Forum Moderators: skibum
What PPC strategy will work better as a means of promoting affiliate sales (Given the same amount of money available for either strategy).
1. Pay $1.00-$2.00 to be in the top two for the important keywords and limit my daily spend to $20.00.
2. Pay 50 cents for the keywords and maybe still spend $20 for four times as many visitors.
My reasoning for what seems like a silly question is that in most cases to get to my site if i bid less I am getting visitors that have already seen what I offer from the horse's mouth. If I am #1 I would be getting the low hanging fruit mixed in too.
At least from my experience (AdWords), there is a significant traffic dropoff between the top 3 or so ads for a given keyword and the rest. For this reason, you probably can't do an apples-to-apples, $20.00 a day comparison between the two bid scenarios you posit.
The only way that you'd get the traffic on the lower-ranked spots is if the higher-up ad bumped up against the $20 mark quickly (i.e. there was a lot of demand past that mark) and the inevitable decrease you'd get from the lower ranking would still get you to $20.
That being said, I'd first determine what you can afford to pay on an ad, and then pay less. It sounds simple, but a lot of people get bidding fever and pay more than the clicks are worth to get the top spot (I've been guilty of doing it on a few occasions myself). If you can AFFORD to pay top price for ads, I'd just let it run wild (within your means, of course). If you restrict your profitable ads at all, you're basically choosing to make less money.
Of course, if you can't afford the top spot in your ads, I'd quickly decrease to a bid amount you can maintain. I don't mean to sound like I'm talking down, but oftentimes people forget that PPC is about MAKING THEM MONEY, so they have to be gently reminded. :)
I have been managing a PPC program for one of the largest eCommerce site for two years. Below recommendation is based on my experience.
in many cases, those who click more than one ads from the same search are comparison shoppers. They don't purchase anything from the first one or two sites. They will click a few more sites and decide where to purchase. If they liked one of the first two, they will simply click the same ad in the primium spots (thus double cost to you!). If they liked one of the other lower ones, they will simply purchase from the first click, since they already saw the first ones.
It doesn't matter much whether you show yours first, if your products/services are not competitive.
If you have a content web site for AM/Adsense, then you have to be more careful how much to spend. Unless there is a sticky value to your site, they will not come back to your site directly. You will have to make the most out of the new visitors.
Another issue is the lost opportunity. If you take the top spots and spend all $20 in the first a few hours, your ads will not show up for the rest of the day. You have to find the right CPC that will get you close to $20/day in total spending. The position doesn't matter, in fact, as long as you spend all $20 a day and get the most visitors you can afford.
Finally, you will have to choose only the best converting keywords and spend higher CPC even for the premium spots. Unless you know the money you spent is worth that top spots by tracking the conversions for each keyword, it is "money down to the rat hole".
