Articles: Marketing & Sales

CPC Advertising – It Just Doesn't Get any Better

Dave LaLonde is Senior Vice President and Search Engine Optimizer for Auto Credit Express. The ACE Group is a special finance total solutions firm offering their dealership partners entry level and advanced sub prime training, an easy to use online software, and an expert auto sales lead system.

One of the most revolutionary forms of advertising is online Cost Per Click (CPC) advertising.

CPC advertising has many advantages over traditional advertising mediums such as print, radio, television, and direct mail. For example:

• There are no long term contracts. You can start or stop your campaigns at any time.
• There are no spending requirements.
• You are charged only when a web surfer clicks your ad.
• You do not have to purchase additional software to track you campaigns.
• You can edit your ads and adjust your budget in real time until you get the results you want.
• There are no production costs.
• You don't need an ad agency to setup the campaign.

With all the advantages that CPC advertising has over the traditional methods, coupled with the competitiveness of auto dealers, it surprises me that such a small number of dealerships across the country use this method to generate traffic.

It's quite easy to set-up a CPC advertising campaign. The method to set-up the campaign will vary on each search engine, so I won't give step by step instructions for each one of them here. For step by step instructions of the top three CPC services you can visit:

Google
http://adwords.google.com/support/

Yahoo
http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/srch/howto.php

MSN
http://advertising.microsoft.com/microsoft-adcenter/how-adcenter-works

What I would like to discuss now are a few techniques to optimize your campaign.

Geo-Targeting

One of the long time advantages of traditional mediums vs. web advertising was that you could pin-point your market. This is especially true for direct mail. Although not yet an exact science, all the major CPC portals now allow you to Geo Target your audience to a major metro or state market.

With Geo-Targeting your ads will only be displayed to web surfers in your select metro or state market. Geo-Targeting allows you to increase the number of search stings or keywords you are targeting. For example if one of your target keywords is Detroit Used Car you could also target Used Cars. If some one from Chicago searches for Used Cars they will not see the ad. The ad will only display to web surfers in the Detroit area.

Selecting and Grouping Keywords

Each of the search engines has a tool that will help you generate a list of keywords to target. When using these tools enter simple words such as auto, car, ford, and mustang. The tool will regurgitate search stings that contain these words. Gather the keywords that are relevant to your products. Keep in mind, however, that these tools are limited to historical searches. They will only suggest words that have been searched for in the past.

Some of the most effective keywords I've used were words I heard on the radio during my drive to work. These words, at the time, had no historical data. For example, in late summer of 2005, Family Plan, Employee Discount, and Employee Pricing Plus were great keywords for generating new car leads. Last summer, Live Green and Red Tag Event also did well. Whenever you hear an ad on the radio or television ask yourself; "If I wanted more information on this offer what would I search for?"

Once you have generated this list, separate the keywords into groups based on similarity. For example, Used Cars and Detroit Used Cars would be grouped together, Ford Dealer and Detroit Ford Dealer would be grouped together, and New Ford and New Ford Prices would be grouped together.

Negative Keywords

As you are generating your keyword list take note of suggested words that are irrelevant to your product or service. Similar to Geo-Targeting these negative keywords can be used to limit when your ad will appear. For example, if I wanted my ad to appear whenever the search sting contained Detroit Ford my ad would appear when Detroit Henry Ford Hospital or Ford Field Detroit was searched for. These terms are irrelevant and could create non-converting clicks. Therefore, I would add the words Henry, Hospital, and Field to my account as negative keywords.

Writing Effective Ads

Ads have two text components; the ad title and the ad description. The title is the clickable link of the ad and the description is the text that follows. Before you write your ad you should research competing ads. Go to one of the major search engines and search for a keyword from one of your keyword groups. On the search engine results page you will most likely see a section titled Sponsored Links. These links are the ads you will be competing against. The ad in the first position generates the most revenue for the search engine. It does not mean that this ad is paying more per click than the other ads below it. It means that the product of the number of times it is clicked on and the cost per click is higher than the ads below it. For example, compare the two advertisers below:

Advertiser One's ad does not grab the attention of most web surfers. He pays $10.00 per click. His ad is displayed 1,000 times and clicked on 25 times. He pays the search engine $250.00

Advertiser Two's ad grabs the attention of most web surfers. She pays $5.00 per click. Her ad is displayed 1,000 times and clicked on 100 times. She pays the search engine $500.00

Even though Advertiser One is paying twice as much per click as Advertiser Two, the search engine will place Advertiser Two's ad way above Advertisers One's ad on the search engine results page because it generates twice the revenue.

Include the keyword in the ad title

The first rule to follow is to include the keyword, or part of it, in the ad title. When the word searched for appears in your ad, it is more likely to grab the attention of the searcher. Additionally, these words will appear in bold print. By grouping your like keywords together it is easy to write relevant ads for each group.

Use very short sentences in the description

The search engine results page is loaded with text. You have to get your point across fast. The best way I've found to accomplish this is with a few very short, 3 to 5 word, sentences. Each sentence should target a different reason to click your ad. I've also found that the use of numbers in your description helps convert surfers into clickers. For example:

Trades valued $1,000 over book.
No payments for 90 days.
Rebates up to $5,000.

Write multiple ads for each keyword group

You should write multiple ads for each of your keyword groups. If you do this, the search engine will rotate the ads. Over time they will display the ad that generates the most clicks more often.

Use Conversion Tracking

Each of the major engines has built in conversion tracking reports. To use these reports you simply copy and paste a snippet of code on your entry web page and your submission thank you page. With these reports you can determine the exact cost to generate a lead for each of your target keywords.

If your campaign is not generating cost-effective leads you have four options.

1. Stop advertising online
2. Change your cost per click amount
3. Change your ads
4. Change your destination page to match your ads.

To employ option two, three, and four use the oldest problem solving technique know to mankind – Trial and Error. Alter only one item at a time. This way you can properly attribute the effect to a cause.

If your campaign is generating cost-effective leads you should continually increase your cost-per-click until you hit the optimal price point and volume. If things are going good and you notice an increase in price and a decrease in lead volume, do a few searches with your target keywords. Chances are that a competitor improved their ads or copied yours.

Published in World of Special Finance Magazine
May Issue 2007