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“Pay-for-Performance” or
“Pay-per-Click” Internet advertising is making big
waves lately, and the two biggest players are Google and
Overture, which was recently purchased by Yahoo. Microsoft
has since joined the fray with MSN Search and there are
numerous other fish (albeit tadpoles) in the pond.
When it comes to promoting a book, the advantages of
internet advertising over traditional print advertising
can be summed up with the following acronym-rich equation:
CPC - CPM = PPC. That's CMO-speak for expressing how much
more cost effective cost-per-conversion analysis is to
cost-per-thousand analysis.
With Pay Per Click advertising via Google and Overture,
the cost of the ad is based upon the performance of the
ad; however, the effectiveness of the ad is gauged by its
conversion ratio. Thanks to tools provided by both Google
and Overture, these conversion ratios can be calculated
automatically.
Traditional print media, on the other hand, provides a CPM
(cost per thousand) to demonstrate cost (value) of an ad.
A certain number of people will see the ad (and believe
me, this number is pie-in-the-sky, based upon circulation
times "readership"). Therefore, the cost is X.
It's easy to recognize the advantages of pay per click
advertising, especially when promoting a relatively
small-ticket item such as a book, but before jumping head
first into the PPC arena, review the following tips:
1) Be aware of the differences between Google and
Overture
Google is the leading search engine at the moment, but
their reach never exceeds their grasp. Overture
technology, on the other hand, currently extends to Yahoo,
AltaVista, CNN, Infospace, and others. Overture requires
you to deposit money into an account in advance. Said
account is then depleted based upon your campaign
selection. Meanwhile, Google simply bills your credit card
based upon your expenditures. Overture provides more
intuitive and complete reporting functionality that
enables you to analyze the effectiveness of keywords, but
Google allows you to enter a maximum expenditure-per-day.
This daily cap provides more control over your monthly
spending while Overture’s system simply draws money from
the online account until depleted. This daily draw can
vary substantially from one day to the next. Also,
Overture requires you to keep 3 days of “extra cash”
on hand. Do you earn interest on the money you’re
loaning to Overture? Forget about it.
2) Be aware of the similarities
Both Google and Overture differentiate their paid clicks
from their free, contextual algorithms, usually by
featuring the “sponsored” searches on a different part
of the page and by highlighting them in a color box.
Recently, Overture launched a new product, or search
mechanism, whereby an advertiser can choose to be listed
among the contextual content, also. That’s kind of like
paying for a meal after you’ve already eaten it.
Both services also experience infrequent, yet unexplained,
“spikes” that decimate your daily or monthly budget in
a matter of minutes or hours. It’s a little unnerving
knowing that you could blow through $500 or $1000 in a
matter of minutes with absolutely no recourse. Staffed to
handle these anomalies, both services feature barely
adequate customer service with representatives who often
reply to such technical idiosyncrasies with hostile
ambivalence. Sounds like an oxymoron, but it’s not.
3) Start conservatively
That said, realize that pay-per-click campaigns are not an
exact science and contain the potential to be ridiculously
expensive if you’re not careful. Start a campaign on
either Google or Overture, but not both. Become familiar
with the mechanics before launching full scale advertising
campaigns on the other service.
4) Understand the mechanics
The way pay-for-performance works is simple. You bid on
search terms, either words or phrases or a combination of
both. Your webpage link then appears in search engine
results relative to the price of the bid. If you're the
highest bidder, your webpage appears at the absolute top
of many search engines. Remember the frustration of typing
in a search for your webpage and never finding your link?
No longer!
5) Understand the advantages
Perhaps the best part of pay-for-performance advertising
is the “pay for performance” part. Unlike traditional
advertising where you pay based upon the number of
impressions, here, you only pay if people click on your
link. In essence, they are pre-sold.
6) Select the appropriate keywords
Let's look at an example. Say you have published a mystery
novel about the death of a land baron in Louisiana. Not
exactly a new plot and yet millions of
"whodunit" readers may be interested in reading
it. Your solution? Open a pay-for-performance account and
bid on search terms like "Louisiana Mystery
Novel" and "Mystery Book Plantation" and
other similar search terms. Counter-intuitively, the more
specific the term, the better your campaign will perform,
since very specific searches deliver very motivated buyers
to your page. Since you're paying for each click, you want
those browsers to buy! That's where "conversion"
comes in to play.
7) Understand the disadvantages
You have to be very careful managing your bids and
selecting your keywords, or pay-for-performance
advertising can become ineffective. Do not bid on
ridiculously vague and popular words like "book"
or “fiction” because you will never recoup your money.
Instead, focus your search terms as specifically as
possible.
It's only a matter of time before traditional print media
finds some way to adopt this new method of
cost-per-conversion and pay-for-performance advertising.
Those who don't will die trying. Viva la digital
revolution!
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