My Cherry Coke Stand By: Wei Yang Atlanta Web Entrepreneurs October 18, 2007

Crash Course in Learn by doing… in 10 minutes Pay-Per-Click is like programming, you have to learn the system quirks; learn the grammar of the different systems. (AdWords, Yahoo! SM, MSN AdCenter, etc.) Following are some (somewhat) practical examples…

The 30 Second Elevator Pitch

My Bootstrap Startup Target Market: people who need on the go cherry coke or caffeine! Price: $0.40/bottle Marketing Budget: $1,000 Locations: 2! (b/c I’m committed)

Diving into Paid-Per-Click Creating a Campaign – Creating Ad Groups – Set Location Targeting – Create Ad(s) – Find a List of Keywords – Set a Daily / Monthly Budget Ta Da!

Creating a Campaign / Ad Group Create Campaign & Ad Group Name Choose Language Select Targeting

Countries, Territories Cities, Regions, DMA’s (Yahoo!) Customized (Radius)

Create Ad(s)

Find a List of Keywords Learn and Test Match Types – Broad – Phrase – Exact All Major PPC Platforms offer match types

Set Daily / Monthly Budget Determine daily budget from total monthly budget My Coke Stand’s budget is $1,000 / mth.

Diving into Paid-Per-Click (Like a Pro) Creating a Campaign – Set Location Targeting – Creating Ad Groups, Use Multiple Groups – Find a List of Keywords, Test Keyword Match Types Use Negative Keywords – Create (Multiple) Ads, Test Dynamic Keyword Insertion – Set a Daily / Monthly Budget, Test cost-per-click Prices Test Day Parting Test Landing Pages Track ROI with Analytics

Test: Location Targeting Choosing the right geo-targeting is the BEST and EASIEST way to save a lot of $$$$$. Fact(ish?): It costs about $80 million a year in marketing to produce a household name. Don’t try to take on the entire U.S. with a measly $1,000 / month budget. Consider your share of voice! Even large corporations with MM monthly budgets use geo-targeting to optimize their spend.

Test: Multiple Ad Groups Combining similar words into ad groups is a great way to manage like-minded lists. (e.g. cherry coke, cherry soda, cherry pop, etc.) Multiple campaigns allow you to control different budgets, multiple ad groups allow you to create unique ads that can be grouped with similar keywords.

Test: Keyword Match Types Broad Match: cherry coke – When did coke add cherry to the flavor? – What’s better than cherry coke? – Is coke better with lime or cherry? Phrase Match: “cherry coke” – Why does cherry coke suck? – What’s in diet cherry coke? – Does Pepsi make cherry coke? – Where to buy cherry coke! Exact Match: [cherry coke] – cherry coke

Test: Use Negative Keywords

Using Negative Keywords Instead of listing every single exact match possibilities, consider using negative keyword match. Examples: – diet, zero (diet cherry coke, bleh!) – Classic (coke classic, don’t carry it!) – Pepsi (competitor brand) – ingredients (weirdo chemists) – sucks (craazy people – history (not my audience) – FREE (if you don’t offer it for free, save your ad money!)

Test: Multiple Ad Variations When it comes to ads: test, Test, TEST! Consider different selling techniques: – Sell with brand – Sell with price incentive – Sell based on need of the searcher – Sell the benefits instead of the product Try to differentiate your ads with others in the results

Test: Cost-per-Click Prices Actual CPC prices are determined by a delicate balance of max CPC (advertiser set) and CTR (audience set) It’s really not that delicate but CPC and ad positioning are both worth testing. Higher position = more clicks, but are those visitors converting to your goals? Goals for PPC platforms = make $$$ via clicks Your goals = get a positive ROI from ad spend.

Test: Day Parting

Other Tests & Resources Test landing pages; is the message a continuation of the ad? Are the messages in sync? Tracking ROI with Web Analytics Getting help from Google, Yahoo! & MSN – If you spend enough, they will help you optimize!

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