PPC - am I missing something

[goose]

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Hi All

We have recently put together an affiliate site - more as a learning exercise than to make zillions of pounds (although that would be a bonus!)

Naturally enough we have kicked off with PPC on Google and generated around 300 visits to the site at a cost of £36 which has resulted in... wait for it… 1 sale – giving us a commission of £2.

Now I know this is a very small sample and some of those 299 who didn’t buy will come back and make a purchase in a week or so and we’ll get the commission then. Also, the site could be improved which could lead to better conversion – but it really isn’t too bad as it stands.

I guess what I’m saying is does PPC ever give a return? If we are paying Google, say, £100 for 1000 visitors I suppose we need merchants where their basket size x conversion rate x commission rate works out at more than £100 per 1000 visits – I expect these merchant exist but not in big numbers.

On the flip side, visitors visit more than one merchant from our site so this does change the numbers somewhat. Nevertheless it seems to me if were to stick to PPC only (not that we plan to) we are never going to see those zillions in the bank!

Am I missing something here?

Goose

[Shane]

"does PPC ever give a return?"

yup it does but only if done right, you can't just slap 2000 keywords in an adgroup and expect it to work for you,

(*ok in some areas some lucky feckers do exatcly that I bet..but generally speaking you can't)

PPC is a whole industry by it's self now, you are up against specialised PPC'ers who know how to maximise how google works to their advantage and they constantly test and evolve new ways.

hence why some people get 40% CTR and others only get 0.5 yet the bids aren't as far apart or even the right way around either.

Also you need to effectively track what's working and what isn't, if you just use a "£xx in to google = £xxxx out" approach then ultimately you could be saving money or getting more hits for the same I am sure by tracking each high traffic/cost keyword etc.

If you intend to get into it then I'd recommend reading everything you can find on it before you throw a lot of money at it and end up losing it.

[Dynamoo]

I think by the looks of it you're bidding 8p+ per visit which I'd say is too high. I bid just 4p. It might put me on the bottom of the ad pile, but it still attracts visitors.

[watcher]

Are you absolutely sure about how many of those 300 visitors actually clicked through to your merchants ?

If your site isn't at least 100% efficient it effectively puts up the cost of getting visitors to the merchant.

That is, if you are bidding 10p for each visitor and only half click through to the merchants then it is effectively costing you 20p to send visitors to the merchants.

[goose]

Hi Folks

Thanks for your comments.

I'll get reading up on this (didn't realise is was quite so involved!!). Maybe for the next stage I'll go for a lower CPC and look at getting better coverage of keywords and monitor that.

On your point Watcher - those 300 visits have resulted in near enough 300 UVs to merchants - I guess some have clicked through more than once and others have just gone away. Is a 1:1 ratio OK? - I guess it varies with the type of site.

More importantly, it seems to me, we need to be pushing visitors through to sites from which they are likely to make a purchase. Lovely to have lots of our cookies sitting on peoples' computers - no use at all unless they click the 'Buy now' button!!

Anyway - I think I can take it that, if done properly, PPC can give a return on the investment.

Cheers

Goose

[ben01]

Originally posted by Dynamoo
I think by the looks of it you're bidding 8p+ per visit which I'd say is too high. I bid just 4p. It might put me on the bottom of the ad pile, but it still attracts visitors.

Surely this depends on the industry and / or the merchant you are promoting.....4p won't get you far in loans for example.

[Jamster]

Some of my PPC affiliates are seeing up to 30% conversion rates, which for me is the key factor.

It is a complex balancing act of bid, copy, ctr, cr, payout, volume. One that I have certainly not touched the surface of.

I find it really compelling, as it is not only a science, but also an art.

For example, in our sector, it is easy to develop highly compelling copy with high ctr, but cr will inevitably suffer. Less complelling copy with lower ctr will often have a higher cr. It then becomes a question of margins to volume.

I think a degree in Applied Mathematics would be quite useful.

[goose]

Yes - not sure my 'O' level (that's an old GCSE for all you young folk out there) in maths will cut it!

I have cut the max CPC to 4p (trialling a bit higher in some places) and increased the number of search terms considerably. Trouble is the volume of clicks to the site is just not that high. Maybe I need to try to generate yet more search terms (bit of lateral thinking required).

Also, although still on a pretty small sample, the conversion rate of merchants that click through from our site is low (under 1%). Hmmm - not sure what i can do about that.

Still learning!!

Cheers

Goose

[watcher]

Are you using negative keywords effectively to stop the time wasters and pure information hunters ?

Also, have you got tracking in place to see which keywords actually turn into merchant clickthroughs and then which of those turn into sales ?

Google's conversion tracking can help you find which keyword combos lead to merchant clickthroughs; affiliate network tracking parameters can help you determine which keywords lead to sales.

You will need this information to weed out the window shoppers from those that want to part with their cash.

The main obstacle you have in breaking PPC is that you are up against affiliates/agencies who have already built up a huge database of terms which work and terms which don't and it will take you some time to build up your own effective database.

Of course you could bid higher - not primarily to generate more sales but to give you the necessary volumes to do effective analysis of the data to enable you to make more informed decisions - in effect buy yourself market intelligence.

It all depends on how much tiem & money you have to invest upfront.

Added:

Also remember with Adwords its not just the strength of the bid that places you higher but also the CTR of your Ad. Do you think your ads compel users to click it instead of your competitors or do you think it could be improved ?