PPC Price/Keyword Questions

[bubbles]

Okay, so I set up an affiliate site promoting credit cards, I get paid for applications and approvals. I've got it set up on a wordpress blog. I have a privacy policy, about us page, and contact us page, to improve my Quality Score.

I have about 10 pages worth of actual content, and then like 10 blog postings promoting actual credit cards.

I decided to sign up on Overture since people here say that Google can be expensive, while I'm experimenting I don't want to spend more than I have to.

So I signed up for overture, chose my keywords, created my advertisement, and got to the PPC page. Yahoo recommended I pay about $1.09 per click, which I quickly put down to $0.10. Yahoo still estimated around 200,000 impressions and like 90 clicks, which I thought was inaccurate, but whatever, I hit submit.

I've now realized that my ads are showing up on the 26th page for the keywords, and I need to raise my PPC to get any clicks at all. My problem is I'm on a limited budget ($100/month or $3/day), and am scared to pay the price needed to get any clicks. This is my first time so I'm hesitant to pay that much for a click. Is it worth it?

My second question is how do you all generate keyword lists of like 1000+? I think I have about five right now. Most keyword recommendations I found using various programs/sites were irrelevant to my site, or not "Buy" keywords.

Last, I hear people talk about recording everything. I'm good with PHP/MySQL and can easily track which engine/keyword was used to get to the site, I can track if they clicked through using that keyword, should I be tracking anything else?

Thanks in advance.

 

[aeiouy]

I decided to sign up on Overture since people here say that Google can be expensive, while I'm experimenting I don't want to spend more than I have to.

Bit of a misnomer... The bid prices on the major PPC engines are fairly close. There is no huge discrepancies, in general. In some markets there may be depending on the players, but a lot of people market across the board, so you are not going to see a huge difference in costs, a lot of times.

The one additional factor to all of this is that you can end up paying more in Google because of Quality score, or now in Yahoo because of quality score, or now even in MSN. Suffice it to say you can find wholes in all the engines, so you need to test them all out eventually.

So I signed up for overture, chose my keywords, created my advertisement, and got to the PPC page. Yahoo recommended I pay about $1.09 per click, which I quickly put down to $0.10. Yahoo still estimated around 200,000 impressions and like 90 clicks, which I thought was inaccurate, but whatever, I hit submit.

First of all that was not a suggested price beyond that was the price needed to get the number one spot and get the most clicks possible. Me personally, I have not seen a lot of correlation with Yahoo's estimates, but I ignore them. Mostly because Google and MSN have horrible estimators and thus I learned to ignore them before I ever used Yahoo. That being said I am not sure why you thought they were wrong with your 10 cent bid. Certainly in some areas a 10 cent bid can get a lot of traffic. On a competitive keyword, not likely to get much any traffic. 10 cents is the minimum bid. If 10 people bid 11 cents you are on the second page.

I've now realized that my ads are showing up on the 26th page for the keywords, and I need to raise my PPC to get any clicks at all. My problem is I'm on a limited budget ($100/month or $3/day), and am scared to pay the price needed to get any clicks. This is my first time so I'm hesitant to pay that much for a click. Is it worth it?

You will never know unless you do it, but with that kind of budget, you may want to look for places you can actually get less expensive clicks, even if the conversion rate is lower, until you get more comfortable and get a feel for what you are doing.

I used to be like you and I remember when 9 cents was the most I would ever bid for anything. I regularly have bids over a $1.00 on stuff, and it doesn't phase me at all. But I understand that fear early on and it is warranted.

Personally, I would advise that you look to broaden your keyword base and see if you can get ANY pulls at the minimum. At the same time you might at least go up a few cents. Going to 12 cents would be a 20% cost increase, so it is a lot. But work on getting more keywords, up the bid a bit and see if anything happens.

My second question is how do you all generate keyword lists of like 1000+? I think I have about five right now. Most keyword recommendations I found using various programs/sites were irrelevant to my site, or not "Buy" keywords.

5 keywords is enough if you really know what you are doing. If you don't know what you are doing you need as many as you can get. For now just learn to use the built-in keyword tool Yahoo provides. Go through and entire in keywords and get their suggestions. Use the refine tool. Take ALL these keywords you farm and paste them into a text file. Then just dump them back in 50 at a time into your campaign. Or if you want to mess with Yahoo's horrible bulk upload you can use that too. But for quick and dirty, you can add hundreds of keywords in 10-15 minutes.

Now realize thise, Yahoo is the worst at this, they may very well decline or delete all or most of your words. Be prepared for that. And don't get discouraged.

So I would recommend this:

1) Add a few hundred more keywords. And try to make them as relevant as possible. With the refine tool in Yahoo you can get some long-tail on topic phrases.

2) After giving the larger keyword list a few days to see if you get any traffic, see about inching up your bids a bit.

Last, I hear people talk about recording everything. I'm good with PHP/MySQL and can easily track which engine/keyword was used to get to the site, I can track if they clicked through using that keyword, should I be tracking anything else?

Thanks in advance.

This question gives me tired head right now, but suffice it to say, as you go you will learn what you want to track and what you don't. Everyone is different. If you are good with PHP and MySQL you should be in good shape.

 

[Jdog]

Good advice aeiouy, I agree on the google thing. I was scared for a long time to use them because I thought I would lose money, but I think it has actually been easier on google for me than msn and overture.

 

[bubbles]

Update: It turns out my site had not yet gotten approved, I thought it did. I have recieved 23 impressions so far, no clicks. I may now increase my PPC to maybe get some more impressions flowing.

Thank you so much for your advice, I found it very helpful. If anyone else has anything else I'm still open to suggestions.

 

[wickedfire2]

Hi,

Your bids are way to low look at doing other forms of marketing first and then eventually go into ppc.

ppc is where it's at but you have to be willing to test and track.

 

[ffblueocean]

Great advice aeiouy! It's good that you have set a budget bubbles so you can still afford your corn dogs. Stick with it and take is slow. It's much better to learn on possibly loosing $3 then $30 a day! Managing 5 keywords is a great start too!