LESSON #74: Advanced PPC Tips
In the previous lesson, we started talking about PPC traffic.
Today we’re going to be covering some slightly more advanced PPC techniques…
(Watch this video…)
Main points:
IMPORTANT NOTE: Google has been majorly cracking down on advertisers that violate any of their rules. This includes some rules that seemingly were not previously enforced, and some rules that are only now being written and/or being brought to light. This includes promoting anything that they consider to be an unacceptable business model (ie. - anything they deem to be a get rich quick scheme), anything containing what they consider to be unsupported claims, and any page that they consider to be a “bridge” page. Google AdWords is still a great source of traffic, but be very careful to play by Google’s rules!
Seed and Expand - Start with root keywords (seeds), and expand them into a larger list using modifiers.
Some keyword modifiers to get you started: Keyword Modifiers Spreadsheet
Some themes for keyword modifiers…
-Transactional or shopping-related
-Informational
-Adjectives
-Time-related
-Geographic
-Niche related
Recommended Tool: SpeedPPC (Automates the process. Create hundreds of targeted ad groups in minutes)
Spy on Your Competition - Use keyword spy tools to see which keywords are performing for them.
Recommended Tools:
PPC Bully
Keyword Elite
WordTracker
Keyword Spy
Wordze
Market Samurai
Start your bid high. Use position preference for position #1. Aim for maximum CTR, then gradually lower your bid. (See video for demo)
If your account has history of problems and poor CTR, you may consider opening new account.
If your domain has history of poor CTR, use a new domain.
Set up separate ad groups for Exact Match and Phrase Match. (See video for demo)
Test AdWords new Broad Match Modifiers.
Google’s Display Network - shows your advertisements on other people’s websites, in a context OTHER than search engine results.
(See video for demo of Display Network campaign settings)
-Use seperate campaigns for Search Network and Display Network.
-It’s OK for Display Network ad groups to be bigger (ie. 50 keywords), and OK to use Broad Match.
Managed Placement enables you to…
-Choose specific web pages where your ad will be most relevant.
-Create ads specifically designed for those pages.
(See video for demo)
Tips for Banners…
-Blend in or be different
-Use every banner size
-Try the built-in Display Ad Builder
Spy on your competition to see what ads are working for them. (same tools as mentioned above)
Use AdWords editor to speed things up (if you’re not using Speed PPC or similar).
Use Dynamic Keyword Insertion - Very powerful feature. More info here.
Play by Google’s rules.
Dynamic Keyword Insertion - You could put the keyword into…
-Title tag
-Headline
-Ad copy
-Invisible opt-in form field
-Advanced scripting
You can use a simple PHP script for this. Find a free one, or have one built for under $50. Some tools are available such as LPGen (www.lpgen.com). However, I do NOT recommend cloaking your landing pages.
Spy on your competition to see what landing pages are working for them. (same tools as mentioned above)
Use Advanced PPC Tracking Tools. If you’re only promoting your own stuff, it’s probably not necessary, but if you’re promoting as an affiliate via PPC then you may want to check out tools such as Tracking202 and Prosper202.
Consider a Self Liquidating Business Model! (See video for explanation)
Recommended Resource to stay up-to-date with the latest AdWords strategies:
Perry Marshall - Mastermind Coaching Club for AdWords.
Action step:
1) If you’re using PPC, begin using advanced strategies into your campaigns. Start with one, and make a schedule to implement additional strategies that you want to test.
We’ll be looking at some additional paid traffic sources in the next lesson.
As always, you are welcome to post your questions and comments below 
Have a great day!
Hi Eric,
I recollect what you said about responders… the recepient should wait for your email very eagerly… before you even hit the “send” button.
Well I’ve been one such recepient. In fact, since this is an autoresponder, I kept checking for lesson 74 in your blog… thinking maybe Aweber is yet the deliver the mail and maybe the lesson is already available in the blog.
I am yet to listen to it but I am confident that it would be worth the wait.
For once… I am the first person to comment
Regards,
Krishna
Thanks Krishna
Hi Eric,
Very useful tips for soneone like me who is getting started with PPC.
Copy-pasting from excel to notepad was really cool. I usually complicate it by using =CONCATNATE() formula in excel.
Regards,
Krishna
Thank you for making PPC. as simple as you have made it here.
The section on keyword modifiers is really good and easy to understand.
I have been using Market Samurai and it has been really good on keyword research.
Hi Eric
Having watched this very involved video you made, I guess this confirms just why most people wouldn’t try PPC Marketing for their websites.
It’s just too involved, too complicated- and if you don’t know exactly what you are doing - You could very easily and quickly - end up broke!!
regards
Graham
P.S. I’ll stick to providing good quality, unique content for my site to get free traffic.
There is truth to what you say. It’s a double edged sword. PPC by its nature is very simple, and Google makes it easy to join. But it has become a complicated game, and it is easy to lose money on it.
I agree with what Graham in UK said above…from experience. Over the years I have lost thousands on PPC and after reading Eric’s list above, I can easily see why.
As Eric said, it’s a double edged sword. I can vouch for the sharpness of the blade
My husband and I have been researching for months…thanks for the tips Eric…so far haven’t lost money…the future awaits.
Hi Eric, very good tips as usual like other lessions. I learned a lot today.
thanks
Hi Eric,
I already watch your video and your explanations there are very interesting.
Long time ago I just used the PPC Google AdWords to promote more Clickbank’s Marketplace products as affiliate and I just earned some money ,but not many, because AdWords started to offers big bids for my chosen keywords and I give it up. I like this promoting method but it I need more money.Now I’ll learn more from your lesson and I’ll try it again.
Until then, I continue to promote by means of my 10 traffic exchanges a MRR product bought by you with your OTO templates.A month ago I used your squeezepage template and I set up to sell a MRR product with OTO1 and I got 20 subscribers on my opt-in list within my Aweber account but unfortunately,without to buy my MRR product or OTO1 product.
Can you explain me why they only subscribed? Is it something wrong?
Do you know which is the percentage of sales of 100 subscribers?
I try to earn some money then to go to AdWords to promote it there.
I already lost a lot of your good Special Edition offers.I don’t know if I’ll get them later.
Respectfuly,
Petre Tudor
With only 20 subscribers is it probably too early to make an assessment. You need at least 100 to determine if the OTO is converting or not.
The principles of getting an OTO to convert into sales are much the same as the principles of a regular sales letter. There are a lot of variables, and it all comes down to the sales copy, the offer… and whether or not the perceived value in the mind of the prospect exceeds the price. There are a lot of things to be tested. If you make no sales after 100 subscribers, then you could try lowering the price incrementally until you start making sales. If you still aren’t making many sales, then there is probably something else about the offer (other than the price) that is not resonating with your market.
The conversion rate for an OTO is highly variable. It might be anywhere from 1% to 50%+, depending on what the OTO is and how it’s presented.
An OTO occuring after a purchase will have a much higher conversion than an OTO occuring after a free opt-in. Nevertheless, and OTO after a free opt-in should still have a higher conversion rate than a similar offer presented without an opt-in.
So if an average sales letter converts in the range of 1%-5%… You could turn that same offer into an OTO after an opt-in and I would expect the conversion rate to be nearly doubled– in the 2%-10% range.
Eric, Thanks for showing the real data here with ur experience.
As you know, internet marketer can send ppc traffic directly to a sales letter or goes to squezze page first then following up with the prospects to make a sale.
The conversion rate of these two methods will be big difference. Product vendor always say they have 3% or 5% conversion rate. But when you test it the result is not that good. may be 0.5% or lower.
How do they make those data?
1. sales number/visitor number*100% with direct linking traffic
2. sales number/prospects number*100% with signing up squezze page first.
The product vendor is probably basing their 3-5% conversion rate on conversion to their own list, or JV list traffic, which is going to convert much higher than PPC.
Eric I have a problem
I have with google adwords around 3 months one the my campaign a made a mistake I use to put $5.00 daily budget all the sudden adding words keys the system add $500.00 daily budget now the click it cost me a lot,, I paused de campaign already charged me too much,,, now the credit card refuse for the payment because its a lot .. what your recomended..
can you please send me a email..
or anyone here can help
Hi Leonel, adding keywords to a campaign does not increase your daily budget as far as I know. So I’m not sure how it would have been increased from $5.00 to $500 without you knowing. I wonder if maybe you didn’t type the period in 5.00. I’ve had that happen to me before on keyword bids where I meant to do .50 and it ended up $50. Anyway, sorry to hear about your experience. As I warned, it is possible to lose a lot of money quickly on PPC. Also I generally do not recommend PPC for marketers who don’t have enough capital to risk some of it testing PPC campaigns.
Hi Eric, Totally agree with you that ppc is risky way to test ppc campaigns especially they don’t have enough capital and no accurate knowledge of PPC. Which way do you recommend to test the conversion rate of the new squeeze page or a new sales letter?THX
If you have your own list, that’s a good way to test it (or test it on a small SEGMENT of your list). PPC is also a good way to test offers, the key is just to set your budgets and only spend what you’re willing to spend on a test.
ok I urdenstand Eric what’s going to happen If I decided not to pay,, means I dont have that money for now..google adwords they going to obligate to pay or what is the procedure the amount is around $350.00 Because the credit card was reffused I dont know
It affect my credit record in the future..
Thanks for ur great tips.It explained PPC in a easy to understand way. Got three questions for you hope you can help to answer. THX
1. With Google slap, a lot of people say that marketers can’t use squeeze page anymore. But we can see some of the markers still use squeeze page with PPC. What’s the rule? How to use adwords to build a list?
2. What’s the difference between speedpc and lpgen? They looks too similar.
3. As you mentioned, Google use staffs to review the ad. Does that mean we can’t use the above software tool to build thousands landing page? Do we have to do it manually?
1) the rule is that it’s up to Google and they make their decision in each situation. They are not explicitly anti-list building. However, they will flag your site if they think your business model is “collecting information”. Also they will flag your site if it does not appear to have significant content or good navigation, and that rules out many squeeze pages. Most of the “old fashioned” squeeze pages on Adwords are probably ads that have been running for years. The other thing to keep in mind is google does not like “get rich quick” type of sites, so that rules out a lot of IM stuff. You’ve got a lot better chance of using a good squeeze page if it’s in a socially acceptable niche that google doesn’t have a problem with.
2) big difference. SpeedPC helps build ad groups, keyword lists, etc. and they do have a landing page tool. LPgen is a landing page tool, and cloaking tool.
3) SpeedPPC is fine because it does the same thing as if you were doing it manually… just faster. 1000’s of landing pages are OK, IF they are all perfectly relevant. LPgen cloaking is what I would avoid.
Hi Eric,
Many thanks, bro & good presentations. There are still allots of things that we need to learn.
By the look of your doing, we are sure the big gun marketers is always at the top of every campaigns, like u.
We get to learn but no way to compete,losing money could be always.
Eric, thanks once again for a fantastic lesson! I would like to ask your recommendation: I have a self hosted WP blog and a blogger.com blog. I am also registered on most of the social media sites/networks. I post on my blog almost daily but in the process I hardly ever get time to update my blogger blog with the same content. need to know how I can make one post and have it “fed” to blogger and all my social sites without having to duplicate and go to each one (this takes a lot of time!) Can u make any suggestions? I would really appreciate it!
There are WP plugins to broadcast to most social networks, however the blogger blog might be a little more difficult. I did find one plugin for it, but no one has reviewed it:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/bloggercom-publisher/
Also I would recommend checking out ping.fm, as it will handle most of your other social networks with one post:
http://ping.fm/networks/
Actually ping.fm supposedly integrates with blogger too.
Very well said Eric.
Like always you are right on and a great Teacher and Mentor.
God Bless.
Thanks,
Kimberly
Hi Eric,
Sorry for going way off topic here but i wanted to let you know this. You may want to add some content to your trading pro sales page stating that anyone from the UK can not use Thinkorswim and have not been able to since late last year.
When you go to the thinkorswim site to open an account you have to fill out their form and when you get to the part ” country of residence” if you select the UK a message pops up saying ” sorry we are not accepting accounts from the UK at this time”.
I have called them to find out when will they be taking accounts from the UK and the reply was ” we don’t know”.
Obviously this is a problem for anyone from the UK who buys your trading pro product.
Thanks for the heads up. Have you tried downloading the Paper trading version of TOS? Because that’s how I use the system. I use the paper trading TOS platform for all the charts and everything, but I usually place my trades with another online broker. To download it, you don’t have to make a deposit, so I think there would be a way for you to download it…
Still developing product and my campaign. This information should help me a lot in getting it right.
On another topic I just joined PayBox which seems to be a payment platform developed as competition to PayPal. Any one have any additional knowledge? see it here:
http://www.paybox.me/r/bgcii
Disclosure if you join I might get a commission.
I broke the rules for PPC somewhere and my account is closed. Just a warning: the rules are strictly applied! You can get into trouble very easily and Google has no sympathy.
Hi Eric
It’s great one,I have question spinning in my head I received many offers (Ididn’t purchase) claiming that they have product not depending on any known trafic resource (like seo,ppc,mob,artlicles,ezines….etc) what do u think their method is it black hat?? or something else?!!!!! or purely scam?
Thanks
It’s impossible to know, without seeing the product. But most likely, it’s just an exaggeration. There are always new traffic-related products claiming “unknown”, “secret”, “hidden” traffic sources. But most of it is just new ways of packaging the old methods. And if it is truly a NEW method, it is often a flash-in-the-pan tactic that stops working after a short while. That’s why in these lessons I will focus mainly on traffic tactics that have been tested over time and will most likely work for quite awhile.
Hi Eric
I bought some of your offers last week , but some one approach me with program said to be too good to believe , since I though you honest and secere person I’ve asked u for some guidence , unfortunately the question was omit from your blog ….! is there any reason for that??
Rgrds
mosa
Thanks for your business! Your question was probably not omitted, I probably just haven’t gotten to it yet. Also you can always get support for my products at my helpdesk http://www.ericsupport.com
I have a concern with bidding for the top position using geo-targeting of English speakers in non-U.S. countries to get a higher CTR. What worries me is if a lot of marketers are already doing this which would really drive up the bid price. As always testing and placing a max bid amount (amount your willing to pay)is the best defensive tool we have. Are there a few keywords that you tend to avoid because of this?
It’s a legitimate concern, but keep in mind that most marketers would only employ the method temporarily. So at any given point, hopefully there should not be too many doing it in a particular niche. I’d say your best defense for this particular strategy is simply a low daily budget. If your budget gets eaten up by just a few clicks, then you’ll know there are other marketers bidding high on the keyword(s).
Some really interesting advice here thank you
Thanks Eric,
As always great information I have learnt so much from all your post’s. I have been down the track of ppc and it’s not easy.Thanks again things are a lot clearer now!
Greeting to Mr Eric. What an awesome missionary photos especially your very beautiful wife and children. What a warmth family! And appreciate such useful marketing strategies you have shared so far! Wish you all the success in whatever you do.
Hi Eric,
I am new in your discussion, could help me about the Google Adword Qualifying Test, what are the requirement, how much is cost, what are the matter in this test, how much test demand, what I have to qualify for the test and whatever I can get from your side because I want to qualify this test.
I have not taken the test, but Google pretty well offers all the training for free:
http://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/static.py?hl=en&page=examstudy.cs&ctx=go
Hi Eric I’d been looking everywhere for a place to contact you, could find only this one. I’ve ordered and paid for that 30 eBooks and didn’t received anything up to now. When can I expect the books? Thank you Ina
Please submit a ticket to my helpdesk at http://www.ericsupport.com and we’ll make sure you get the login/download link. Thanks!
Hi Eric, been trying to get back to you. I find your tips very informative and useful to me as a newbie, However at number 75 they seem to have stopped and I thought they were going to 100? Many thanks for the ones I have recd and would much appreciate the remainder if you are still doing them. Best wishes
Aden
I’ll be posting more soon, thanks!
i am just starting out on internet marketing and for this year i would say much thanks to you for my success.
Like you said, King is the list.
Wow! I was surfing the internet and stumbled into this site. I really need this kind of information. Many thanks to you Eric! Here is my site Iligan City Online Community where I wanted to run PPC. I am still new and would love to see more traffic on my site.
Hi, Eric .
I’m a newbie .Your lessons are so useful .Thanks a lot . I should have learned all these much earlier .
Now , my adword account is permanently suspended …
Anyway I can get back in ?
Hi Simoza,
It’s becoming increasingly difficult to comply with Google’s policies. We’re coming into an era where Google has decided they no longer need smaller affiliates.
We’ve heard numerous reports from people who’s accounts were banned, and no explanation was given.
We recommend that you carefully follow whatever Google tells you if you want to continue to advertise with them, or you may want to move over to Yahoo and Microsoft.
i just have a simple question, in the recommend tool list you do not list the tool that you sell yourself, is it a good tool to buy or these tool above ar better
and thanks for all the information
Hello Jean-Francois,
Eric has a separate page for his own products here:
http://www.ericstips.com/products/
Eric, I’m just starting out in IM. I started out as an affliliate for a weight loss product.
Three days after my ppc Ad started, google wrote to tell me my account has been permanently banned.
Is there a way to set up another adwords account?
Two, what traffic method, in your opinion, is the best for promoting a squeeze page.
Three. Google is becoming somewhat arrogant. How can anybody send traffic to a squeezepage using adwords without incurring the wrath of
mighty google?
Thanks.
I’m sorry to hear that. They are banning virtually anyone that they perceive to be an “internet marketer”. So for now, I’d forget about AdWords. It is possible to send AdWords to a squeeze page, but I believe those marketers are generally spending millions of dollars with Google. There are many other good ways of sending traffic to a squeeze page such as ad swaps with other marketers, methods I mentioned in lesson #67, and other traffic methods covered in these lessons.
HI Eric
What about Gets response “buy leads” programme.
The cost for 200 leads is 0.45 each!
actually i have purchased cost i am trying to get US market. I am from Asia ( Malaysia).
when i sent message to my 186 list. i got results as this:
24 opened ( open rate 12.9%)
1 click ( 0.54% click rate)
in yr opinion? is this very bad?
thanks
Hello Abdul,
Your list isn’t quite to a large enough size to get a good sample yet, but you would want at least a several percent click-through rate.
Here is a link with some tips on improving your click-through rate:
http://www.lyris.com/email-marketing/85-Average-Email-Click-Through-Rate
Eric,
The expert exposure to the different types of marketing enables me to make a learned decision as to the direction that I want my business to take so can concentrate on one direction, intially, and decided to incorporate others as I master each. As always, you are the Master -:)
Nedra