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eywords and PPC campaigns, like any type of advertising campaign,
need to be monitored carefully to ensure that they are as effective as
possible. Of course, you’ll also want to be sure that you’re spending
only as much of your advertising budget as you need. But determining those
factors requires monitoring activities, spending, and conversions, and man-
aging the strategies that you use to improve those factors.
One factor that will influence your PPC campaigns the most is money. Be
it in the form of your PPC budget, the amount of money that you need to
save, or determining your ROI, you’ll be constantly justifying your PPC
campaign with financial values. Tracking those values isn’t difficult, but it
can be time-consuming.
What’s more, the competition for keywords and PPC advertisements is quickly
becoming more and more rigorous. If you’re not constantly tweaking your
PPC campaigns to make them as effective as possible, you’ll be throwing
your budget away like empty candy wrappers.
Keyword Budgeting
Part of the allure of PPC advertising is that it appears to be a low-cost alter-
native to other types of advertising. The attraction is that you can reach more
people using less of your advertising budget. The reality could be much dif-
ferent, however.
PPC programs are designed to create competition between bidders. You find
the perfect keyword, and then you get caught up in a bidding war. Before you
know it, you’ve upped your maximum bid-per-click. And to accommodate
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IN THIS CHAPTER
Keyword budgeting
Understanding bid management
Tracking keywords and
conversions
Reducing pay-per-click costs
Monitoring pay-per-click
Campaigns ..............................................................................................................
Improving click-through rates
Using PPC to generate profit
The ROI of PPC
Managing Keyword
and PPC Campaigns
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