![]() |
PPC & Advertising Information |
|
|
How to Waste Money and Annoy Potential Customers
Why do some companies bid on keywords for products they don't even sell? Or fail to provide the basic information people need to make the decision to buy? Here's a cautionary tale-- with a happy ending. HAS THIS EVER HAPPENED TO YOU? I'm looking online for lamp shades. I go to Google and click on the top Sponsored Link in the right column: Expo.com. I'm taken to their "Lighting and Fans" page. There are 29 links in the left navigation, but no lamp shades. So I do a keyword search. Products Found = 0. All I can do is wonder why they wasted my time and their money, and move on to the next ad. CLOSE, BUT NO CIGAR. Clicking on the second ad takes me to a home page with a "Shades" tab. I click on that and arrive on a page with information about sizes and a link to the lamp shade collection. I start browsing and find one I'm interested in. The text instructs me to "Click on lamp image for detail." I guess they mean lamp shade image. I click, and to my surprise, I see the exact same thumbnail I was looking at, but now I have four color choices and an "ad to cart" button. OK, I'm a designer. I can appreciate subtlety. But what's the difference between White, Off-White, Beige and Coffee? All this site shows me is a little grey photo-- but "Dirty" isn't one of the color choices. I see the toll-free phone number at the top of the page. I call (during their normal business hours) and get voicemail. They say my call is very important to them, but I'm not so sure... THIRD TIME'S THE CHARM? Back to Google, click on another ad which takes me to a page with lamp shades (YAY!). I can sort by nine different criteria, but even so, I don't see exactly what I want. There's a link to talk to a lighting consultant. I'm skeptical, but I call. Someone answers the phone! I explain what I want and I'm told I need a custom shade. This company doesn't make them, but the consultant refers me to two other sites where I can order custom-made shades. Even though I didn't find what I was searching for I really appreciate this experience. I'd be happy to return to this site and do business with this company in the future. THE MORAL OF THIS STORY Have some respect for your customers. Think about their needs and do everything you can to meet them. If you're advertising a product for sale it should be available on your site. If you expect people to make a choice, provide the information and pictures they need to feel comfortable making a decision. And even if you can't make the sale today, you can and should offer a good customer experience because there's always tomorrow. TIPS TO TAKE AWAY If you place an ad for a product your site should sell that product. Don't waste your money bidding on keywords for products you don't sell. If someone clicks on your ad they should be taken to a relevant landing page. Don't make people hunt around or do a Search on your site. Show them what they're looking for right away. Give them the information they need to make a good decision. Don't expect them to guess what your product is "really" like. -------------------------------------------------------- Barry Harrison is the author of "REDiTIPS" eMarketing Newsletter and a partner in Resolve Digital, Web Strategies for the Real World. Visit his site at http://www.resolvedigital.com
MORE RESOURCES:
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Niche Market Pay Per Click Advertising Should Be Your Priority There are many forms of advertising nowadays. There's popups and popunders, banner advertising, text ads, search engine optimization and pay per click search engine advertising. Work Your Google AdSense to the Bone! You got your website, you got your AdSense account, you have updated and published your new pages with AdSense code all over it and you are starting to see a little bit of money trickling through - and it is not what you were expecting!Like you, I thought I would be rolling in the AdSense money so fast that I already had my resignation letter printed and signed. That did not happen (yet). The Evolution of Google AdSense The web has evolved into a complex "organism" which, to some, appears to have a life of its own. As the Internet has evolved, so too have online marketers and publishers. How To Write Little Tiny AdWords Ads That Bring Giant-Sized Profits It seems to be a phenomenon. You try Google AdWords Select, your ad gets "disapproved" by the powers that be at Google, you count your losses and give up. Surefire Google Adwords Formula Success with Google Adwords isn't quite as easy as some would have you believe. Still just about anyone who is persistent can succeed if they'll but implement a consistent testing program. It Makes Sense to Add AdSense to Your Blog Google AdSense is easy to install on a web page or blog and constitutes additional source of income without spending anything. You have to apply on-line for Google AdSense Program and generally approval comes from Google within two days. Tips for Maximizing Your Google AdSense Revenues Despite what you may hear, the Google AdSense program is not for everyone. There are some types of web sites that do poorly no matter how hard the owners try, and there are others that should be doing well but the webmaster simply isn't putting in the effort to make things happen. How to Maximize Paid Search Results Because of increasing competition that has led to higher advertising costs with pay-per-click marketing, many battle-scarred - "do-it-yourself" - businesses have not realized their desired objectives. Although publicized as a straightforward, self-service marketing tool, pay-per-marketing involves far more knowledge than most businesses are able to invest in developing in-house. Seven Tips To Getting The Nost From Your Google Ad Word Investment With Google Ad Words . . What Should You Know About Search Engines and Pay-Per-Click? Here's a fact for you, 85 to 95% of Websites are found through a search engine. You may have the most incredible Website on the Internet, but it will receive little or no traffic without search engine visibility and ranking. How To Use PopUps With Google Adwords One of the common issues that marketers face when using Google Adwords, is that the use of popups on the target page for their ad is not permitted. Many Adwords advertisers just completely remove popups from their web site, which can not only significantly damage the profitability that results from other traffic sources, but, as we shall see, it is also not entirely necessary. Adsense-ble, Or The Art Of Promoting, Without Promoting Hey, wait a minute. You can't have popups on the page. Relevant Ads Increase Adsense Profits If you've started using Adsense as a way to increase advertising income, but the numbers just aren't adding up to what you expected, the problem might be with the ads themselves. If the ads being generated by Google's Adsense aren't relevant to your website, visitors won't click on them. Improved PPC Marketing Performance from Time-Tested 80/20 Principle As marketers and business owners, we're always looking for "the next big idea or strategy" to maximize our business performance. Yet, the application of time-tested principles consistently achieve greater results over efforts to create newer ideas and strategies. Dynamic Resource for Adsense: 3 Practical Models Quickly Earn & Maximize Google Adsense Revenue Looking back in time, I could still remember standing in awe and reading the exploits of one adsense guru who was starting a membership service for people keen to maximise their earnings as a google adsense publisher. He claimed to be making over $40K a month from his google adsense revenue and an almost equal amount from affiliate products. Grow Your Internet Business with Pay Per Click Search Engine As you probably know, Google is the world largest search engine serving around 200 million requests of information a day at the time of writing this article. With such a large users based, no wonder many internet businesses are currently making use of Google Adwords (http://adwords. Considerations For A Pay-Per-Click Ad Campaign Submitting your website to the Search Engines today may seem like a futile task or at very least, a complete waste of time. When you consider that there are millions of websites that could be listed just for the word FREE, it hardly seems worth the effort. Finding The Cheap Clicks As anyone who uses Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising in their marketing campaign knows, getting your ad copy on the front page of a search results listing is becoming more expensive by the day. It's a new phenomenon known as 'keyword fatigue', and it's down to the overwhelming success of programs like Google's AdWords. Pay Per Click Advertising Can Be Very Risky Business Click fraud is an unfortunate byproduct of the pay per click advertising business. Many people with an online business spend large amounts of money on pay per click advertising only to discover that many of the people clicking on their ads weren't really interested in their products or services. How to Master Google AdWords - Part 1 Then most difficult aspect of marketing a new product or web site is to find enough people that are interested in it so that they are ready to buy. Mastering Google AdWords will enable you to drive traffic to your web site and start making sales immediately. |
| home | site map |
| © 2006 Indexadvertisements.com |