This week Matt Umbro (@Matt_Umbro) came up with a magnificent question set titled “PPC & Site Architecture.” The following is the transcribed Streamcap from the live chat:

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Industry-renowned pay-per-click (PPC) specialist Melissa Mackey recently wrote a great 2 part series about the pros and cons of running PPC campaigns in-house or through an agency (part 1 and part 2). She makes valid points on both sides and gives those interested in hiring a PPC specialist much to consider about PPC management. I’d like to add to Melissa’s sentiments, by suggesting that whether PPC managers work for themselves or an agency, they need to excel at more than just paid search.

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A major selling point of Google AdWords is that it allows advertisers to control their costs. Whether you spend $5,000 a month or $50 the choice is yours. On the surface this is a great model, but as most pay-per-click (PPC) managers would tell you, the smaller your budget the harder it is to compete for more ad impressions. Yes, more conservative budgets look bigger in smaller search engines such as Yahoo and Bing. However, these engines make up very little of the market share compared to Google.

No matter the size of your budget, you have to practice intelligent PPC tactics. These tactics include tightly-themed ad groups, keyword-dense text ads with strong calls to action, and relevant landing pages. Obviously, a higher budget allows you to do more, like bid on more keywords and place your ads on contextually relevant sites, but without knowledge of PPC techniques your budget is the least of your problems.

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Recently there has been talk of a new metric within the PPC industry: conversions per impression. I first read about this metric from Chris Crompton of Search Engine Land.

In my view, this metric represents the overall effectiveness of your PPC campaign. The click-through rate (CTR) measures how relevant your ads are to user search queries. The conversion rate tells you the percentage of visitors who complete your predefined goals once the ads are clicked. These are important metrics, but it may be time to consider conversions per impression (CPI) as well. Let’s take this example:

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The Google AdWords Content Network has come a long way in the last year.  Before some necessary enhancements were implemented I was wary of the Content Network and believed it to be a waste of money.  Though I still have concerns, the Content Network now has the ability to be much more targeted and provide conversions.

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In my experience managing pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns, a frequently overlooked topic is the landing page.  Once your users click your ad, where are they going to go?  Setting up a structurally sound campaign is imperative, but it is only half the equation.  The user needs to land on a page that continues the messaging and call to action that is used in the ad.

Several factors go into creating a good landing page, none of which should be ignored.  These techniques will determine how many of your clicks turn into conversions.  Conversion rate, as I have previously written about, is a tier one success indicator of how well your campaign is doing.  Give your users an effective landing page, and you should see your conversion rates increase.

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