1. The product. What are you selling and how much are you willing to spend to acquire a single customer? If you haven’t figured this out you better.
2. Data. You can never have enough data. Analytic’s is key with any pay per click campaign and with out it your flying blind. Improper information can lead to a big waste of money.

With any campaign you should know what your willing to spend and you should have the tracking in place to show you your CPA (Cost per acquisition). Without these two items you might as well just walk down the street and pay random people one dollar and hope they do something that benefits your business.

If your not tracking what users are doing from the time they click the ad to the time they leave your website you will not be running a successful online marketing campaign.

Look at Google Analytic’s as an example. You can define and track conversions and assess whether your marketing efforts are working or need work. If your not watching, then your not effectively managing your PPC. Advertising your business on search engines is a constant process, one that needs constant attention. Search habits, buying patterns and competition are always changing so you need to keep up.

Create, Monitor, Adjust … Rinse and Repeat. PPC can me a valuable marketing channel if done right.

Every week I get requests from companies who want to launch PPC campaigns or work to make their site more search engine friendly and really they are not ready. Companies sell PPC and SEO services all the time to companies that just are not ready to be investing in getting more traffic to their website.

What do you need to do?

• Branding – You really need a presence online that will give consumers confidence. Doing your branding in Microsoft Word is not the way to go. There are so many options on the internet branding should not be a failed component of any business. Look at www.prizelogos.com, for $400 you can get a professional brand for your business. Remember the first impression someone is going to get is from your look, keep it sharp and professional. Your brand should represent the business you are in.
• Content – Don’t over do it people are probably not in the mood to read a novel before they select your service or make a purchase. Make your content effective and don’t cause the user to become bored and leave. Inspire the potential customer to buy or call you.
• Positioning – If you’re selling a product, promoting a service, that is what a potential customer should see first. You don’t have long to make a good impression so overwhelming the potential customer with information at first could cost you the sale.
• Process – Keep the clicks to a minimum. If you need that potential customer to call, then make the contact info readily available. Burying that info in the site and making them click 10 times to get to it probably will cost you. Selling a product online? Again keep the clicks to a minimum. There is nothing more annoying than trying to buy something and it takes you 20 minutes to complete your purchase.
• Security – I have noticed that businesses have been using shared SSL certificates and this probably won’t help you seal the deal in some cases. As we become more and more concerned with security and browsers attempt to thwart fraudulent activity, a change in domain could cost you a sale. Pay the $40 get your own SSL and keep the user on your site.
• Last, If your selling, promoting or giving info on something … Don’t hide it. Hoping someone stumbles across your message is not the best strategy.

Anyways a quick blog entry on some issues I have been encountering lately. Make sure you have your web presence right especially before you invest in bringing people to your website, no one likes throwing away money.

Its not just as easy as tossing a website up and selling, some thought is required. If you have any questions let me know. If you have further recommendations post them.

So today was the first chance I’ve had to do any sightseeing, shopping and photography. I wandered all over covering approximatly 7 miles today and intend on doing the same again tomorrow (not exactly the same, I intend on heading East tomorrow).

To give you an idea of what I saw today here is a map with my route marked:

Roughly 7 miles and damn my legs are sore. Anyways here in London for one more week helping a company sort out their Search Engine Marketing issues. Lots of fun and lots of work.

Tomorrow I will make my way to the Brick Lane area of London, also where I am working right now and explore the area further. Although London is insanely busy, it is a nice large city. Essentially it doesn’t look like an eye sore, Great Modern and Historic architecture throughout the city. Photos are coming soon, I’ll publish them on Flickr.

And completely off topic after reading the comments submitted on my blog, I would like to take this time and congratulate Limitbreaker (one of my mindless stalkers) for being such a twat. If you would like your comments posted moron keep them somewhat free of foul language and possibly useful you dribbling idiot.

See, I haven’t used any foul language… Mind you I am not being polite.

Back to enjoying all that London has to offer! Sushi for supper at Samurai!

Now some like to mislead advertisers and say that click fraud is an issue that is under control, that it really doesn’t affect their business or that the end is near for click fraud.

All of the above in my opinion is untrue. Click fraud affects all sizes of business, any ad budget and will probably never stop. I like to think of click fraud in the same way as viruses. Every day we find ways to stop viruses, however the virus creators always find a way around. It’s the same with Click fraud, We might stop one method but the people doing it will find a way to keep it going.

Another thing to think about is, What sort of resources are really put into stopping click fraud at the search networks? At the end of the day how much money does a search network make from click fraud? As long as someones clicking, the networks profit. So if we stop click fraud 100% and ads become more effective would ad network revenues drop by 10 – 20%? More than likely, cause if there is no click fraud advertisers would be able to spend less and get more.

Anyways that is my thought of the day. It’s an opinion that I know is shared by others. If you want to talk click fraud contact me. If your looking for a great solution to monitor your advertising I would recommend Click Forensics.

Now if you notice in the image all you get is a listing of all their files on the server. It is my under standing that Podium is part of the M5 group of companies. Now one would think that such an organization would test these things before putting them on the web… LIVE?

Just an observation and well I’m curious what kind of SEM pro do they have in each of their offices? Is this another “we will learn it as we do it” company?

Time will only tell. Hopefully they at least get their site functioning… Who wants to hire someone that can’t get their own web presence right?

Update:

Podium Digital fixed their website, thats right they decided that an index page was important. Also noticed that M5 had been visiting my blog, maybe they read this post?