We always want maximum value and profits for our
pay-per-click advertising budget. But how do we effectively
maximize that for value and profits? We will have to really
consider the factors that are affecting out sales and target
market.

First, familiarizing yourself with your website’s conversion
rate

What is the percentage that a sale will be made with 100
unique visitors to your website? Let’s assume that only 1
visitor will make a purchase. That means your website has a
conversion rate of 1%.

Although the traffic quality that you get from a
pay-per-click search engine may differ from that of a
traditional search engine or any other advertising measures,
familiarizing with your website’s conversion rate will
definitely give a better gauge to how much you are going to
bid than a calculated guess.

Let’s take this for an example: assume your conversion rate
is 1%. You’ll need 100 clicks to your site before you can
make 1 sale. Convert it and its $10 if your bid is
Overture’s minimum bid of $0.10 per click.

Using this as a gauge, you can estimate if your advertising
cost is going to be covered back by that 1 sale. If so, then
would you be willing to increase your budget to increase
your clicks and sales? Will this make you a bigger profit or
a loss?

You will be able to use this to test out your marketing
strategy and thus maximizing the profits while cutting down
on costs.

Second, are you using the right keyword phrases for the
search?

The key to more sales is to target the right market with the
right product. On the internet, using the right keyword
phrases for the visitors to search for your website is
absolutely crucial.

This is because if you use the wrong keyword phrases, you
ended up with lots of unwanted traffic that costs you your
bidding money. But if you use a keyword phrase that no one
searches for it, then even worse, you ended up with no
traffic at all.

So using the right keyword phrases will determine the type
and quality of your visitors that will indirectly influences
your sales and income. Always use the Overture’s Search Term
Suggestion Tool to help you in finding the right keyword
phrases for your business:
http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/

Third, finding the best bid position for the greatest value

Most people tend to bid for the #1 position in the search
listing for their keywords. Though the top 3 listings will
definitely get the most traffic but you can still get good
quality traffic from links in the first 30 listings.

Some people even claim that these visitors are more
qualified as they took more time browsing through the
description and choosing the most appropriate for them
before they click on it.

Another great thing to take advantage is the gaps between
each individual bids.

For example, at the time of this writing, Overture’s
listings showed the following bids for the search term
“fashion”:

#1 position - $0.76 #2 position - $0.47 #3 position -
$0.46 #4 position - $0.45 #5 position - $0.40 #6 position
- $0.39 #7 position - $0.32

As the bids are separated by a few cents differences but you
can still save up quite a bit on bidding money if you know.
Let’s see, if you wanted #1 position then you would have to
bid for $0.77, that’s quite a big bid but if you were to
settle for a #2 position instead, you ended up paying only
$0.48. That’s a savings of 29 cents!

Then if you were to bid for #7 position for a mere 33 cents
only, although this may not seems very much but comparing
the difference of bidding position #1 and #7, you can end
up saving a whopping $44 for every 100 clicks! This savings
can be better utilized after you have decided whether if you
should pay the extra cost for that position.

Though pay-per-click search engines are not the cheapest
method to advertise your online business, but they can be a
great addition to your whole marketing strategy. Remember it
is how much return on the investment that really counts
rather than the amount of money you are willing to fork
out.