search engines have made setting up an account very simple, although some require that ads pass editorial review before going live. However, when compared to waiting for “organic” search engine optimization (SEO) to affect your site’s rankings, waiting a few days for editorial review is not really a drawback, only mildly frustrating at best.

Search Engine Advertising Program Changes

Keeping up-to-date on changes as they occur can also be challenging, and another reason for logging into your PPC advertising campaigns daily. The search engines are continually improving their pay-per-click marketing programs, adding enhancements and making changes.

Be sure you subscribe to some of the many newsletters made available by experts in the search engine marketing industry. For those using Google AdWords, they have an official blog that will give you tips and insight into tools available, and changes that will help you advertise your site.

Another great resource is Google Alerts. Google Alerts is a free service offered by Google that sends you email notifications for topics that you are interested in and is a great way to keep on top of industry changes.

PPC Search Engine Programs

Although some PPC campaigns require editorial review before they go live, others will review ads only when an issue is brought to their attention, but as a general rule, some ads will appear on the search results before being reviewed. Even with editorial review, a pay-per-click marketing campaign can be active within three to five business days or even sooner.

Google AdWords offers some automated bid structuring, which helps initially, but soon you will want to manually manage your bids. Learning how to do this will take time; looking through the forums and asking the right questions of the right people will help.

Conferences like ad:tech, Pubcon and Search Marketing Expo offer sessions and seminars on best practices and how to manage search engine marketing campaigns.

PPC bid management can be “tricky” in programs such as Google AdWords. Setting up a campaign is fairly easy, managing it can be frustrating if you don’t know what you are doing. Figuring out where the “sweet spot” position is for your industry and what keywords to target can be difficult.

In some engines, knowing what dollar amount to set as the maximum or minimum and how it will affect your position is not always straightforward. Some things are learned by trial and error and only over time you can become a pay-per-click pro.

Google AdWords is considered by many to be “the king” of all PPC search engines. It provides sponsored listings on the Web’s top portals and search engines. On the search network, ads are shown both on Google search results pages and the search results pages of other properties (Google’s search partners) within the search network.

Perhaps its best feature is the keyword tool, which allows subscribers to see exactly how often people search for a particular word or phrase and an estimated cost per click. There is also a tool called “content match” that allows subscribers to broaden their consumer reach within GMail and sites that signed with Google to share PPC advertising space on their sites.

Geotargeting allows you to target customers searching for local services, which is especially beneficial for small businesses that lack a large Web presence, but want to establish branding. Google AdWords is best suited for those willing to pay top dollar for quick results.

Bing Ads can appear on a variety of Microsoft properties, such as Bing search results pages, relevant affiliated websites and Microsoft Office, to name a few. They may also appear on Microsoft partner sites like Facebook and the Wall Street Journal.

The placement and ranking of your online ads are determined by several factors, including search keywords entered by your customers, and the type of content displayed on participating sites.

Where ​Bing Ads differs from the competition is they encourage users to select target audience demographics that they want to particularly seek out. The aim is to ultimately enable searchers to find relevant results faster, and provide more value for advertisers and better results for Web publishers.