Our Marketing Team manages a lot of PPC campaigns, big to small, Adwords to MSN. Irrespective of the campaign specifics, the core issues below are really the core issues our teams face with every campaign, and roper care and attention to these main topics could mean the difference between a successful campaign, and one that is just spending your money. Long-Tail Keywords Long-tail keywords are important for a couple of reasons. -They cost less per click than the more broad terms -Although bringing in less traffic than broad terms, they will bring in a more closely-matching term and better targeted traffic. Unless you are the sole maker and marketer of a product or service, the benefits of carving out a defined slice of the search traffic is going to be more effective than trying to compete with the biggest, wealthiest competitors utilizing the broad keywords. Ad Placement in the Search Results Although the number one paid search ad is most times going to be the most trafficked ad, a lot of money can go out the window for that coveted #1 placing, and in an industry like Real Estate where potential clients are online doing preliminary research, that number one result might get buried under all the other sites that person is invariably going to click on. Being number three or four starts looking more attractive from a cost-per-click and conversion standpoint. Landing Page Optimization Getting clicks is one part of the equation, the other part, getting visitors excited and willing to take the next step with you resides in tying the landing page layout and content to high relevancy with the keyword search and text ads. Clicking on a link is easy, hitting the back button is just as easy, so if your sales pitch is somewhat convoluted or muddled, you can bet they are going to click away never to return. Great design, and clear connection to the keywords used in the text ads and search keywords, they are areas that you need to be highly focused on when building the landing page. Testing, Testing, Testing Obviously a main component to the process of managing a PPC campaign is tweaking and refining of the campaign based off the information and results that show up in your web analytics and your campaign account details. More than ever before, you can actually look at your marketing data with a fine-toothed comb, switching out ineffective landing pages, text ads, keywords. It all comes down to spending your ad dollars with care and insight into campaign effectiveness, and making sure you convert that traffic into hopefully a sales lead. These have always been the main issues facing any marketing campaign, but with the tools and technology available today anybody big or small can manage and maintain a great online presence. That’s the beauty of PPC advertising!