Being positioned number one does not always guarantee the greatest advertising effectiveness online, especially when PPC marketing with Google AdWords. Just because a pages ranks in the number 1 position, it does not mean most people will click on that particular ad. Often they will click on lower-placed, more relevant ads.
This, however, can be taken as good news, because it means that advertisers can potentially save money on the bid price. Moreover, there is often a significant gap between the bid prices paid for first, second or third position bids for Google pay-per-click ads.
Cash Saving in Google AdWords
This is a good cash saving technique. It may be prudent for advertisers to let their competitors fork out top dollar to rank number 1 to 3. By practicing this method, they will not only save cash on their PPC costs, but could possibly end up getting more traffic by being further down the list of search results.
Google Keyword Tool
Advertisers should use the Google keyword tool in their AdWords account to figure out the top bids for the keywords that they are using. The fastest way is to start with a bid of $50 in the search box, where they will then see what price the bids are in position 1 to 3 (unless position 1 to 3 have a higher keyword bid than $50). They should then adjust the bid search amount accordingly to see the bid price vs. ad position. They should then keep entering the next lowest bid to see how much they must bid to be fourth or sixth on the list and then bid this amount. They will save a lot of money this way.
Beating Competitors with Google AdWords
It is recommended that online marketers study their opposition in order to help them improve their chances of success. If they are an affiliate marketer using PPC, then there is a high chance that another affiliate will be pushing the same product. It is always worth having a look at their ads, and their landing pages, and if they notice the same ad being displayed over a long period of time then chances are they have a successful campaign. So it is prudent to pay attention, look, learn and replicate.
PPC Research
It is is possible to spend hours manually researching and studying the competition, but this is wholly unnecessary. There are so many PPC tools online to help online marketers research, build and identify profitable niches. One such example is Google Cash Detective 2, which can be a life saver. It's a sweet bit of software that will save marketers time and money by letting them spy on affiliates in any niche using Pay Per Click advertising on Google.
Google Cash Detective
Some experts might suggest that Google Cash Detective is how online marketers can identify the professionals from the amateurs. This is not always the case, but a lot of super successful affiliate marketers do use the power of a squeeze page to maximize there PPC investment by building their lists.
A popular theory is that it can take up to seven contacts before a person will make a purchase. So the chances of a person landing on any particular site for the first time and buying something is low, but if marketers can get their name and email address they then have the opportunity to continue to market to them.
Information Capture
If online marketers don't capture contact information, they are unable to pursue these effective leads for potential customers. Capturing contact information is not difficult and can make the difference between success and failure of an overall Internet business.
Paul Carcone - I am a Chartered Management Accountant with a military background who is also a freelance Management Consultant based in the United ...
