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1) As pay-for-performance means different to different people, is there any industry standard for it ?
2) Does anyone bills as per above ? If yes - is it better than flat rate or similar ?
3) Anyone has experiences to share - positive as well as negative ?
4) If one decides to charge accordingly - what's the way to measure the traffic and sales thereafter ? Are there specific tools for it ?
What say - valuable members ?
One of my clients that I used to work for on a fixed monthly payment wanted to go with a pay per click model so he was only paying for traffic I sent him. I am making 10 times the amount from him now as before so it can be a great way to go. It also gives me more incentive to work on the tougher keywords that will generate more traffic as opposed to the easy keywords that only generate a handful of hits. I think this model is the most beneficial for both you and your clients.
What's your preferred mode - flat rate or pay-for-performance ?
>> Rather than hoping the listings you get for them will generate traffic they are only paying you for what you add to their bottom line.
That's the reason DrCool I thought it would be better to go for this model as it's easier to convince the client that he's paying only for traffic. But do you think that only measuring incoming clicks is the way to go ? And if so, then I suppose any normal stats program would do the job.
>> One of my clients that I used to work for on a fixed monthly payment wanted to go with a pay per click model
How to decide whether a pay per click model is better for a better client or a flat rate ?
a) You charge only for relevant traffic - if it is a blue widget site - you only charge for searches which directly relate to blue widgets.
b) You only charge for unique visitors for a search term from a search engine in a 24 hour period - so if IP 123.456.789 comes from Google with a referral string of 'cheap blue widgets' 3 times in a 24 hour period - I would only charge for the first referral.
c) I put up a new site which belongs to me - I am selling traffic to the client - but as long as they continue to pay me at the agreed rate - I may not sell the traffic to anyone else - nor do the same deal for a competitor. I only charge for traffic via this site - any traffic they get going directly to their own site is not charged for. This way there is no confusion as to who is getting them the increase in traffic.
d) Price per click is determined by selecting 50 key phrases which are competitive in a market and working out the average charge on Overture - I then often halve that rate to make us attractive. As an example, I deal in the 'data recovery services' arena - where terms go for exorbitant rates on Overture - but I charge my client a fraction of these.
e) Client has to place a deposit which is fully attributable against clicks but also covers our set up costs.
It is a model which works well both for the SEO and the client - particularly in competitive markets.
One client I was paid a fixed fee per month. I was reluctant to work on a per-lead basis as I was sceptical about the potential market for his services. The client only seemed to care about being ranked high for specific keywords which were relativley easy to achieve but did not generate new leads.
After three months of targeting phrases like "cheap widget" "low cost widgets" "cheaper widgets" I encouraged him to agree a new strategy, implemented big changes in site usability, targeted many more niche keywords, and used PPC.
Now in month 4, the client has ended the contract - at the same time google updated the site really well, the PPC strategy is working well, leads have now trebled, with almost 100% coversion, I have to put this one down to experience as I wish now I was being paid for all these leads :(
have you worked on revenue sharing model too because the easier part is tracking the clicks but it becomes difficult when we have to track the sales?
The best results will come when you have earned the customers trust and they know that you aren't sending junk traffic and that the work you do will result in more sales for them. Once the customer trusts you they will bend over backwards to work with you.
How very true !
So do you suggest that initally a flat rate should be agreed and later changed to ppc or rev. share or visa-versa.
That raises a different question, though.
Is it possible to work in combination of flat rate, ppc and rev. share with a single client ? Because in the end what would make a client happy is the increased traffic (and hence better sales)
Only in a couple of areas - both of which had a good set-up for doing this. In one case which uses premium rate phone numbers for revenue - it is simple. I get my own distinct phone number(s). In the other, the form used for booking/purchasing has a distinct code - plus (if ordered verbally) a seperate phone number is used. In both instances, knowledge/trust is crucial. I have turned down offers of revenue share by a factor of 20/1 (at least).
PPC/CPA is much more straight-forward and the only ones I turn down are those areas which I do not believe will generate sufficient traffic or (equally important) don't appear to have the means to pay if I do a good job. I won't do either deal unless I am likely to make at least $2K per month out of it.
I certainly wouldn't do optimisation of a client site if they are doing a PPC plan with me - and I tell them so, up-front. It would cause a slight conflict of interest!
I don't want the arguments. They pay for traffic from the site I create - what the client gets on their own site is theirs alone. It's clean and simple.
c) I put up a new site which belongs to me - I am selling traffic to the client - but as long as they continue to pay me at the agreed rate - I may not sell the traffic to anyone else - nor do the same deal for a competitor. I only charge for traffic via this site - any traffic they get going directly to their own site is not charged for. This way there is no confusion as to who is getting them the increase in traffic.
Makemetop, this sounds like a really good approach. Are the sites you build effectively doorway domains with pages for each of the 50 keywords? If that's the case I assume the individ pages each have limited content and links from them are to the client site.
The sites are somewhat more than doorway domains. A crucial part of this strategy is to get good representation across SEs - and to do this, you need to do all the basics. Make a good themed, useable site which will be accepted by directories (such as Yahoo) and is spiderable by SEs.
The aim of the site is to get buyers contacting the client. This can be done by phone, online ordering forms, e-mail or shopping cart all provided on the site you create. It need not neccessarily go through to the client site at all.
It can be done as well (or as badly) as other people do other affiliate type sites. Done well, the surfer just thinks they are on the primary client site - but they may or may not be. ;)
any inputs for tracking ?
We have tracked PPC campaigns from multiple PPC SE's as well as pay for inclusion campaigns that run off trusted feed programs. The system tracks clicks and conversion to the dollar amount so any kind of deal could be set up (CPA, rev share, CPC).
The main benefit to the SEM is that the client can see the actual amount of conversions and dollars they've generated from the traffic being sent to them. It's an easy set up for the client too. Just a single line of code that needs to be installed on their conversion page. With that in place they can measure all their online marketing efforts on top of what being sent to them via SEM methods.
I can provide more details if requested. Just sticky mail me.
