Pay-Per Click 101
Pay per click is a funny thing. It’s not as easy as it sounds. Though its not the end all be all to your internet marketing strategy or long term seo, it will drive traffic to your website and produce inquiries that ultimately leads to revenue. In order to make it work for you, here’s a few Pay-Per-Click 101 notes.
1. Set an Exact Budget
Budgeting Pay Per Click is critical. Why? Google actually determines how long your ad remains in the top positions based on your budget. The more budget you allocate towards a monthly campaign, the more visibility they give you. Here’s why: Google divides your monthly budget by the amount of days per month you market (typically Mon-Fri). In other words, if you have a monthly budget of $1,500, then they’ll divide that by 22 days in the month (weekends excluded), which means you’ll have a budget of about $65 a day. If the average cost per click is $5, then after 13 clicks, they’ll take your ad down for the day. A word to the wise, don’t leverage anymore than you can afford to lose.
2. Perform ‘A Time of Day’ Experiment
Pay Per Click is like any other form of marketing. The more patterns you identify, the more the campaign works in your favor. The good thing for you is you don’t need to hire an outside consultant firm to conduct studies about your typical customer, what they look like all the way down to what time of the day they go to the bathroom and pee (okay maybe that’s overstating it a little but seriously how much information do you need?). You can be your own consultant. Believe me, Fortune 500 companies pay seven figures every year to outside consulting companies to further target their demographic. You don’t have to. An important part of PPC (especially if you’re on a limited budget) is to figure out what time of day tends to yield the most inquiries. It isn’t hard but does require a little organization in order to keep track. First, try running your pay-per-click campaign in four hour cycles. My suggestion would be 8am-12pm, 12pm-4pm and finally 4pm-8pm. Do this for three weeks and switch out time slots every other day (Mon,Wed,Fri). After three weeks of solid tracking, you’ll be able to see what time slots tend to yield the most inquiries.
3. Don’t Be Afraid to Run on the Weekends
This is especially true for businesses with everyday products to sell. If you provide a niche type of service, it may not be as useful to run on the weekends, but for those of you with cut and dry products, weekends can be a great time to land business. It doesn’t mean you have to sit on pins and needles and take time away from loved ones to do so either. Those are easy fixes. Connect the business line to a cell phone that’s easily accessible. Who knows. You may not even receive calls, just purchases (those are the best).
4. Cushion Your Budget
Most financial advisers will tell you to keep six months worth of bills, expenses and income in an account for emergency purposes. I’m not recommending you put away six months of PPC away for a rainy day but getting in the habit of keeping one month (three is ideal) of reserves in the budget is smart planning. You never know what is around the next bend. Planning ahead can make a huge difference. Some of you may be saying “I can’t afford to keep an extra month of PPC set aside.” My only advice is figure it out. If your life depended on it, you’d find a way. 
Hopefully this provided a few thoughts on how to manage pay-per-click. Remember Pay Per click isn’t the ‘end all be all.’ You still need to plan for long term visibility with seo but if you treat it like a business it will pay you like one. Stay uncomfortable my friends and have a great day!!
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