Measuring The Effectiveness Of PPC Campaigns

As more companies set up websites and landing pages to promote products and service, online advertising has become more important than ever before. Pay per click advertising is just one of several types of online marketing strategies that can help generate more traffic, increase leads and close a sale. PPC campaigns are designed to attract a visitor's attention while they are performing searches on the major search engines, and when clicked, lead the visitor to a sales page where they can purchase or learn more about a product.

PPC campaigns ultimately aim to produce interest in a product or increase sales. The technology used in PPC campaigns allow for a quick turnaround of marketing data. Most ppc networks, including Google Adwords, give its users the ability to access useful reports regarding the performance of your campaign - allowing you to tweak your campaigns for better results.

Your site's traffic is the most basic data used for optimizing PPC ads. The data can reveal how many visitors came to your site and identify where they originated. Check the dates when you have experienced a spike in traffic and check if those were the dates when you ran your ads.

Probably the most important data that you have to monitor are your conversion rates. A conversion rate is the ratio between the number of clicks on your ads and how many sales resulted from those clicks. Your conversion rates will determine the cost of how much it will cost you before generating a sale.

Conversion can be in the form of a sign-up, submitting contact info, or a download from your site, according to Joseph Thornton, author of "The Online Advertising Playbook". You can consider these activities as conversion only when they directly relate to your PPC campaigns.

Another way to measure the effectiveness of a PPC campaign is to analyze different keywords and keyphrases as they relate to conversion rates. If you are able to drill down exactly which keywords and keyphrases are leading to a sale, you can optimize your website for these words and also use the data for future campaigns.

Finally, determining the rankings of your advertising segment will help you determine which placement is the best for your particular niche or industry. Google Adwords rotates the ads in its sidebar column to ensure a fair advantage for all advertisers, but there are some spots that are considered 'Featured ads'. These spots may have more value for you in a very competitive market, and can make it easier for you to decide where and how to promote your PPC campaign and achieve the best possible results.