Is PPC worthwhile for a product with no search volume?
-
I'm working on a PPC campaign for a client who provides a luxury service. He has very little search volume in general, and there's one product that has no volume at all.
I'm wondering if it's worthwhile to run a campaign for this product using the general keywords. I estimate that 95% of the population has no intention of using our service and can't afford it even if they did.
For example, say we're a concierge doctor service. When people search for 'medical doctor' or 'medical treatment' they are looking for doctors, and we probably could help them, but they won't want us when they could go to the doctor's office down the street and pay a fraction of the price.
Obviously I'd tailor the keywords so it would be as relevant as possible.
Yay: If my ads are clear, then whoever clicks them is interested in my product, so my money is being well spent. I'll just have a very low CTR.
Nay: Spend the money on advertisement tailored to the target market, both people with existing interest, and those who would want it if they knew we existed.
Yay or nay?
-
Higher QS means you get more clicks for the same amount of money. Too many people accept automated suggestions to up the buy. They should focus on improved QS first. It's all a matter of well the trigger words, ads, and landing page relate to each other.
-
True, about Google Adwords. Although, that isn't my only source.
I can always run a test campaign just to see the number of impressions I get on the keywords I've designated as 'zero search volume'.
And why is QS so important?
-
Wow, I guess you're right. I'm gonna get started on moving heaven right about now.
Too bad, there are quite a few people between me and heaven.
Thanks for the in depth answer.
-
One challenge that you have is that insurance companies and medical groups already offer these services to control costs and direct patients to in-house services.
-
I say nay....at least for now...and at least on the basis of the limited information you were able to provide.
I have two clients in exactly this situation. Let's say one is in the health and wellness business and the other is in the gourmet food business.
I agree that tailored keywords are important. But I'd move heaven and earth on an organic search strategy for several months before even attempting PPC. By that I mean super-premium, high quality editorial content or interactive features -- and a handcrafted link-building strategy that targets MSM outlets. We're talking commissioning articles from established writers or paying for interactive apps.
I'd also encourage your client's very top execs to grovel for links from their partners, suppliers, clients. The idea that approval can happen at the "web guy" or even marketing dept. level is comical. You have to pretend you're just the "tech guy" -- even if the stategy is all yours. Then you fight like hell over "billing" -- a bit like Hollywood.
I'd also invest a lot of effort into reviews and recommendations, both on-site and on third party sites.
All that said, YMMV. It all depends on the industry and the client and the competitive landscape.
I have one client who offers a super-premieum service -- for whom I've implemented an Adwords cmpaign. The CTR is miniscule. So is the cost. ...about $9 a day. And it's paid off big.
But I just use the CPC as a supplement to other stuff. My overarching point is you should try other stuff first.
-
If your ads have a lot of impressions but low CTR then your keywords will end up having very low Quality Scores. I would try using keywords that are relevant to your business even if they have low search volumes. The AdWords keyword tool is not 100% correct and your business needs only those few who are looking for these special services.
Maybe a more thorough keyword analysis would reveal keywords that have slightly higher search volumes.
If you use more generic keywords and your ads show that your service is special then:
- your ads will have low CTR
- your keywords will have low Q.S.
- if users click on the ads but realise the difference on the website then your landing pages will have high Bounce Rates and we're back to low Q.S. again
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Correlating Form Submissions to PPC vs Organic - COA
I currently don't use a landing page model. From either Adwords or Organic you reach our site, find the event product that appeals to you, and then fill out the form. I need a way to determine which of those form submissions came from Organic Vs Paid so I can calculate my cost of customer acquisition (COA). Via Google Analytics I can see that X amount of Organic were submitted and X of Paid. If I get 5 submissions in one day there isn't an efficient way to correlate the form submissions to the medium. Any suggestions on an attribute method that would help me sort out COA?
Paid Search Marketing | | fireflyevents0 -
What's the best call tracking system to use for PPC & subsequent landing pages?
Client has about 30 locations. Not planning to get too fancy (i.e. like putting JS on the page so that a dynamically generated phone is displayed to track keywords). At this point, just we only want to see if PPC is providing telephone conversions. I've used Mongoose Metrics before and it seemed good. However, I don't want to go with something simply because it's what I already know. Would love to know some of your favourites and if there are better options. Also - client is in Canada. Not sure if that makes a difference.
Paid Search Marketing | | woodsy10100 -
PPC software.. which one do you think is better? why?
hey guys... I am trying to figure out the best way of doing PPC. I dont want waste money doing it the less effective way. So far I have been looking at Acquisio and wordstream.. I am not sure which would be best for me or if there is other options that would be even better. I am in house in charge of 2 ecommerce websites.
Paid Search Marketing | | Felip30 -
Search Term in Contact Email
Can anybody help me with this? Our enquiries come through by email with certain details added by the potential customer e.g name, email address, phone number etc. I would also like to have the search term that triggered the conversion to appear in the email we receive. I've seen this done before. Can anybody tell me hoe this is done? Thanks
Paid Search Marketing | | RobSchofield0 -
Canonical or noindex for PPC landing pages?
I have two pages for this example. http://www.designquotes.com.au/web-design-quotes/ http://www.designquotes.com.au/web-design-quotes-melbourne/ The first URL is an SEO optimised page. The second URL is 99% the same, except that it specifies a city. It's intended use of for a PPC campaign. The first page has major cities mentioned on the page so I don't have to build a separate page for every city variation. The second URL is designed to be city specific for a geographically targeted PPC campaign. The more specific, the higher the conversion rate. Should the second page (the PPC landing page) use a canonical URL (since it's 99% the same) or should it be noindex?
Paid Search Marketing | | designquotes0 -
How do you assess PPC ROI?
I thought this would be pretty straightforward, but I'm trying to put together my first PPC ROI spreadsheet and it's turning out to be much more complicated than I had anticipated. Would anyone be willing to tell me what you look at to determine the return you're getting on PPC -- and if you're using AdWords and Analytics, what screens/reports you rely on? It seems to be more complex than simply comparing Paid Search Revenue to spend ... but I could be overcomplicating things.
Paid Search Marketing | | CMC-SD0 -
PPC - Is this Budget suitable for me?
Hello, I have a question about a PPC(adwords) budget. If I want to invest 500$ / month , per year. Is that enough to reach more than 5.000 users(month) in my website? Keyword: TANGO Country: Br ( www.google.com.br ). I know I'm not giving a huge information about this question, but I just want to hear some toughts for a guy who has more experience in PPC than me. Any suggestion will be very appreciated, thanks.
Paid Search Marketing | | augustos0 -
Starting Fresh with a New PPC Account
I've inherited an Adwords account with a few years' worth of history. The account has changed hands a lot though and there's a lot of clutter and confusing account architecture (confusing and redundant campaigns, thousands of inactive long-long-tail keywords for every match type, etc.). I have a new architecture/strategy in mind but I'm unsure if I should start a new account from scratch, pause 90% of things and start some new campaigns, or delete a bunch of stuff permanently and start some new campaigns. My fear with the pausing option is that I'll have to wade through a bunch of clutter in my daily management and reporting - I like to keep things clean. My fear with deleting is losing data - I'd like to be able to always look back at how things were. And my fear with the new account from scratch method is losing whatever account/campaign quality score or historical value the account has built over time and the logistics of having to stop the old account to create a new account. Can you even have 2 accounts with the same domain or would I have to delete the old account before launching the new? For all my past PPC accounts, I started them more or less from scratch so this is new to me. Any advice/insights would be most appreciated. Thanks! Jeff
Paid Search Marketing | | jeff.gibson0