Is it better to place PPC when competition is high or low?
-
When managing a clients PPC campaign is there any advice on throttling up and down the accounts depending on the search popularity. Let's take "wedding cake" there are obvious trends here https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=wedding cake but would you advise to spend more on Ads during the quite months as competition is low and you can get more click for less cost, or do you load up on clicks when it is more competitive/expencive .
Please don't get bogged down in the "weeding cake" keyword, I'm looking more for views on when would be best to load an account in terms of return on investment. For example would you get better quality clicks when low search volumes as opposed to high. Lets also assume that our product costs us the same all year round. I have seen different side to the story.
What are your views
-
Competition does matter, and the landscape does change based on different keywords. Most head terms don't have significant amounts of competition because they are too vague. Something like Wedding Cakes is not a good PPC term when you are looking to make money on your money as fast as you can.
It's always best to try bidding on the term (especially on Broad Match Modified) to see how it performs for you, but it is highly likely you will receive a low QS and a low CTR and higher CPCs which make it not as important of a term when you are looking at everything from a returns or profits perspective.
As far as low v high volumes for keywords, it's not something that I take into significant consideration unless my client is trying to get close to a specific number or is very concerned about a specific keyword. PPC is about throwing out a wide net for low, mid and high volume keywords, bidding on all of them, and learning over time what creates good return for your particular niche. What works for my business might be a horrible strategy for your business.
-
Hi Simon,
From your question it is very clear that you want to get more clicks in less cost but spending more in quite time there is no doubt cost will reduce due to less competition but you will also get less conversion in quite months.
IMO you should bid on peak season and if your budget is tight don't use broad match use only exact match and even if you think exact match is expensive use BMM keywords and add exact match as negative keyword so you can target only long tail keyword.
To reduce CPC best option is increase QS of your keyword.
Hope this helps.
Thanks
-
People who run PPC campaigns should be focused on the average cost for a conversion and the average profit on a sale. These can vary wildly as traffic blasts arrive from various sources that might have purchase intent or not. As soon as the eye is removed from the cost of what you are doing and the profit that it is producing, then a vendors shirt can be lost without knowing it.
-
Maybe more complicated decision than asked.
To me and my clients it is about market share. As you know ultimately there is usually only one winner/survivor. Law of the jungle.
google -v- bing
pepsi v coke. etc,
I suggest you use adwords as one tool in the kit to strategically gain market share at a faster rate than your competitors - however carefully monitor the cost of client acquisition. At some stages it may get too expensive to chase key Adwords in the high season - due to bulging cheque books of competitors - but stay in the hunt as long as you can afford to. Do not go head on for the "main" keywords if you cannot afford it. Also get smart if you can't afford to go head on - use social media, mail outs, editorial, long tailed keywords - fight to the death. A favorite of mine at the moment is outbrain. Never stop thinking about stealing clicks from your competitors. But never stop marketing at any time, just do it smarter. In high season you must be seen and heard as that is what will carry you through the slow season...
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
-
Our PPC UTM URLs Aren't Registering In GA Properly
Hi, We recently ran a few ads on Facebook and Reddit for a campaign of ours. Each of the URLs were properly attributed UTM links. Some of them register properly in campaigns, but the vast majority aren't. I can only find the attribution by checking All Traffic and displaying the landing page and the source/medium. Our Facebook Ad Manager reports MANY more clicks than our Campaign section in GA is for the campaign name. Here's the URL I receive for the landing page: /?url=http://www.ourwebsiteurl.com/our-landing-page?utm_source=facebook.com&dm_redirected=true Is Facebook writing over our UTM with their own so all I receive is that it came from Facebook? The URL we used was complete with utm_source, utm_campaign and utm_medium, yet these aren't fully reported. Any ideas?
Paid Search Marketing | | kirmeliux0 -
How to find a good PPC firm
Hi guys, I'm completely new to PPC. I want to hire a firm to help drive PPC traffic to credit card landing pages. Our starting budget is limited ($2,000/month for everything) but can grow to about $5,000 if we see results. My questions are: Where can I find a list of good PPC firms that fits my vertical (credit cards) and budget? What are the key questions I should ask a PPC firm before I hire them? Is there a "Beginner's Guide to PPC" type of whitepaper, ebook, article, or course I can take to educate myself? Thanks in advance!
Paid Search Marketing | | Brand_Psychic0 -
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 -
How much is my competition spending on adwrods?
Hi guys Has anyone used tools like spyfu before? I need to find out how much the top competition in my market is spending on adwords and what keywords etc. Is spyfu accurate and how do they get that data? Thanks
Paid Search Marketing | | yournetbiz0 -
Adword competition between exact match and related broad match
If I have two company A and B. Company A: bid on key word exact [Nike and Jordan] Company B: bid on broad match Jordan shoesks Considering that broad match use related words I noted that google display both ads if I search Nike and Jordam (shoes is related with Nike). My question is: bid of B is competing with bid of A? therefore CPC of A increase because of B? Tks
Paid Search Marketing | | fabrico230 -
Why don't national brands have PPC ads that target their names, while smaller brands do?
Google's policy is to allow other businesses to run PPC ads against your business name, even when trademarked, so long as the ads don't include the trademarked name. At least that's what I have experienced and read online. Source: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/AdWords/thread?tid=55e2b4bf90ae9585&hl=en Why do so many national brands have no PPC ads showing on their names in Google searches? http://www.google.com/search?gcx=c&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=best+buy http://www.google.com/search?gcx=c&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=victorias+secret http://www.google.com/search?gcx=c&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=office+depot And so on. Smaller brands, even when trademarked, are awash in competitors targeting their names: http://www.google.com/search?gcx=c&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=nally+used+cars http://www.google.com/search?gcx=c&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=la+jolla+cosmetic+surgery+centre Consider these two hotels: http://www.google.com/search?gcx=c&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=ritz+carlton+new+york http://www.google.com/search?gcx=c&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=hotel+3030+new+york There are two slightly different questions in play here, as I have clients I'd like to better protect against this type of PPC poaching: So, are there any different policies at Google Adwords RE: national brands and having competitor's ads show on their names? How do the major brands block the advertisers on their names? Thanks!
Paid Search Marketing | | CakeWebsites0 -
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 -
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?
Paid Search Marketing | | 5225Marketing0