By Michael Stelzner
We sat down recently with Andrew Goodman, a leading expert on pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, co-founder of Traffick.com, moderator of the I-Search discussion list and author of the Google AdWords Handbook: 21 Ways to Maximize Results, to discuss how PPC campaigns can help drive white paper readership.
WhitePaperSource: How can pay-per-click ads help increase the readership of white papers?
Goodman: Pay-per-click campaigns can bring many targeted customers directly to a white paper. The beauty of PPC ads that appear near search results (i.e., on an engine like Google) is that they show up when someone may be in active research mode. If you intercept professionals early in their sales cycles, while they are still thinking about pertinent issues, you actually position yourself very well. The process may be as simple as this: 5% of the people who see your ad show up on a term such as “semiconductor research” may find the ad relevant enough to their needs to click on it at a cost of, let’s say, 25 cents per click. That click can go to a target page on your website. Perhaps 15% of those visitors to your website might then download your free white paper. The fact that a steady stream of prospects are reading your white paper and understanding your unique positioning sharply increases the chances that you will gain customers. Presumably, you may also seek permission to contact them further by asking them for their email address in the download process. A relationship is initiated very inexpensively to a highly targeted prospect.
WhitePaperSource: What is the real value of PPC ads?
Goodman: Four keys are: (1) non-intrusiveness; (2) pay only for interested prospects (clicks); (3) extreme targeting (by keyword, and possibly even by region); and (4) trackability with fast feedback cycles.
WhitePaperSource: Which PPC ad service should technical audiences consider?
Goodman: Google AdWords is #1 here because Google is the search engine of choice for technical audiences, at least as far as wide-reaching search tools go. Reach must be considered even if you’re in a niche. Many smaller ad networks may not generate any appreciable volume. After that, IndustryBrains and Business.com are worth considering. Overture will generally produce many wasted clicks, but if you’re smart about your keywords, even this may work out okay. The top PPC services are always seeking out new partnerships and are trying out innovative content targeting models, so the terrain does keep changing. Second-tier services like FindWhat and Kanoodle aren’t worth bothering with at first, but that’s not to say that they won’t offer interesting opportunities for some advertisers.
WhitePaperSource: What type of budgets should people consider for campaigns?
Goodman: If you are organizing your campaign properly, choosing the right keywords and phrases, writing prequalifying ad copy and bidding sensibly, then you want every click you can possibly generate, since every click should, on average, be a moneymaker for your business. Some technical words can be very expensive, perhaps $10 or more per click, because three or four companies dominate a very small space and all are trying to grab the attention of their client base. Click volume will often be small in such cases, though. Largely, B2B and technical types of campaigns are less expensive than retail because of low volume, and yet may be much higher per click on some phrases. I’ve had cases where a client has “tried” to spend $1,000 per month and the volume just wasn’t there and they could only spend $500. Someone in a decision-making role does have to perform a search for your keywords, and if they don’t, you don’t spend. Sounds like small potatoes, maybe spending only a few hundred dollars a month, but last time I checked, marketing was supposed to be about making money, not spending it. Startups with generous marketing budgets may be able to spend substantially more by targeting a wider range of terms with the hopes of raising public awareness of a technology that few know exists. It depends on one’s goals, and on how one measures ROI.
WhitePaperSource: How do you recommend someone who is new to PPC get started?
Goodman: Most PPC services are meant to be self-service, but not everyone feels equally comfortable with the task of building and monitoring a campaign. It does make sense to outsource or seek a professional’s help. In many cases, a third-party primer, such as my book Google AdWords Handbook: 21 Ways to Maximize Results, is an inexpensive way to get up to speed on the do’s and don’ts. In general, I’m a big advocate of going back to first principles or just reading mind-expanding material to get the creative juices going when it comes to understanding issues such as market differentiation and copywriting. Books like Survival is Not Enough (Seth Godin), Net Words (Nick Usborne), and for fun, Michael Lewis’ Moneyball are good places to start. Reading articles at SearchEngineWatch.com is also a good idea to understand the whole context of online search and search marketing.
Want to learn more?
We suggest Andrew Goodman’s book Google AdWords Handbook: 21 Ways to Maximize Results (a must read!), for more information on PPC. To contact Andrew directly, e-mail him at Andrew@page-zero.com. DISCUSSION: Discuss this topic at the WhitePaperSource forum.
