| “Pay-for-Performance” or “Pay-per-Click”
Internet advertising is making big waves lately, and the two biggest
players are Google and Overture, which was recently purchased
by Yahoo. Microsoft has since joined the fray with MSN Search
and there are numerous other fish (albeit tadpoles) in the pond.
When it comes to promoting a book, the advantages of internet
advertising over traditional print advertising can be summed up
with the following acronym-rich equation: CPC - CPM = PPC. That's
CMO-speak for expressing how much more cost effective cost-per-conversion
analysis is to cost-per-thousand analysis.
With Pay Per Click advertising via Google and Overture, the cost
of the ad is based upon the performance of the ad; however, the
effectiveness of the ad is gauged by its conversion ratio. Thanks
to tools provided by both Google and Overture, these conversion
ratios can be calculated automatically.
Traditional print media, on the other hand, provides a CPM (cost
per thousand) to demonstrate cost (value) of an ad. A certain
number of people will see the ad (and believe me, this number
is pie-in-the-sky, based upon circulation times "readership").
Therefore, the cost is X.
It's easy to recognize the advantages of pay per click advertising,
especially when promoting a relatively small-ticket item such
as a book, but before jumping head first into the PPC arena, review
the following tips:
1) Be aware of the differences between Google and Overture
Google is the leading search engine at the moment, but their
reach never exceeds their grasp. Overture technology, on the other
hand, currently extends to Yahoo, AltaVista, CNN, Infospace, and
others. Overture requires you to deposit money into an account
in advance. Said account is then depleted based upon your campaign
selection. Meanwhile, Google simply bills your credit card based
upon your expenditures. Overture provides more intuitive and complete
reporting functionality that enables you to analyze the effectiveness
of keywords, but Google allows you to enter a maximum expenditure-per-day.
This daily cap provides more control over your monthly spending
while Overture’s system simply draws money from the online
account until depleted. This daily draw can vary substantially
from one day to the next. Also, Overture requires you to keep
3 days of “extra cash” on hand. Do you earn interest
on the money you’re loaning to Overture? Forget about it.
2) Be aware of the similarities
Both Google and Overture differentiate their paid clicks from
their free, contextual algorithms, usually by featuring the “sponsored”
searches on a different part of the page and by highlighting them
in a color box. Recently, Overture launched a new product, or
search mechanism, whereby an advertiser can choose to be listed
among the contextual content, also. That’s kind of like
paying for a meal after you’ve already eaten it.
Both services also experience infrequent, yet unexplained, “spikes”
that decimate your daily or monthly budget in a matter of minutes
or hours. It’s a little unnerving knowing that you could
blow through $500 or $1000 in a matter of minutes with absolutely
no recourse. Staffed to handle these anomalies, both services
feature barely adequate customer service with representatives
who often reply to such technical idiosyncrasies with hostile
ambivalence. Sounds like an oxymoron, but it’s not.
3) Start conservatively
That said, realize that pay-per-click campaigns are not an exact
science and contain the potential to be ridiculously expensive
if you’re not careful. Start a campaign on either Google
or Overture, but not both. Become familiar with the mechanics
before launching full scale advertising campaigns on the other
service.
4) Understand the mechanics
The way pay-for-performance works is simple. You bid on search
terms, either words or phrases or a combination of both. Your
webpage link then appears in search engine results relative to
the price of the bid. If you're the highest bidder, your webpage
appears at the absolute top of many search engines. Remember the
frustration of typing in a search for your webpage and never finding
your link? No longer!
5) Understand the advantages
Perhaps the best part of pay-for-performance advertising is the
“pay for performance” part. Unlike traditional advertising
where you pay based upon the number of impressions, here, you
only pay if people click on your link. In essence, they are pre-sold.
6) Select the appropriate keywords
Let's look at an example. Say you have published a mystery novel
about the death of a land baron in Louisiana. Not exactly a new
plot and yet millions of "whodunit" readers may be interested
in reading it. Your solution? Open a pay-for-performance account
and bid on search terms like "Louisiana Mystery Novel"
and "Mystery Book Plantation" and other similar search
terms. Counter-intuitively, the more specific the term, the better
your campaign will perform, since very specific searches deliver
very motivated buyers to your page. Since you're paying for each
click, you want those browsers to buy! That's where "conversion"
comes in to play.
7) Understand the disadvantages
You have to be very careful managing your bids and selecting
your keywords, or pay-for-performance advertising can become ineffective.
Do not bid on ridiculously vague and popular words like "book"
or “fiction” because you will never recoup your money.
Instead, focus your search terms as specifically as possible.
It's only a matter of time before traditional print media finds
some way to adopt this new method of cost-per-conversion and pay-for-performance
advertising. Those who don't will die trying. Viva la digital
revolution!
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