PPC - Something to consider when evaluating and optimising a campaign

I built a simple table where you can easily see the relationship between CPC (cost per click), CPA (cost per acquisition) and CR (conversion rate) when evaluating and optimising a PPC campaign.
 The table below answers for example to the following questions: 

1. Given a cpc and a max CPA, what's the minimum CR we need to have a successful campaign? This means:If you pay an average cost per click of £1 and you don't want to spend more than £10 per conversion --> check the table --> your campaign and landing page should guarantee at least 10% conversion rate (= every 10 clicks, 1 conversion.
2. The conversion rate of my campaign is XX but I am spending to much per conversion. How much should I low the cpc in order to match my target CPA?This means: If your current CR is 10% and you want to spend 5£ (instead of £10) for your conversions --> check the table --> your cpc from 1 should go down to £0.50 I hope this helps.

Feel free to contact me if you want the xls file or if you simply need help reading the table.

Social Media Tools: Monitoring, Engaging, Reporting. How to select the right tool?

I have to select a Social Media tool to make my life easier (automating manual jobs) and to add quality to the info I provide my clients with.

There are lots of tools available in the market, some of them are for free, some are paid, some are very expensive!

Internet is full of information, guides, comparison tables and so on.

Where to start from?

Well, first thing I did was reading my bible (http://www.smartinsights.com) and I came across very interesting articles, I would highlight one in particular about "Requirement for Social Listening tools".

Then I shortlisted 3 tools and tested them for few hours each and this is my feedback:

- Radian 6: although is considered to be one of the most popular tool, especially after it was acquired by SalesForce, I haven't tested it because I was very disappointed with the sales team. I sent them an email requesting info and trial account and they replied with few lines about the the features and the different product they have with relative price. They also added link to 1 minute Youtube videos in case I was interested in getting more details. Poor customer service, very expensive product: Radian 6 out!

- HootSuite: I use it every day and I think it's one of the best social networks management tool, I would go for a pro account ($9.99/month) just to have the possibility to upload content by using the bulk uploader. In terms of report, I have found it a bit poor and sometimes not accurate.

- Sysomos: it was suggested to me by my colleague Simon and so far it's my favorite tool. Michael, the sales guy who came to give me a face-to-face demo (different type of service compared to Radian 6), in less than 60 minutes, gave me a complete training on how to use to
he tool. I had a trial for few days and I have found it easy to use and useful: the amount of data offered, coverage, data latency, data export, and types of reports available were exactly what I was looking for. Unfortunately Sysomos doesn't have yet an alert system, but I am sure they are working on it.

Anyway, the budget allocated for the Social Media tool was not enough to buy Sysomos, so next week I have to test 3 different tools: I think I will go for http://simplymeasured.com/, http://sendible.com/ and ... do you want to suggest the 3rd one?

My advice to you is: before testing any tool, make sure you know what you want to listen, measure and report on, then test the tools accordingly.

Back to the blog: Social Media.

After a long break, here I am: back to my virtual digital land.

I will write today about social media.

Few days ago I was reading news, opinions, business cases about Social Media and I came across the following sentence:

“Social media is like teen sex, everyone wants to do it. No one actually knows how.” – Avinash Kaushik

I have found it so real. Social Media are everywhere: on my desktop, on my mobile, on the cup of my coffee in Starbucks and I find it so exciting.

The digital marketing land is full of experts, people ready to give you advices about what to do there, what to post, how to engage with you clients and stakeholders.. how to make money out of that.

And then there are these "gurus".. they talk about viral campaigns: how to make your campaign viral. I am listening to and reading about people who want to create viral campaigns. Ok, there might be few common ingredients.. but let's be honest here: nobody knows the secret of "virality" (virality itself is a word that doesn't exist yet).

Even the big Google is trying to create a social network viral like facebook.. but.. money cannot buy it!

Did facebook predict its success? Were Angry Birds developers "genius"?

Here there is my opinion.

Personally I think that Social Media reflect the real world in a different environment: there are many cases that show how things are difficult to control over there, as it's difficult to predict people reactions in general. Considered this, they are an open environment without any control and with the total freedom to express and share content, ideas etc, where everything is searchable, reachable and possible. Well.. this is the BIG challenge.

At the same time I think we now have the right tools to listen to our audience and understand what they really need, think and look for.

From a business point of view, Social Media involve all the functions: Marketing, PR, IT, Finance, Logistic, etc.

All of these functions need to be coordinated and follow a unique direction: set objectives behind social media activities (what are these activities? Is it just content? mmm... I don't think so).

Creating a page with Facebook takes 2 minutes, creating accounts in Google+, LinkedIn, Twitter etc. is not that complicated.

What to do with all these DIFFERENT tools, when, how, who... why? This is the main point and I personally think that this is a Marketing issue!

Ok ok.. I am a marketer, I am not neutral.. but.. this is my blog! I don't have to be neutral :)

During the following days I will do some researches and I will write about pro and cons for all the social networks. Stay tuned.

That's it for now..

Actually no.. there is one more question: Who owns Social Media? MArketing or PR? Feel free to be neutral :)

Best,

Antonella

How to link a YouTube video to an external website?

Youtube doesn't give the possibility to link to external websites (although I heard about few cases...) I have used LinkedTube  and the result is not that bad actually... What do you think?

What is viral?

I will never forget this video! I was attending SES Conference in London; strange to believe but that was my first online marketing event. I think it was early in 2011, when I started working for QS. At some point somebody was on the stage talking about the concept of "virality" and what are the best practices to create something viral.. and.. BHAM! He played this video. This video was made in a couple of days if I am not wrong. Do you remember the eruption of the Vulcan in Island? All the attention of the media was there: I remember I was in London and I was supposed to fly to Italy but I couldn't because all the airports were closed due to this black ash cloud! I also remember an amazing blue sky and no clouds :) Anyway.. Inspiredbyiceland had the intuition that that was the right time to promote the tourism in island, so they decide to produce a video: they didn't have time and they didn't have budget. Look at what they were able to create.. and guess what! This was viral

Testing the effectiveness of your PPC ad campaign

Step 1:

Research for the most effective and relevant key words (around 800-1000 key words including broad, exact and phrase based key words) that suits your business and then start your PPC campaign.

Step 2:

• Now out the available key words, choose a key word with which you want to run your PPC ad campaign.
• Aim for the key word that can earn you 10/10 quality score.

Step 3:

• In order to test your PPC ad campaign, create different ad groups in your main campaign.
• Make at least 2 ad groups wherein you can experiment with 2-3 similar key words.

Step 4:

• Design an attractive and informative landing page that is inclusive of the key words used in your main ad copy.
• Put H1 tag on your key word/s.
• Repeat the key words at least 3 to 5 times in your ad copy as well as on your landing page.
• In case you are using images in your ad copy, use Alt Tags there.

Step 5:

Add meta tags to your landing page.

Step 6:

• Make 2 ad copies for the 2 key words selected.
• Each of these ads must have a separate landing page.

Step 7:

Link your ad copies to the respective landing pages.

Step 8:

Run your PPC campaign for at least 10-15 days, then start analyzing your efforts. Ask the following questions from yourself:-

• How many clicks I received with a particular key word/phrase?
• How many impressions I got with every key word used?
• What is the CTR of my chosen key word/s?
• What is the average CPC of my campaign?
• What is my goal conversion rate?
• What is the bounce rate of my key word/s?
• Is my landing page properly optimized with regards to the key words used?
• Am I using an attractive ad copy?

Remember:

The success of your PPC ad campaign depends on:-

• High CTR
• Higher lead conversions
• Low bids

No matter what type of product/service you have and what kind of ad you run, the success of your PPC campaign depends on your landing page which is directly proportional to your quality score. The effectiveness of your landing page depends on several parameters like key words, ad copy etc.
The aforesaid steps are very generic in nature but often we tend to miss a point or two mentioned here, that can really help us reduce the CPC and increase the CPM of our PPC ad campaign.
A successful PPC ad campaign can also positively affect your SEO campaign. Hence, it is essential to pre test your PPC ad campaign.

From: http://shortlinks.co.uk/2wxc

Linking Adwords to Analytics

There are 3 singers with 3 different websites:

1)      http://www.singer1.com/

2)      http://www.singer2.com/

3)      http://www.singer3.com/

I manage Analytics for all the  websites with my google account.

I use Adwords to promote the tour dates.

Below the structure of MCC (My Client Center):

The first segmentation is geographical. I need this segmentation because each region has got different budget and different people responsible for the events.

I need to monitor the visits from Adwords by using Analytics, but I cannot link MCC to my analytics account.

I read some forums and I realized that I should open multiple Analytics accounts for each AdWords account I need to track.

I currently have 3 Website Profiles on Analytics. Is there any way to split them up to 3 different analytics account (without losing all data from the past)?