Google & Yahoo Pay Per Click Advertising

The New Guy · 01-28-2008, 03:49 PM

Wondering how many of you use the pay per click ads from Google or Yahoo?

I just started a local, 50 mile radius of my zip code campaign late last night at about 3:00am. I picked about 20 key words, placed a bid of $3.50 per click, and set my daily budget at $15.00 to limit my risk.

As of 3:00pm today, 12 hours later, I've had 4 clicks on my ads, after more than 500 impressions, and three phone calls that lead to three proposals being e-mailed out, and three "Thank you" cards that already went into todays mail. All sound like solid prospects.

Perhaps just beginners luck.

Anybody else have any experience with these?

healthagent · 01-28-2008, 04:26 PM

Well you're in a great marketing so take advantage of it. For the MD market it's more like $6.00 a click to get 1st page ranking and a cap of $15 would barely make the ad visible - if it even placed at all.

I ran a PPC campaign well over a year ago and suspected a lot of click fraud. When the dust settled for me a lead came out to $50+ and there were better places to put my money.

However, for you the results will be the results. If it's working great for you then it wouldn't matter who else got their ass kicked. Stick with it.

Charlie Hanna · 02-21-2008, 10:55 AM

Admittedly, I hate marketing because I never know what I am paying for until I pay for it. As wonderful as the internet is - it's equally complicated. I have a client that understands it far better then I do. Feel free to call him at 402-421-0166, his name is Gary and I know he will be glad to tell you how to drive traffic. He helped me, you can check out my web site if you like.
God Speed,

***Melmunch3*** · 02-21-2008, 11:16 AM

The key to doing this with a decent roi is to develop a huge keyword list, with lots of long tail searches. If you just bid on a few very expensive keywords, then you will get very few clicks unless you overpay. Few clicks means your quality score goes down, since you have such a low ctr. You can use wordtracker, or keyworddiscovery/Trellian or Keywordspy or wordze to develop these lists. The main point is that your cpc goes way down when you bid on a less competitive search term. Of course, once you have a decent quality score then your cost will go down even on the more competitive keywords.

Also, pay very careful attention to your copy in your ads. Make sure that while trying to attract a large number of clicks, you do not encourage clicks that are not actually looking for your services.

Another tip is to make your ad title an exact match to the keyword you are bidding on. It then gets bolded, which encourages click through as it draws the eye.

007 · 02-21-2008, 11:48 AM

Also cpc goes down when you've build a long history in the account... people complain why they pay TOO much initialy when the account has no reputable history... sorta like building your credit history...

salpro22 · 02-21-2008, 10:04 PM

Also, pay very careful attention to your copy in your ads. Make sure that while trying to attract a large number of clicks, you do not encourage clicks that are not actually looking for your services.

As an example, if you didn't want to target uninsurables, you wouldn't put the following in bold???

Denied Covered? Uninsured? Carrier Got You Down? Get Quality Coverage Immediately.!

I'm not being a smartass, just making sure I understand what you mean.

TXINSURANCE · 02-21-2008, 11:41 PM

You can block out negative words, and areas you do not want to target.

You have to have good Analytics tied to your CRM.

I have a CRM I developed I will be selling very soon - likely post the demo in the offers section at some point. I can see what words a particular lead searched for, what pages on my site(s) they went to, how long on each page, what was the cost per lead and the ROI of each advertising campaign.

The key is detailed reports - otherwise you are just guessing.

I have spent and managed pay per click campaigns in the millions and yes it is effective, and yes you can lose money. Pay per click can be your best friend or your worst enemy.

This is the main reason we do multi state, it is cheaper to get leads from 40 states than 1 state. You can not spend double on PPC and get double leads, it does not work that way.

It is actually extremely complicated particularly if you are not tracking Analytics to your lead CRM / capture forms. This is why I generally advise buying leads instead of self generation, so you can set filters and possibly get returns on bad phones, fake leads, etc., etc.,

With Health Insurance PPC you are generally competing with Lead Companies which you can't afford to compete with. You can get limited traffic cheap, but not in volume.

If it works for you - keep plugging away, try it out.

salpro22 · 02-22-2008, 07:58 AM

Originally Posted by TXINSURANCE

You can block out negative words, and areas you do not want to target.

You have to have good Analytics tied to your CRM.

I have a CRM I developed I will be selling very soon - likely post the demo in the offers section at some point. I can see what words a particular lead searched for, what pages on my site(s) they went to, how long on each page, what was the cost per lead and the ROI of each advertising campaign.

The key is detailed reports - otherwise you are just guessing.

I have spent and managed pay per click campaigns in the millions and yes it is effective, and yes you can lose money. Pay per click can be your best friend or your worst enemy.

This is the main reason we do multi state, it is cheaper to get leads from 40 states than 1 state. You can not spend double on PPC and get double leads, it does not work that way.

It is actually extremely complicated particularly if you are not tracking Analytics to your lead CRM / capture forms. This is why I generally advise buying leads instead of self generation, so you can set filters and possibly get returns on bad phones, fake leads, etc., etc.,

With Health Insurance PPC you are generally competing with Lead Companies which you can't afford to compete with. You can get limited traffic cheap, but not in volume.

If it works for you - keep plugging away, try it out.

When is the demo expected to be released for the CRM you currently use? I believe you said it was going to be available shortly, but that was a month ago. I'm sure it's great though from our short discussion. Does your CRM track everything a prospect does (respond, webisite view, etc.) or do you use a different program.

I'd like to see a good program that crunches the numbers without having to resort to using excel spreadsheets.

TXINSURANCE · 02-22-2008, 09:56 AM

Does your CRM track everything a prospect does (respond, webisite view, etc.) or do you use a different program.

Yes it is all built in and works great. I will email you I don't want to hijack this thread.

007 · 02-22-2008, 10:03 AM

Originally Posted by TXINSURANCE

Yes it is all built in and works great. I will email you I don't want to hijack this thread.

Don't mess with TX, preciate if you would send me info. too...

sunkist219 · 10-03-2008, 08:25 PM

Google & Yahoo advertising is the way to go for this industry. I'm pouring most of my advertising budget into it and it definately pays off. Especially if you live in a young-populated city.

CHUMPS FROM OXFORD · 10-03-2008, 09:08 PM

Maybe you can provide more details. I use Google PPC and rarely get hits. Maybe that's good because some Board members experienced in PPC say it's not worthwhile.

sunkist219 · 10-03-2008, 09:10 PM

What types of keywords are you advertising under? Are you doing a local campaign (example: phoenix az insurance)? It definately works but Google prides themselves in having a non-user-friendly system. You really have to know a lot about them to do it effectively.

I promise I won't click on you

liquidblue33 · 10-03-2008, 09:31 PM

Yea, you really have to be careful with the "click fraud" I new a guy who set a $50 daily budget. It got maxed out everyday, for 6 days and he never got a completed quote.

sunkist219 · 10-03-2008, 09:35 PM

That's why I say SEO is the way to go. For a decent job you'll pay around $7000 a year but the results you get are so much better than in the PPC area. I read something recently that said a really high percentage (90% i think?) of people click in the "natural listings" on Google - so that's the place to be. You also don't have to worry about click fraud there.

TXINSURANCE · 10-04-2008, 09:40 AM

Good traffic costs money. SEO is complicated and takes a lot of time.

Paid traffic is generally for lead companies as cost "per lead" is excessive right now in any quantity. $20 to $60 a lead is not uncommon with paid traffic.

sunkist219 · 10-05-2008, 06:13 PM

It's not complicated or timely if you hire a company to do it. I think it's better to pay a few thousand one time to get ranked on search engines rather than paying per click for tons of years. The good thing with SEO is it gets you ranked on all search engines - not just Google. In one of the marketing books I read, it said SEO is the cheapest cost/lead right after referrals (which obviously don't cost anything)

TXINSURANCE · 10-05-2008, 06:24 PM

I disagree but that is ok. 99% of seo companies are thieves. Most want large sums upfront. Hardly any will work performance based.

sunkist219 · 10-05-2008, 06:43 PM

Well obviously it's only good if you get a good company. If you can't figure out where to start, ask someone else you know who's used a company they recommend.

And as for the money upfront, I think it is because of all the original work they have to do on the site. I read "SEO for Dummies" recently and it really shows you how much work it is.

flauto-insurance · 10-07-2008, 09:48 PM

It works great if you work it right. Also be carefull about spreding it over otherr sites. They tend to suck up the clicks without results....