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We intend to target overture, google, espotting & webfinder (we are uk based)
As relative novices in this field we are wondering what the main pitfalls that 1st timers should avoid.
Basically what are the common traps out there that will make us look foolish but most of all cost money?
We want to try PPC but not get our fingers burnt
Thanks in advance
gibbon
not sure whether you have the budget, but a session with a ppc bid consultant could go a long way.
failing that, I'll start by giving the following advice:
Google adwords = 1st few hours of monitoring is crucial, sometimes the strangest things happen in terms of inventory and CTR.
Track everything and his DOG, EVERYthing, down to Cretives, was it exact match, broad match etc.
make sure you are also grabbing search string from broad/exapnded matches, so if you are bidding on keyword love you want to know that you are getting traffic for the term find love in london, this will then allow you to continually improve your keyword inventory ...
Shak
Understand the basics before you spend money. A few hours reading the forums here will give you the basics, a few days (weeks) will give you much better knowledge - although, there is no substitue for seeing PPC in action.
Keyword (and negative) selection can't be overstated for its imporntance. One of the biggest mistake people make is thinking this work is kinda relevant, we'll bid on that one as well - or going overly broad, and competively bidding on expensive keywords with low conversion rates.
I see too many people going broke with PPC because they haven't taken into account the basic business principles of advertising and selling a product.
Shak, what do you mean by this? Can you give an example? What should we be looking for?
>>Track everything and his DOG, EVERYthing, down to Cretives, was it exact match, broad match
How would we go about determing whether it was broad or exact match? From the url?
>>Keyword (and negative) selection can't be overstated for its imporntance
Negative selection then - in brief - is where we define the keywords that produce poor ROI, right?
>>I see too many people going broke with PPC because they haven't taken into account the basic business principles of advertising and selling a product.
So ROI as
Profit / PPC cost
Not
Sales / PPC cost
Is the only important metric here?
Yup, its a capitalist gig mate, strangely enough most people paying PPC are only in it for the money.........;)
