I’ve been on the mailing list of Glenn Livingston, a pay-per-click internet marketing specialist, for quite a while. He’s generous with providing free material such as audio interviews, and I’ve learned a lot from him. I haven’t bought any of his products or services, and I don’t know if they are worthwhile. I found him through my connection with Fred Gleeck; Fred has collaborated with Glen and seems to think highly of him.
Here’s the crux of today’s post. Most of us know that we can get traffic to our sites — and the sales pages for our information products — using pay-per-click advertising (PPC) through Google Adwords and similar services from Yahoo, Bing, and others.
But How Often Does Pay Per Click Pay Off?
Glen just wrote a post titled “4 Things I No Longer Believe.” It holds very interesting insights for all of us who sell information products and do Internet marketing.
But what Glen said about PPC really caught my attention:
But here’s the thing … in today’s competitive environment, you’re doing yourself a disservice if you think you’re gonna be profitable out of the gate. There are literally 10x more advertisers than when I started. Plus, in many (if not most) markets, the click costs are 5 times higher. And marketers are MUCH more sophisticated in content management, follow up, and direct response in general. Plus, of course, Google’s made it harder and harder for the little guy to advertise well.
So, just like in the real world, if you want to develop a real business, you’ve got to have a funding and cash flow plan to get you through your research + a few months of losses while you do your testing and develop your system.
I appreciate Glen’s willingness to dish the bad news. But I don’t like that news.
My Potential Pay Per Click Campaigns for My Potential Information Products
I have at least two products I’d like to create in two different niches. Both are small with little competition (and neither has to do with making money). I’ve done a little research on PPC marketing, enough to know I likely wouldn’t get rich off these products. The best I could hope for would be a few hundred bucks a month from each. However, they are both in niches that I know a lot about and have a strong personal interest in.
I don’t have the time to do much other marketing for these products beyond PPC. I would set up a website, do a few blog posts, write a few ezinearticles.com articles, and do a bit more to help SEO, but that’s it.
So What’s Stopping Me?
Let’s look at it:
1. My lack of knowledge about running PPC campaigns. I’m a fairly smart guy, I’m good with math, and I learn quickly, but I’d still have to learn…
2. The cost to learn about doing PPC. This includes any money I pay for a book on Amazon, or a course from someone like Glenn or Perry Marshall, plus the time I take to learn and perfect the system (and the latter is the biggie).
3. Uncertain probability of success. I always focus on Return on Investment. (See my Intelligent Productivity blog for more on this.) So far I have focused on social media and search engine optimization techniques to drive traffic to my websites and sales pages. That I understand, and it’s brought me some modest success. PPC is a big unknown.
How do you feel about using pay per click to market your information products? Have you done it? Do you recommend it?
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
PPC is entirely a numbers game, and if you like stats then PPC is perfect for you. I personally will try PPC once I master keyword research, and I mean MASTER it.
My opinion is that until you can master the art of finding obscure keyphrases in obscure and little known niche markets, STAYAWAY FROM PPC!
As Glen said in the email, you are competing against some savvy and experienced marketers. Keyword skills are the best and probably only weapon you will be able to bring into the fight.
Just my opinion though
Nice post too John!
Alex, thanks for writing.
I’m very good with numbers. I’ve also done some preliminary investigation of PPC, and you are absolutely right: it’s important to excel at finding long-tail keyword phrases with low click costs.
Glen and other PPC experts say that you’re not done once you set up a successful campaign. Campaigns need to be monitored and tweaked to stay successful.
I’ve followed you from Glenn Livingston’s blog.
Like you I used to rely on SEO and social media but PPC is great for filling in the holes in your coverage. You only have to add one word in a Google search and you can be looking at a very different Google front page.
The idea of paying for each click can be scary which is why conversions are so important and the revenue/cost ratio.
Negative keywords are important and so too can qualifying your offer in the PPC ad.
Have a little play. If you haven’t started an Adwords account, you can get vouchers which let you try it for free. I’m in the UK and the biggest offer I’ve seen is £50.
Paul Simister´s last blog ..Finding Causes To Business Performance Problems: Have You Got It Wrong?
Paul, thanks for sharing your insight.
I’m actually somewhat attracted to PPC because it’s a mix of math, the science of the PPC rules, and the art of writing good ads and good copy.
I do have a Google Adwords account, and I have briefly run a campaign for my ebook Writing College Supplements (bottom of sidebar to right).
There are two main ways to limit spending: daily spending cap and highest cost per click. I used both. I confess I had both low and I was in a competitive freelance writing market.
And I show up page 1, and sometimes number 1, for the most likely keywords for Writing College Textbook Supplements.
PS: I really like your site, and your dog. (I have a 14-year-old golden retriever.)
Yes, PPC is playing great role on internet marketing. We need to monitor campaign.
Nice Post. PPC is something i am trying from some time.
Btw i just opt-in on Glenn’s newsletter.
Looking forward to hearing more about PPC.
Thanks for sharing this great Post. Have a great day.
~Dev
Dev | Technshare´s last blog ..How To Professionally Conduct a Interview?
Dev, thanks for stopping by.
Glad you subscribed to Glenn’s newsletter. He also has an extensive set of free mp3′s if you’re interested.
Thanks John,
Yeah, I’ll try Mp3′s. Thanks for the info
!!
Dev | Technshare´s last blog ..How To Professionally Conduct a Interview?
Many are good. Many also have a bit of product pitching, but you still learn a lot.
John, I have been dabbling with PPC for a few months so I am no expert. I have found that it cost me a few dollars to start with but I used a $75 voucher sent to me in the email to kick it off.
A few tips that might help are:
* Keep your keywords tight
* Limit your daily budget to something that will not surprise you
* Do not add every keyword that the adwords tool suggests
* Do you own research with keywords to see if the search results generated relate to the product or service you’re selling
* (Absolute essential tip) Do put tracking codes in your sales thank you pages so you know when a click has generated a sale. Without tracking you’re running blind and will find it difficult to fine-tune your keywords or ad wording.
* At first, do not let adwords automatically adjust your PPC bid price. I tried that for a month and keywords I was bidding on from 10 to 20 cents a click went up to over 60 cents in a week and my ad positions didn’t change all that much. Google and an a few adsense advertisers were the only winners in that one. Pick your own price at first and adjust every few days as your stats come in. Ad position 1 is not always essential to get the click.
* I started out with <1% click throughs and even worse conversions. Now I am getting 2-3% click through rate, mostly on the search engine results pages, with a 2-3% conversion rate. It is costing me on average $11 to sell each $30 product. Now all I need to do is increase the volume and not lose the conversion %. PS. You must track sales conversions or you may as well throw money into a black hole. I hope that helps you and some of your readers. Michael
Michael Pedzotti@online business strategies´s last blog ..Every 100 visitors is worth $240
Michael, you shared a lot of very good information about PPC here. Thanks!
I really like the look and feel of your blog and I’m subscribing to your feed.
By the way, I forgot to include the link to a $50 offer I found. It is direct from Google, no affiliate links. https://www.google.com/appserve/fb/forms/auonline/. It seems to be for Australia only. Maybe you can find one for your country with a bit of searching, or just try this one and see what happens.
Michael Pedzotti@online business strategies´s last blog ..Try on your visitor’s shoes
I used an offer from Google for $100 for Adwords. I got it after I starting using Google Analytics (or perhaps it was Adsense).
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