PPC News & Broad Match Tactics

December 16, 2009
 

Pay per click advertising is the star of today’s podcast, with Bruce Clay starting off the show reviewing recent PPC news and updates. Product Listing Ads, which provides richer product info and works on a cost per action basis, is now available to select advertisers in beta. Google has suspended its Local Listing Ad service as it analyzes feedback to improve the product in advance of a full launch. The search engine has updated and expanded the Google Advertising Professionals certification program. And the AdWords campaign management tools have been enhanced with new segmentation options and integrated performance data.

Bruce Clay, Inc. PPC analyst Jim Stratton then joins Virginia to talk about his recommendations for using broad match in AdWords campaigns. Rather than avoiding the option altogether, Jim advises constantly reviewing query reports to identify negative keywords, which help advertisers avoid paying for low-quality traffic. He also recommends tailoring ad copy to pre-qualify the search audience. Broad match also holds value as a tool for keyword discovery. They also consider the effect of broad match on campaign QualityScore.

Finally, Jim and Virginia look at an often-overlooked metric of pay per click advertising, revenue per click. Revenue per click can be calculated through a simple formula, or e-commerce companies can link their AdWords and Google Analytics accounts to have the revenue per click provided to them by Google. Along with revenue per click, Jim advises PPC marketers also look at lifetime customer value, as RPC doesn’t account for LCV — another hidden metric of pay per click.