The days of penny-per-click quality targeted traffic are
gone, as we all know. There are just too many people wise in
the ways of PPC (Pay-Per-Click) search engines these days.
So how are we supposed to find the best bang for the buck
in a highly competitive PPC marketplace?
Testing: plain and simple.
If you are buying traffic from PPC search engines (or
anywhere for that matter), you absolutely must carefully
track each and every click! You must keep track of sales
and revenue produced compared to the cost of every single
click. It's vital to the success of your business.
The tools you'll need to accomplish this task are a decent
head on your shoulders and a good traffic tracking
software package. For the most complete tracking, I
recommend higher-end packages like Click-Tracks.
Once you can track your results, you need to start with
proven traffic sources and adjust your campaigns as you see
the actual results.
I recently performed a test of three different sources of
pay-per-click traffic. First, I evaluated and streamlined
my Overture PPC campaign for some very specific, highly
targeted keywords for my sales site.
Next I started a new campaign at Google Ad-words. I find
them easier to set up than Overture (and no jumping
through hoops to prove relevancy... they only care about
your click-through-rate). However, it can be a bit more
complicated to choose your bids since their system is a
bit more complicated than "top bid gets the top spot."
Still, this is considered the flag-ship of PPC traffic
by many.
For a third source - and sort of as a control for the test
- I signed up for pay-per-click traffic from
MarketingBlaster.com. This is not a PPC search engine; it is
a network of targeted Directories and sites focused on
specific topics. I signed up for their 10 cents per click
package. The difference between the two is in how targeted
the visitors are, and how much traffic you can achieve with
each type.
The Results:
First, for the Overture traffic, my average cost per click
was 88 cents for the range of different keywords I was
bidding on. Yes, that's fairly high per click, but I'm
bidding on some fairly valuable traffic.
I received a total of 240 visitors and 3 orders. That's
not too bad. The conversion rate was a little over 1%
and my total cost for the three orders was $211.20.
Google AdWords fared considerably better. My average cost
per click was only 47 cents. Out of 320 clicks, I got 8
orders; which is a 2.5% conversion rate. Very nice! So
those 8 orders cost a total of $150.40 - a dramatic
difference in result.
MarketingBlaster was a very different story.
I received 1,000 visitors. An amazing 4.2% of them ordered
for a total of 42 orders! I paid only 10 cents per visitor
for this traffic for a total of $100. The lesser known of
the three really blew away the competition in this test.
It is hard to say all of the factors that contributed to
these results. It is not really possible to compete these
sources exactly head-on. They all have their differences
and some tweaks here and there could result in a different
winner. The point is that you must track and test so that
you know what traffic sources are working best for your
product/service.
The bottom-line in this test however was that
MarketingBlaster.com blew away the competition. I will
definitely be starting with them in future campaigns and
adding other sources later. I will, however, continue to
track and test and look for a new contender. That is how
you win at this game!
Happy Marketing!
Nathan
Nathan Anderson is an internet marketing consultant and
SEO expert. He is author of Search Engine Optimization
Tactics and co-owner of the SEO Club, which can be found
at http://www.SEOclub.com
