PPC can be an excellent method for getting visitor traffic to your web site but it can also cost you a lot of money. You need to be extremely careful and monitor your cost of using PPC versus revenue generated. As old saying goes, do math. Calculate your return on investment (ROI) on a continuous basis to determine if you are making a profit on your PPC campaign.

As an example, assume your bid for a particular keyword is $0.10 and product you sell has a profit margin of $15 after product costs (excluding PPC costs). If your conversion rate (the number of visitors that buy your product) is 1.0%, only 1 of your visitors will buy your product out of 100 visitors. Your net profit for every 100 visitors from your PPC campaign will be $5 ($15 profit margin less $10 for PPC).

It is a good idea to experiment with different PPC search engines to find one that works best for you. In addition, you need to spend necessary time and effort to select keyword or keyword phrase that has a profitable conversion rate for your specific web page. A higher conversion rate implies more profits to you.

Try to avoid senseless bidding war with your competitors. Seriously evaluate whether having number one placement position is worth PPC price you pay. What about position numbers two, three and so on. Will you get enough clicks in one of those positions to make your PPC campaign a success? Do not automatically assume that you have to be in position number one to make a lot of money using PPC. It all comes down to experimenting and testing.

There is no such thing as perfect PPC campaign. Evaluate performance of your PPC campaigns on a continuous basis. Are you leaving money on table by not adjusting your PPC bid to a lower level? Should you increase bid price to get more traffic? Is your conversion rate changing? What are your competitors doing? Should you be considering different keywords in your campaign? PPC advertising is a great way to get traffic but at a definite price. PPC requires a thorough knowledge of PPC search engines that you use and constant monitoring and evaluation of your campaigns.

=================================== Copyright (C) 2004 F. Terrence Markle – All Rights Reserved Get my F.R.E.E multi-part series on generating targeted and quality traffic to your web site. http://www.QuikSystems.com/WST/TrafficSeries.htm Get my F.R.E.E newsletter on building your own targeted mailing list: http://www.QuikSystems.com/EzineSub.htm ===================================