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PPC Management Strategy - Part 2
February 15, 2007
Part 2: The Initial Campaign Phase
Much like a wedding ceremony, a lot of preparation has gone into the Conception & Setup of a PPC campaign. The research has been done. The guest list errr keyword list has been whittled down to VIPs’s, and the budget has been set for the banquet to follow the ceremony that gets the ball rolling. Furthermore as most if not all bride’s will tell you the ceremony actually passes in a whirlwind of activity, and before they know it it all has passed and the next stage of 'and they lived happily ever after' is just beginning.
Well, as we know the happily ever after only comes with hard work, perseverance and the willingness to try things out and accept mistakes. The is also the second step in the PPC Setup phase that I like to refer to as 'Getting Traction'.
Getting Traction
Getting Traction simply means that we've stepped on the gas and gotten this campaign up and running. Now let's play around a bit and find out where our limits are. We don't want to put too much money into the pot at this point because we're not sure at what point we stop spinning the wheels and actually accelerate. We also only now are gathering real-time data on what each keyword is going to cost us let alone which one's actually get traffic. It is important to remember that this aspect can be very volatile. It is important to have set a budget up front, before the campaign is live. Other than that I find it important to set few restrictions, such as time and date targeting, on the campaign until you can definitively tell when your words are being searched on.
Establishing a Baseline
They say that ignorance is bliss and I imagine that applies to marriage as well, but I also know that money is one of the biggest issues that causes problems in marriages as well. Not knowing where or why your money going where it's going will cause stress in any situation, and with PPC's propensity to go through money like water it is definitely no exception. To lay the groundwork for monitoring and controlling your monetary investment it is vitally important to start keeping track of results. No matter what the specific goals of the campaign may be I always track the 'big five' (Impressions, Clicks, Click-Thur-rate, Cost, and Cost-per-click). These five can act as a good indicator of what is happening with your account and point you in the right direction as you search for answers to anomalies in your ongoing campaign. The only one of the big five that I've seen any kind of standard for is the Click-thru-rate. With as many potential variables as PPC entails it is hard to have a hard and fast standard, but I typically use 5% as rule of thumb. Below 5% I start to search for what is dragging the CTR down. Above it I try to find what is making it work and how can I maximize this. Standards are nice but they will be useless unless you know where you started, where you've been, where you are, and try to have an idea of where you're going. To sum it up, track, compile, and analyze your numbers - they are the indices of health or sickness with your PPC campaign.
Give it Some Time
One day doesn't make a trend. Things tend to fluctuate wildly in the first days and weeks of PPC campaign. The engines are deciding what they think of your ad's, key-phrases, and landing pages. Your competitors are now reacting to the new kid on the block, and your customers are now seeing a new player in the market. It is vitally important to start off with a budget maximum in place to help alleviate any fears of rampant unchecked spending and to see if there actually is a ceiling on demand. Campaigns that will in time appear to never budge from the norm will fluctuate wildly in the beginning. This is not something to be alarmed about, but rather to be tracked as mentioned in the prior paragraph. I generally like to allow at least 1 month to accumulate before I start making optimization observations. This is not to say the account shouldn't be monitored, just that we need time and data to before we make any subtle changes to the campaign.
Overall, If I had to sum up the initial campaign phase I would say: Set a budget before you start spending, don't worry about fluctuations too much, don't over-react on anything just yet, and if it's not vital to the survival of the campaign.....leave it alone for a little bit and see what happens. If patience describes part 1, then nerves of steel would probably best describe this part.
Stay tuned for part 3: Analysis of results - in which I'll talk about what to analyze, how to analyze it, and what changes can we make based on the analysis.
All posts by Brent Sharp
posted by Brent Sharp at February 15, 2007 05:01 PM
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