Geo targeting is picking up steam, and it seems that everyone is talking about it. Is it just for local businesses or can national chains take advantage of geo targeting in pay per click advertising?

The jury is out: Anyone can engage in geo targeting and there is perhaps no more an untapped market in PPC than PPC. Everyone seems to be going for the broader non-geographically-based, keyword-based advertising plans and, quite frankly, there is greater potential for higher ROI in geo targeting.

The pool of potential customers is smaller, yes. But if you are targeting the right customers in a specific local area then you stand a greater chance of higher ROIs, and there is no limit to how many local areas you can target. If your business has a presence in every U.S. metropolitan area of 100,000 population or more then you have a huge potential for geo targeted advertising that can pay you bigger dividends than the same campaign that is not geo targeted. Don’t believe me? Run a test. You’ll be surprised at the results of your local geo targeting campaign.

Do you have an effective way of measuring the ROI of your pay per click campaigns? Is it just a simple matter of taking your expenditures and subtracting them from your revenues? Not really.

There are other things to think about. What is the cost of acquisition per lead? Are you using PPC to generate leads or to close sales? There is a big difference in how you measure your ROI.

If you are closing sales then you’ll go through so many clicks before you get a sale. Not everyone who clicks through will make the purchase. Some people will not purchase until a second, third, or fourth visit. How do you know that returning visitors to your site were not first captured by a pay per click ad that they clicked through? You can’t always know.

For lead generation, the cost of acquiring a lead may seem low if you make an offer on your landing page and get a high number of click-throughs that convert. But are those leads then turning into conversions down the road? A lead by itself doesn’t earn you any revenue. Are you marketing by e-mail to those leads? Is there an expense associated with your marketing and following up with those leads? That needs to be factored in.

In essence, any attempt to touch base with your customer beyond the PPC ad and landing page must be included in the calculation for you ROI. Don’t forget that.

Rand Fishkin has pointed out that pay per click advertising is getting the lion’s share of spending over SEO despite the fact that PPC ads only get 20% of the clicks. The Search Engine Optimization Journal shares two reasons why this is probably true. I’d like to add two more reasons.

In the early days of search engine optimization there were companies that sprung up to sell SEO as a service. They did fairly well. Not as well as SEO companies do today, obviously, but given the market conditions at the time, it was quite respectable. Then, PPC came along and pay per click providers started springing up.

Some of the same companies that had been successful selling SEO services also started selling PPC services. They had a natural authority on the subject and credibility based on their success as SEO providers. But another thing happened due to the success of early SEO providers, namely, shoddy and shady SEO practitioners selling snake oil and duping noobs by overcharging and underdelivering on results. That gave SEO a bad name and caused many webmasters to take a different view of the industry as a whole. That’s one reason.

The other reason is because PPC providers have done a good job of convincing companies that pay per click advertising is effective. In truth, it is. With pay per click advertising you can target the type of customer you are looking for and track your results so much more easily. More often than not, you can achieve very effective marketing results much quicker with pay per click than with SEO. And that’s why companies are spending the money on pay per click advertising.

Of course, you don’t hear me complaining.

There are more than one way to run a pay per click advertising campaign. That’s why it’s always difficult to tell new PPC advertisers just how to go about running their own campaigns. The best advice I can give is to get a guide.

There are several ways you can tackle the learning pay per click advertising game. You can hire a consultant for thousands of dollars and hope you learn as much as you can to run your own campaigns. You can take a free course from one of the search engines and hope that answers your questions. You might even sign up for one of Google’s traveling seminars, but when will one be in your area? Another way is to learn as you pay someone to run your campaigns for you.

When you hire a qualified pay per click advertising expert you are not just hiring someone who will teach you what they want you to know. You are paying someone to help you be successful. If you win at PPC then they win, so they have an incentive to help you succeed. That doesn’t mean you can’t learn it on your own as they help you succeed right now.

Many Internet marketers will tell you to focus on SEO, article marketing, and blogging before PPC, but there is a good argument for making PPC advertising your first line of offense in Internet marketing. Pay per click advertising can get you results quicker and it’s a direct route to your target market if you do it right.

I’m not saying that you should make pay per click advertising your sole marketing strategy online. What I am saying is that you can implement a pay per click campaign as you are waiting for the results of your other marketing efforts to kick in. You can achieve great results through PPC as you wait for SEO, article marketing, and blogging to start driving results. And you can use PPC to test new keywords and phrases that you’ll use in your other online marketing efforts.

I would not call pay per click advertising your online marketing savior, but it isn’t a demon either. There are pitfalls. You can deplete your marketing budget and see no ROI, but if you approach it in the right way then you should realize excellent results.

Google Analytics is perhaps one of the best webmaster tools on the planet. Besides tracking traffic, you can use it to help you optimize your landing pages and your pay per click ads.

Key metrics to look at are Entrance Sources and Entrance Keywords. The keywords used to find your site is extremely useful because if you know the most popular keywords that people use to find your website then you can focus on those keywords in developing your content and your ad copy.

For instance, if you don’t have a web page associated with one of your top 10 entrance keywords then you should probably think about building a landing page optimized for that keyword. Then start an ad campaign group targeted for that landing page and using the same keyword. By using Google Analytics to help you optimize your website you can improve your overall optimization and pay per click advertising initiatives and convert more sales.

Inside Google AdWords reports that there is new level of detail in its metrics reports, namely, a separation between the numbers for Google ad campaigns and campaigns run on Google’s search partners. This is good news.

I like this level of detail because now you can see what your ads on the Content Network, Ask.com, AOL, and other websites that Google partners with are doing versus those run on Google SERPs. This is the way it should be. The next step is the ability to opt out of the search partner side of advertising without opting out of the Content Network.

If you see that you are achieving greater conversions through Google SERPs than you are through the Content Network, but that AOL and Ask.com are a close second then you should be able to opt out of the Content Network without opting out of AOL or Ask.com. I do like that you can see your performance in the Content Network exclusive of Google’s search partners.

I haven’t seen anything that makes me believe you now have the ability to opt out of one aspect of advertising without affecting other placements, but I am keeping my eyes open. This is a good first step, however.

How well do you know your niche? To be a successful pay per click advertiser you need to know a little more about your niche than just the popular keywords. But you should stay on top of those keywords because the popular keywords for any niche will fluctuate from month to month. Are you taking advantage of those?

There are a few ways you can stay on top of the popular keywords for your niche. One way is to consult Technorati. If your niche is politics, entertainment, real estate, or another popular category like that then it will be easy to see the latest information on what people are searching for on Technorati. But it also helps to be able to know the latest popular keywords for your niche if your niche is not so popular.

You may not necessarily bid on the most popular keywords. Everyone else is doing that. But you should know what they are so that you can leverage them. Search for less popular but related keywords and bid on those instead. The traffic may not be as high, but the competition you will face as an advertiser will be lower. It will be easier to break in the door. All it takes is knowing a little bit about the playing field within your niche.

One question that I’ve heard asked once or twice is, “Does a landing page’s PageRank affect the quality score of your pay per click advertising campaign?” Honestly, I haven’t seen any evidence that it does, but it may.

We do know that the search engines look at your landing page architecture and link structure, keyword use, design elements, load time, and several other factors that help determine the page’s rank for its key search terms. They also look at the pay per click ad content’s compatibility and relevance to the landing page. But whether the PageRank comes into play in the quality score is something that I haven’t seen too many people try to answer. Nor do I see any wisdom in judging quality on that basis.

Think about PageRank is. It’s a measure, albeit somewhat shady now in these days of massive spam, of a page’s authoritativeness as determined largely by the number and quality of inbound links to a particular page. Seeing as how we know that PageRank can be gamed by webmasters seeking to manipulate to their advantage by adopting aggressive link building campaigns and using blackhat SEM techniques, it would seem a bit unethical for Google to allow that to influence what advertisers are paying for clicks. Theoretically, certain webmasters could manipulate their PageRank for the sole purpose of achieving a high quality score and lowering the price they pay for clicks. That would be unfair to other advertisers who are trying to play by the rules.

Do I have any definitive evidence that PageRank does not affect pay per click quality score? No. But no one else has any evidence that it does, either. Quite frankly, I’d be surprised if it did.

When it comes to pay per click advertising you have to find the right converting keywords. You can have an excellent landing page but sometimes the keyword choice makes all the difference. The difference is in the targeted audience.

For instance, in the “make money online” niche, you’ll find that many people are targeting this niche but not making any money. The reason is because they are targeting the wrong audience. You have to target the right audience and you do that partially with your keyword choices. One marketer in this niche says that most people in the “make money online” niche are actually targeting experienced marketers when the people looking for information on that keyword are new internet marketers or people interested in the topic. More experienced marketers will use the keyword “internet marketing”.

That’s just one example of where the keyword can make a difference. It is likely that you can find similar examples in your niche. Be sure you do the right amount of keyword research before you start spending money.

New pay per click advertisers might think that you can’t target the separate landing pages with the same ad. Actually, you can. But I would caution that you do so with separate keyword phrases.

It is likely that your two landing pages use two different keyword phrases. Unless you are testing landing pages to see which one converts more sales (which is a useful and intelligent strategy), you are likely using landing pages to target specific keyword phrases. Your ads should do so as well. So I see two ways to use the same ad to promote two separate landing pages:

1. As an A/B test where you want to test the landing pages to see which one converts better
2. Where the only element you are testing is the destination URL

In the first case, you are targeting separate keyword phrases altogether. Your content is different and your page layout is likely different as well. You might use the same ad, but you replace your primary keyword. For instance, ad A may read:

Widgets Increase Speed
The only widget in the world
that guarantees increased speed.

Ad B could say:

Gadgets Increase Speed
The only gadget in the world
that guarantees increased speed.

This allows you to test the landing pages and not the ad. All you are changing is the targeted keyword and you have make sure that you match the right keyword with the right landing page. You don’t want your “widget” using your “gadget” page as the destination URL and vice-versa.

The other option is to simply use the “widget” ad and the only difference is the destination URL. But both landing pages have to be optimized for the word widget. The content may be otherwise different, but the keyword phrase “widget” must be the common element between them. It’s perfectly OK to use the same ad to target separate landing pages. Be sure that you give them separate names in your PPC interface.

I’ve been seeing a lot of phishing e-mails from Google AdWords pay per click advertising lately. The subject line of the e-mail reads:

Please re-submit your payment information.

And it comes from a no-reply e-mail address associated with the Google AdWords name. It looks official. Let me assure you, it’s not. If you get one, delete it and don’t click the link. Here’s what you ‘ll see in the body of the e-mail:

Hello,

Our attempt to charge your credit card for your
outstanding Google AdWords account balance was declined.
Your account is still open. However, your ads have been suspended. Once
we are able to charge your card and receive payment for your account
balance, we will re-activate your ads.

Please update your billing information, even if you plan to use the
same credit card. This will trigger our billing system to try charging
your card again. You do not need to contact us to reactivate your
account.

To update your primary payment information, please follow these steps:

1. Log in to your account at http://adwords.google.com/select.
2. Enter your primary payment information.
3. Click ‘Update’ when you have finished.

Thank you for advertising with Google AdWords. We look forward to
providing you with the most effective advertising available.

The Google AdWords Team

—————————————————————–
This message was sent from a notification-only email address that does
not accept incoming email. Please do not reply to this message. If you
have any questions, please visit the Google AdWords Help Centre
————————————————————-

Let me outline the ways that I know this is a phishing scam.

1. For starters, any e-mail that begins “Hello” is suspect. While I’ve received correspondence from Google AdWords that begins this way, I’d cast suspicion on any e-mail that begins with “Hello”, particularly from a company that I’ve been doing business with for a while. I’d expect them to address me by name or call me a valued customer or something of that nature.
2. That first sentence was a dead give away. Since I had cut off my ad campaigns and had no outstanding balance I really didn’t think Google AdWords was going to try to use my credit card.
3. Reputable companies not ask you to resubmit your credit card information to “trigger” their system to charge your card again. Companies automatically try to charge credit cards several times before notifying you that they cannot do so.
4. Google is a U.S. company. Why then does the footer at the end of the e-mail spell “Help Centre” the British way? Dead giveaway. This phishing e-mail was likely originated somewhere in the UK
5. Blumenthals received the same e-mail.

I really appreciate Mike Blumenthal going through the trouble to show us screenshots of the fake Google landing pages for this phishing scam. There are other e-mails with different subject lines trying to do the same thing. You may see the following subject lines:

Account Reactivation
Please Re-activate your account
Update Your Billing Information

These are all phishing scams. Don’t click the links.

Facebook has added the Live Search feature to its website now, allowing Facebook users to search the Web from within the social network. Does this mean you have more opportunities to reach more people?

Put aside the fact that Facebook advertising has not really paid off for most people who have tried it, Live Search is another matter. With users having the ability to search the Web from within Facebook, that means those searchers will see search ads within the Live Search SERPs. Given that 20% of searchers click on the ads, that may mean more opportunities for advertisers.

I don’t see this move significantly impacting Live Search’s market share, but it could give a sharp rise to the number of Live Search searches that take place in a period of time. If that’s the case then advertisers will have more opportunities to reach the loyal Live Search market. We’ll see what happens.

One method of pay per click advertising that seems to work well for some advertisers is to focus on the search engine that loves your website organically.

Every website gets picked up by one of the three major search engines first. Not all of them are crawled by Google before Yahoo! or MSN Live. Each website is different due to the algorithmic focus of the search engines. When you first find your website in one of the search engine indexes, that may be the time to start your testing for pay per click.

Being indexed means you’ve done something that search engine likes. Even if you aren’t indexed by Google, you have still done something right because one of the other search engines sees something of value. Capitalize on your success.

When you discover which key phrases you rank for in one of the Big 3, use that as an opportunity to find related keywords through a managed pay per click campaign. With organic listings and PPC advertising targeting a solid target market in the same real estate neighborhood, you are sure to build your business. Then you can branch out from there.

ION Interactive summed up Pay Per Click Best practices this way:

Best practices are just that, nothing more nothing less. There are no hard and fast rules and we shouldn’t pretend like there are. That’s why testing is so important. It doesn’t matter what I, or any other optimization whiz, know (or think we know). There are no hard and fast rules. All that matters is what gets results. And the only way to know what gets results to is to test & try.

All I can say is good point. Best practices doesn’t mean only practices. The bottom line is that no two sites look the same and you can’t come up with a list of to-dos that will work on every site. If you want to succeed in pay per click advertising then the most essential element to your campaign is testing. Multiavariate testing, A/B testing, landing page tests, and ad copy tests.

When you find something that works for your campaign, test it against something else for a limited time. If it stands up against the competition then keep it. Sometimes you’ll find another thing that works better. Perform your tests, keep what works, and throw out anything that doesn’t.