guest post by Dominic Lidgett
Recently I was looking forward to watching the football match between Real Madrid and Barcelona in the Copa Del Rey Spanish Cup. These two teams have a rivalry as intense as ever.
The outcome of the game left me feeling disappointed after a great start with an early goal from Real Madrid. I was expecting Barcelona would dominate possession as they fought back but not to that extent they did against such a good team.
The tactics that Real Madrid used were a defensive 4-3-3 formation making superstar Ronaldo track back to join the back line and fielding centre-back Pepe in midfield. Once Real Madrid got the early goal they were happy to sit back and hardly crossed the half way line for the rest of the game. The result? 3-1 to Barcelona.
So what has this got to do with PPC?
In PPC, I view the page fold as the half way line on a football pitch with the top ads been the penalty area. In PPC, you are always looking to be in one of the premium positions (penalty area) whenever possible to convert (score a goal) – not ruling out that it's still possible score in the side positions. Having said that, you won't win the game if you don't cross the half way line.
Being Conservative With Bids
If you are new to PPC, you may be tempted to set low bids in order to test the channel and not spend much money. This may seem like a good idea, but it will not get you near the half way line.
The reason for this has to do with what Google call the 'quality score'. There are many factors that go into how Google establish an advertisers quality score, but one metric that new advertisers need to pay attention to is the click through rate (CTR).
The CTR is probably the most important factor in finding your quality score algorithm - it is vital that a good CTR is gained from the start. It's logical to think that if searchers can't see your ad, then they are not going to click on them. Low bids place your ads in your own half and can ruin your chances of getting clicks.
The strategy I would suggest is to take some risk early on. Although you should not bid more than you're comfortable paying, it's important to set bids high enough to get your ads over the halfway line. Once a decent quality score is gained then you can start to lower your bids gradually which can keep your ads above the half way line whilst reducing costs.
Being Conservative with your Daily Campaign budgets
So, you have followed the advice and your bids are at a decent level. With high bids you can limit your success with a low daily budget.
It's not uncommon in self managed PPC to see bids being set high (say at £3) and then have a campaign daily budget of (for example) £6. Taking it back to football, if a striker gets only 2 passes per game, you'll never find out how good they are.
Similar to bids, don't set budget caps you are not comfortable with but with a new campaign it's better to set the budgets as high as you can so you can assess the potential traffic for the campaign.
Establishing a Lead
Like the Liverpool team of the 80's, manager Kenny Dalglish would always tell his team to come out strong early in the game and establish a lead. When you are a few goals ahead you can start to play the game more conservatively to keep your lead, making it hard for your opponents to fight back and win.
In PPC, make sure your bids are set to a point where you can cross the half way line as quickly as possible, then analyse and adjust your campaign to a place you're comfortable with. By getting the early lead, you might even win the league.
About the author
Dominic Lidgett is a blogger who writes on a variety of different sites. Check out more of his work at adwords management.