| | Pay
Per Click - Step 2: Prices
Ask Susan - Tip of the Month
December 2003
There
are six major steps to effectively use paid advertising on the Web.
1) Which key
phrases (search terms) to use?
2) Which service has the best price for
each key phrase today?
3) What is the most effective wording to bring in customers?
4) How much should I spend and how do I control the spending?
5) What
ranking do I want and how to I keep it there?
6) How do I know which advertisements
are bringing in customers and which ones are wasting my money?
Last month
you selected your best key phrases. If not, you can do it now.
Today we
look at Step 2: Which service has the best price for each key phrase today.
There are three services that provide sponsored listings or advertisements on
the four most popular search tools; Google, Yahoo!, MSN and AOL.
The services
today (and I say that on purpose because it keeps changing) are:
-Google
AdWords which provides ads for Google and AOL,
-Overture
which provides ads for Yahoo! and
-looklistings
by looksmart which provides ads for MSN.
What are the prices for your
key phrases in these three services? We'll start with the easiest one:
1)
looklistings by looksmart is easy because each click is $0.15. It is technically
a paid inclusion program, not pay per click. It is still affordable and easier
to manage. You write a title and description, give them a set of key phrases and
they decide when and where to display your ad. The ads will be displayed on selected
websites as well as search tools.
For many clients these are the least
expensive "clicks" (visitors) that we can get. There is a $29 set-up fee and LookSmarts
contract with MSN may end in January, but it may still be worth it.
2) The prices on Overture are easy to obtain from WordTracker
which you used to research
your key phrases. After you do the initial search,
do a "competitive search", check off "overture" and enter
the password shown.
Here is an example
for "advent wreaths". The number of searches on the Web per day for this key phrase
is 7. The highest bid on Overture is $1.00 per click.
When
you search on "advent wreaths" in Yahoo! you see the first two sponsored listings
at the top of the page (well, almost at the top):
SPONSOR
RESULTS
Fresh
Balsam Advent Wreaths - Wreath.com Celebrate this
holiday season with fresh balsam wreaths and products from the North woods.
Order Maine Christmas trees and balsam holiday wreaths online. Visit us online
today.
www.wreath.com
wreathstoyou.com
This holiday season let James & Matthews help deck your halls, doors and mantles
with fresh advent wreaths, holiday garlands and traditional centerpieces. Free
2-4 day shipping. www.wreathstoyou.com
So
wreath.com is paying $1.00 per visitor for people who search for "advent
wreaths", and wreathstoyou.com is paying $0.20 per visitor. Companies that
bid lower will appear at the bottom of the home page, or at the top or bottom
of another page under "sponsored listings".
WordTracker and Overture make
it easy to check and compare the current prices of your key phrases.
3)
We wish it was so easy to check prices in Google AdWords.
The only way
to check prices is to set up the advertisements. Google then recommends a maximum
CPC (cost per click) to "ensure maximum ad exposure and clicks for all of your
keywords". You can change your CPC and see how if affects your rankings before
you submit the ad. Google often shows eight or more ads on the first page, so
even a ranking of 8 may be displayed on the first page. Only some of these ads
will appear on AOL and we have found that when we submit a higher bid it is more
likely to appear on AOL.
Be aware that placement is not determined only
by bid price. It is a combination of what you set as your maximum price and the
popularity of your ad. See the Google
Pricing and Billing page for more information.
Now, obviously,
we can't be checking these prices this way every day. There is an easier way:
GoToast. No, I'm not
swearing at you. GoToast is a very useful tool.
After you set up ads in
Overture and Google AdWords, Gotoast shows you a list of your ads with the current
bid prices for the top 10 positions. This is an easy way to compare the prices
in Overture and Google AdWords each day.
You set how much you are willing
to bid. GoToast then logs onto your Google and Overture accounts a few times a
day to update your bids (cost per click). In the example in front for me (alexandrite
lasers) the top bid in Google is $1.94 per click and the top bid in Overture is
$0.14. Which would you rather pay?
I set the bid to $ 0.14 in both Overture
and Google. In Google the ad appears in the 6th position, but I only pay $0.14
per visitor. In Overture the ad appears in the #1 position - for now. When our
competitors see that, they may also change their bids. Without a tool like GoToast
it would be very difficult to track the rapid changes in pricing.
A GoToast
account starts at $80/month.
I noticed this comment while doing some research
today: "From our experience with Overture, we recommend that a company should
not undertake a keyword pay for inclusion program unless they are willing to allocate
five hours per week to monitor the costs and results." (Medibix.com) I agree.
Next month we'll talk about "What
is the most effective wording to bring in customers?"
Yes, we are sailing
right through the winter ("frostbiting"). Happy Holidays and smooth
sailing to you.
If you would like further assistance, we are available
to help you set up a pay per click program and train you
or your staff to manage it. We can also set it up and
manage it for you. Please contact me, Susan Hankins at
susanh@ask-susan.com.
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