November, 2006 Archive

A Low Clickthrough Rate is Bad, Right?

When managing your pay-per-click (PPC) advertising campaign, your goal is to get the highest clickthrough rate possible, right?

Not necessarily.

That’s usually your goal, but there are some instances where you actually don’t mind a low clickthrough rate (CTR). Let’s take Nursing Jobs.org for example.

They have a section of their site dedicated to nursing jobs with signing bonuses, and they have some PPC advertising driving traffic to that page. Currently, they only have a few jobs there, so the percentage of the general nursing population who would be interested in any of them is very small.

So, they could have a PPC ad that looks like this:

Nursing Jobs with Bonuses
Find nursing jobs with signing bonuses
at the web’s #1 site for nursing jobs!

That one will definitely get a good CTR, but the vast majority of the clicks will be from nurses who won’t find anything they’re looking for — money down the drain.

Consider this alternative:

OR and ER RNs Needed
$1,000 Signing Bonuses for RNs in
Hartford, CT. Apply Online Today!

The CTR for that one will really stink, but the ad tells those nurses exactly what to expect when they click through. As a result, you’re going to get very few clicking through who won’t find a job applicable to them — you get way less clicks, but each click is way more valuable because you’ve prequalified them.

Having your visitors filter themselves before they every click on the ad is a great strategy because it not only saves you money, it also allows you to bid much higher per click. Keep that in mind the next time you’re writing your creative.

Amazon Announces New Clickriver PPC System

Matt over at full : 1511 points today to the unveiling of the new Clickriver PPC system by Amazon’s A9 subsidiary. (That probably goes a long way toward explaining their recent announcement of a cutback in their search plans.) The service will allow advertisers to place PPC ads directly on Amazon.com.

The program is in restricted beta right now, but they are accepting requests for invitations.

What Should You Pay for Search Marketing Services?

Rand has a great post today on search marketing salary ranges. If you’re looking to hire someone full-time, or if you’re only looking to contract someone temporarily, this is a great list. In my experience both working as an employee and working independently, these numbers seem very accurate.

Rand’s SEOmoz blog is hands-down the best search engine marketing blog that I’ve found. No one else comes close. I say that because he constantly details an absolutely unbelievable amount of behind-the-scenes details on how his company does what they do. Many people wouldn’t dream of ever giving away even half of what he does. Is it any wonder that SEOmoz has skyrocketed in popularity like it has? Good karma at work again.

Link Building: Seven Great Steps

Joe Griffin has a great set of seven tips for successful link building on his Submitawebsite blog today.

Capturing the User’s Email Address

Quite often on your site, you’ll want to capture the user’s email address. With spam and phishing attempts increasing daily, though, that’s getting harder and harder. People are just rightfully much more protective of their email address.

Strategies for loosening their grip abound, but I’ve never seen one better than this one. I instantly wanted to see they said some of my domains were worth, so I didn’t hesitate to enter them. On the next page, though, they prompted me for my name and email address so that they could email the report. That would seem perfectly legitimate to most people, and so I bet their conversion percentage is well over 50%.

And that’s the key: users will give up their contact information if they feel compelled enough. You can do that by offering something of exceptional value, as most people advocate, but this way seems much more effective. Just get creative as to how you can make it a reasonable step in the process.