In the last post, we talked about the importance of utilizing search engines to market your products. This time, we are going to be talking about the key things you need to think about when setting up your campaigns.
To get started in advertising on search engines, you need to set up an account with one of the major engines. I recommend working in Google AdWords to start. Google has by far the largest volume of searches, and if you need to expand later, you can create similar a account to serve ads on Yahoo and Bing.
After setting up an account, the first thing to nail down is your keyword set. Think about your business, and make a list of the words that people would type in to a search engine when they are in the market for your products or services. I recommend putting together an exhaustive list, and then putting it down for a day or so. Then come back and figure out what terms you left out. You can also use Google's keyword tool (within AdWords) to think of other opportunities you may not have thought of.
The second part of putting together the keyword set is thinking of negative keywords. Negative keywords are searched terms for which your ads are supressed. For example, if you have an online store selling women's shoes, you will likely be bidding on the terms "shoes" and "women's shoes", but would not want to waste money serving ads to people searching for "men's shoes". Using negative keywords keeps your ads targeted to the right audience.
Once your keyword list is ready to go, you are going to need some ads. They should contain copy that is as relevant to the search keywords and your business as possible. Think of the benefits of your product. Why would a potential customer want what you are selling? Try to articulate these benefits clearly and concisely, and finish the ad with a call to action telling them what you do. Commonly effective calls to action include "Buy Now", "Save Today", etc. You want to let them know what to do and convey a sense of urgency at the same time.
Once you have created your ads, you will want to take advantage of the targeting options provided by the search engines. For example, if you only sell to the 48 contiguous states, make sure you exclude Alaska and Hawaii from your campaigns. With paid search, you don't have to waste any ad dollars outside of your market. Also, think about the times you want to serve your ads. For an E-commerce store, it probably makes sense to display your ads around the clock, but if your main goal is to drive customers to a call center that is open only during business hours, you will want to be more selective about when you pay for ads. With paid search, you can choose to run your ads only during the times when they will help your business.
Search engines work on an auction basis, so whoever bids the highest gets the best position on the page. The minimum bid amount to display your ads varies a lot, and depends mostly on the competition for any given keyword. A good place to start is to think about the maximum you would be willing to pay for a click, and then using Google's Traffic Estimator to determine what the average cost per click (CPC) for your terms might be. You are hoping the projected average CPC is lower than what you are willing to pay.
Now you're ready to set your campaign live. You will want to monitor it closely for the first couple of days to make sure everything is going as you expected. Then after a week or two, once you have a decent amount of volume, you should take a look at the campaign to see which keywords and ads are working effectively, and which ones are not producing for you.
This should get you started with the basics. I am always happy to help out if you should have any questions.
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