Frequently Asked Paid Search Campaign Management Questions

What does PPC stand for?

PPC stands for Pay Per Click and is part of the broader category known as Search Engine Marketing (“SEM”).

What is PPC Advertising?

Paid search results are the links you see across the top and down the right side of a search results page, such as Google. Each time you click on a link, the advertiser is paying a fee for that click.

Why hire a Pay Per Click Management Company that focuses on private practices, service businesses, or professional services firms?

Most service providers do not have well developed advertising and sales strategy and need to start by focusing on clients who are in the market to retain and pay for their services right now. Prospective clients may know what service they want but not who they want to provide the service. They then look at factors, such as price or expertise. All efforts should be focused on attracting as many clients in this stage of the process as possible. Hiring a paid search company to manage your campaign that does not understand this or is not familiar with advertising professional services can result in vague untargeted campaigns and lackluster expensive results.

Why does search engine marketing start with Google AdWords?

Google returns the best search engine marketing results (ie. more paying clients) and the information you get from running a Google AdWords campaign is often the basis for the setup of other pay per click marketing campaigns. Other search engine marketing campaigns can be built in Microsoft AdCenter, Yahoo! Search Marketing, LinkedIn, and Facebook. These are generally secondary campaigns used to round-out the paid search engine marketing you are doing in AdWords.

How long does it take for pay per click marketing to work?

Pay Per Click advertising can be set up and begin driving traffic to your site within a few days.

How do you know under what keywords to advertise?

We research keywords being used successfully by your competitors and discuss with you any industry specific keywords that might also be important. This initial list will start to create your keywords and phrases that will include variations, misspellings, and geographical modifiers. Those keywords are then used to continually refine your campaign to reach your goals.

How much does search engine marketing cost?

Every campaign is different. Our monthly management fee starts at $997 and is based on a percentage of your monthly advertising spend. See our Solutions page for more information on price.

What is the difference between natural or organic search results (aka Search Engine Optimization or “SEO”) and pay per click or paid search results (Search Engine Marketing or “SEM”)?

The rank and order of organic or natural search results are determined by the search engines and the metrics are constantly changing. PPC allows you to pay to place your site in view of someone conducting a search.

Part of a properly run PPC campaign is to determine where on the page you will get the most clicks for the least cost and to work on the copy on your landing pages. Aligning the content of your pay per click campaign and your landing pages raises the quality of your campaign which reduces your advertising cost. In addition, this process helps contribute to your web site organic search ranking.