How to Do a PPC Campaign for a Product That Has a Longer Buying Cycle
Pay per click, or PPC, is an advertising strategy that involves developing image or short text ads for placement in search engine listings and on websites and blogs that host search engine ads. When a search engine user or website visitor clicks on an ad, the company hosting the ad charges you a fee. When you plan to link a PPC ad directly to a product sales page, the process of crafting the ad is fairly straightforward; however, for products that require a longer buying cycle, such as informational products costing more than $1,000, developing PPC ads requires careful planning.
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Instructions
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Determine the starting point of the product buying cycle. For high-cost products, you should typically begin by offering a free or low-cost informational product, such as an ebook or access to a webinar replay, that builds interest by helping the visitor identify a problem. For example, if you want to sell an Internet marketing course worth $2,000, the appropriate starting point might be a $7 webinar replay outlining the top reasons why Internet marketers don't make money.
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Sign up for an email marketing account with a company such as Constant Contact, Aweber or iContact. An email marketing account provides you with opt-in forms to place on website pages, and allows you to set up email messages that the system automatically sends to recipients at specified intervals.
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Build a squeeze page for the initial free or low-cost product. A squeeze page is a single-page website containing copy or video designed to make the visitor want the initial product. It also contains an email opt-in form, which visitors must complete to access the product.
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Research keywords related to the initial product through the PPC provider's keyword search tool or a third-party keyword research tool. These tools can provide keywords related to your squeeze page and tell you how many people search using those keywords each month. PPC providers' keyword tools typically also tell you how competitive the keywords are, and how much you will likely pay for each click triggered by certain keywords.
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Write a PPC ad using at least two of the keywords you want to target -- one of the keywords should appear in the headline of the ad. The ad should build interest in the initial product, rather than the high-cost product at the end of the buying cycle.
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Set up a PPC campaign using the ad containing your top keywords. Select the keywords you want to trigger the ad, and choose the maximum amount you want to pay per click for each keyword.
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Set up more campaigns, changing only one variable for each campaign. For example, you can keep the same keywords and squeeze page, but change your PPC ad copy, or keep the ad copy the same but target a different list of keywords. You can also keep the ad and the keywords, but target a separate squeeze page with a different design or color scheme. Changing only one variable per campaign allows you to accurately test variables to determine what produces the best results -- that is, which combination compels the highest percentage of visitors to sign up for your initial product.
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Tips & Warnings
Set up PPC ads and squeeze pages for different points in the buying cycle to attract different types of buyers. For example, relatively experienced Internet marketers may not be interested in your initial product but might be interested in more advanced information that would appear later in the buying cycle for beginning Internet marketers.
Avoid aggressive bidding on keywords to gain top positioning until you have thoroughly tested your ads and squeeze pages. Overpaying on keywords for underperforming ads and squeeze pages can cause you to lose money on your marketing campaign.
References
- "Ultimate Guide to Pay Per Click Advertising"; Richard L. Stokes; 2010
- "Ultimate Guide to Google Adwords, Second Edition"; Perry Marshall, et al.; 2010
