Paid Traffic - Section 2

INTRODUCTION

A couple of days ago I posted a blog here almost with the same name except it is Section 1. More or less that post introduced the concept of paid traffic and how, if used wisely, it can ramp up your traffic, leads and conversions.

Today I want to provide some more sources for paid traffic that you can check out and see if one or the other would fit into your program, and expand a bit on the sources other than solo ads and banners which I covered in the last post. I did not include sources for banner posts at the end of that post, but do here.

CAUTION

I want to reiterate also what I mentioned several times in the last post on this subject. Please read through that post to make sure that you are prepared to go into this and have success. If you do not complete all the sub-tasks that paid traffic entails, you likely will spend money and not see results. That is no fun...

The keys are to have an effective plan together -

(1) Good and proven banners or squeeze/landing/thankyou pages (as appropriate depending on the purpose of your campaign) ready,

(2) Have an autoresponder set of swipes (series of emails) in place and tested so you can immediately follow up...

(3) Select a targeted audience depending on the purpose of the campaign, and lastly...

(4) Test small prior to scaling it up. See what converts, Try an "A" version and an "B" version of every piece of the puzzle (i.e. banner, emails, landing pages, thank you pages).

(5) Track your results over time. The metrics will help you refine each piece and you can see the overall affect on the campaign, Once you have whet works best, THEN ramp it up...

LET'S TALK ABOUT SEARCH ENGINE ADS

To start this off, let's recap a few things...

If you are considering using paid traffic of one sort or another, you need to define what your target audience is. Once you know this, everything else can follow.

At the end of the day, you want to use online paid advertising to get your banner or offer in front of the people that will take action because they need or want what you have to offer.

Doing this evaluation initially will increase the chance that your campaign will be successful. Your ads will get their attention and the ads will get clicked on....

So this "clicked on" thing...

Online marketers often use the acronym PPC for this term, which stands for "pay per click" (did you see that segway/tie in I just did here from the above paragraph?)...

PAY PER CLICK OR...PPC

PPC is in reality an advertsiing model (under the paid traffic segment of online marketing) that is directing traffic to websites.

Advertisers (that would be you and I if we are running such a program) pay a publisher (typically this would be a website owner or a search engine such as Bing or Google, etc) when the ad you have published is clicked on by a prospect.

PPC can be defined quite simply as “the amount spent to get an advertisement clicked.”

As I stated in the first post on this paid traffic general subject, while it seems complicated, PPC advertising can be a very simple and affordable way for you to get targeted traffic to your website.

Remember targeted traffic is really the best and only kind of traffic you should want, it does no good if you have 1000 visitors but no one is buying/subscribing, etc.

As with solo ads and banner ads, you set up a campaign as described above, and in the first post I made on this subject, then you pay each time someone clicks through your ad to your website.

If you are using Google or one of the other search engines, you set a budget, use the available tools to target the audience, and let it go...

GOOGLE, YAHOO, AND BING PPC PROGRAMS

I am sure you know of the main sources for PPC such as Google Adwords, Yahoo Search or Bing Ads. These are the most popular. Each one of these programs are similar, in that they will display your ads on relevant websites, and then you pay them each time someone clicks on your ad.

While they are all similar, they each have their own guidelines to be followed. I think it would be a really good idea to first familiarize yourself with the rules and regulations of each before you begin your advertising campaign. It just makes sense so you do not waste time, effort and money...

They all have an extensive set of help files and tutorials you can tap into to further your education. Think of it as a free learning course, take notes, and then work the guidelines into your campaign.

Here are sources to check out:

(1) Google Adwords:

(2) Yahoo Search:

(3) Bing Ads:

Now, in case you do not want to go through the training provided at these sites, I would like suggest that you spend just a little time going through a scenario below to show you what the process looks like...

WALK THROUGH EXAMPLE OF A PPC CAMPAIGN

Let’s say that you are in a niche that concerns collectible toys. You have prepared a great website and have worked hard to get it optimized for SEO, rakings and etc. and you are ready to ramp up the leads and conversions...

CASE STUDY STEP ONE - SOMETHING TO OFFER THAT HAS VALUE

You have something of value on that site to offer the targeted traffic when they land on your page. Let's say you’ve written a great guide all about collectible toys and you are selling it from your website. Maybe you also have added some rare pieces on the site, pieces that you know will draw interest and likely a sale(s).

So you are now at the stage where you want targeted traffic to be directed to your website. You do not want to wait to grow your organic traffic, you want leads and sales now.

CASE STUDY STEP TWO - DETERMINE YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE

In this case, your targeted traffic would be people who have searched for collectible toys online. These people are already interested in the topic of your website. That’s makes them targeted traffic. These are the folks you want!

OK so you are ready to sign up with one of the big three above to get that traffic through a PPC program/campaign you have gone through all the steps I talked about earlier with. You have tested and found out what works best.

This means you have narrowed down through several small ads which of the types of banners works best, maybe the best landing pages, ane etc. As you try one version against another, you select the best and try again with yet a third type.

CASE STUDY STEP THREE - DECIDE WHICH KEYWORDS TO USE

Now then, the next thing to decide on is what keywords you should bid on...In this case, it is likely that the best keyword to use for your PPC campaign is collectible toys. Unfortunately, there’s really a pretty good chance that there are other people who might want to use that same keyword. So you put a bid on it, submitting what you are willing to pay per click, and the highest bidder would get to use it.

These general type keywords can be quite expensive. There is a better way, unless you have lots of money to spend and don't care. Perhaps your niche is a subniche of the general niche? In that case you could use more targeted keywords that will specifically target the exact audience you need...

Let's say your niche site was especially designed for people wanting to learn how to make money with sales of collectible toy’s...Your keyword phrase could then be more specific, and aimed JUST at these people. This targeted keyword phrase will likely bring you the better-targeted traffic you are looking for that will take action, plus you will have less competition than if you used more general keywords.

CASE STUDY STEP FOUR - DETERMINE YOUR BUDGET

OK now you have selected the keywords you are going to bid on...Next you have to decide how much to spend. If you are just starting out, remember, small amounts and test! Go through that process, THEN you can scale up.

CASE STUDY STEP FIVE - WHERE IS YOUR PPC AD APPEARING

If you have won the bid, and let the service provider know what your PPC spend will be, they will then display an ad that links to your website for searches that contain your keyword. Let's say it was the keyword collectible toy’s, and somone searches for that, your ad will be displayed on the search page results.

Another way you get visibility using PPC with seach engine providers is that if there are related web sites that are using the Google advertising network, say as a part of their monetization program. In that case, your ad may display on those sites so that their visitors might click through as well.

CASE STUDY STEP SIX - HOW LONG WILL MY AD BE DISPLAYED

Once in place, your ad will be displayed in these areas until the purchased number of clicks have completed for a day, and after will not be displayed again until the next day. So you can control costs this way. On the other hand, if you have something that there is a LOT of interest for, your clicks might be gone in 20 minutes and of course the ad will not reappear again until the next day.

So if you’re getting 200 clicks for $10, and you’ve set your budget for $10 per day, then even if you get 200 clicks in 20 minutes the ad won’t display again until the next day. This is both good and bad I guess, but I like one thing about it: You can plan on your cost for the PPC program.

CASE STUDY STEP SEVEN - CONTROL YOUR SPEND AND BUDGET

I think that because you CAN plan your campaign, and base it on a budget figure per day, PPC can be a very good way to supercharge your business, products or services.

If it was me in this case, even after testing, I would start out slow with a small budget of say around $15/20 per day. Remember you have already adjusted through testing and seeing what works (for testing I recommend spending no more than let's say $5/day).

CONCLUSION

OK, that's about enough for today....I will drill down more into this whole PPC thing next time and talk more specifics on what you can do to develop a program that works for your business....

Please see below some more good links to check out for futher research on your part. I recommend learning all you can and checking out whatever medium you decide to use for paid traffic, it is money coming out of your pocket. You want a good ROI (return on investment)...

Also I would appreciate any feedback that you may have for us all. We learn together and this is always a good thing! Thanks ahead of time!

Cheers!

Dave : )

MORE SOURCES TO USE PAID TRAFFIC:

A. Email Ad Swap Venues - Places To Swap Ads With
Other Email List Owners

B. Banner Ads - Lots of research for you here! : )