Volume 98: January 25, 2012
California
May 14 - 18, 2012
July 16 - 20, 2012
September 10 - 14, 2012
December 3 - 7, 2012
Sydney, Australia
1-Day Training
February 29, 2012
July 31, 2012
September 4, 2012
November 6, 2012
Milan, Italy
Conference Training
San Jose February 27, 2012
Toronto April 24, 2012
Seattle June 7, 2012
New York October 5, 2012
New York March 23, 2012
Toronto June 13, 2012
San Francisco August 17, 2012
Chicago TBD, 2012
Budgeting Time & Money for PPC Campaigns
Time
PPC campaign management can be labour intensive & time consuming. If you decide to do manual bid management plan on putting in some time, especially at the beginning when you are getting your campaign(s) set up. If you have never done this kind of thing before, your ppc budget, bids and ads will require some adjusting to get them just right. Creating highly effective campaigns requires talent and a lot of work. Even with automatic ppc bid management tools and depending on how many keywords you are bidding on, managing campaigns can be a full-time job. You may want to check your bids daily, if not multiple times per day, or your ppc budget can get out of control.
Money
Advertising costs, particularly “auction type bids” tend to increase, not decrease, over time. Hence, margins get squeezed month-over-month and budgets need to be funded. That is not to say that “organic” SEO campaigns are a one shot deal. They also need to be continually monitored and managed but you will be richly rewarded with the long-term benefits. Although bid prices change and can periodically go up and down depending on the season and competitiveness of the keyword, once a baseline is obtained advertising costs can be fairly predictable. Bids are managed within the campaigns with daily or monthly limits so you can set your bids where you want them and let them run. This technique is not recommended, but possible, and advertising costs can usually be modeled to meet fluctuating marketing budgets.
PPC is a “Leased Traffic Model” and therefore not a good long term strategy if it is the primary source of revenue for the business. One should never have all “eggs in one basket” and this applies to internet marketing as well. PPC is a good strategy to get started and potentially long term if conversions warrant it. However, once a site starts ranking well “organically,” it could be time to turn down the PPC campaign or at least re-evaluate the keywords being bid on. If your budget allows for it, and conversions warrant it, it might be advantageous to keep it going.