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3,520,000 Results Can’t be Wrong

August 12th, 2010 by Paul R
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Ok, here is one PPC tip, probably the best out there….

Structure Your Accounts Correctly & You’ll Pay Less Per Click & Make More Sales

proper adwords account structure


Now, there’s no shortage of articles already written about it.

These guys wrote about it twice!

http://www.ppchero.com/a-poor-ppc-account-structure-will-make-your-campaign-suffer

http://www.ppchero.com/just-in-case-you-havent-heard-lately-ppc-account-structure-is-still-important

Here’s more:

http://www.orangesoda.com/blog/quality-score-account-structure

http://www.ppc101blog.com/%3Fp%3D36

http://www.web.com/blog/internet-marketing/managing-your-ppc-account-10-tips-for-tip-top-results

http://www.searchmarketingnow.com/ppc-tips-for-success-building-a-winning-account-structure-301

And they’re all right…

If you can peel a PPC geek away from his beloved Adwords editor for a minute, the first thing he or she will tell you most people do wrong is structure the account improperly.

You can read about what improper setups are on any of the links above, but the real question is what will you do with this new found information? How many people do you think read these posts, then went back into their accounts and made some changes….hmmmmm

  • Will you spend an hour each Friday re-structuring your campaign to lower your costs & get more conversions?
  • Did you spend 40-70 hours setting up your account correctly before you launched it? (That’s the average amount of man hours we spend launching a new account)

Well, if you value the results of implementation (also known as more revenue) over the ‘warm fuzzy feeling’ of learning new information, we should talk about us doing it for you.  Call us today: 866-819-4650 x 701

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John Carlton Simple Writing System Review

March 24th, 2010 by Paul R
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John Carlton’s Simple Writing System is open this week.  An epic, interactive copywriting course. I’ve taken it twice and can unequivocally say refining your copywriting skills for two months…with a pro writer…is priceless.  No, it doesn’t cost tens of thousands of dollars either.

Here’s a screen shot of the first headline I wrote for a client after SWS.  A 26.9% increase in conversions:

If you read some of my emails in the past,  you saw screen-shots of credits to my visa card from internet marketing program returns.  Embarrassing!

Let Me Show You Why I Didn’t Return SWS and Would Gladly Pay Double to Take It a 3rd Time…

Here’s how it goes down:

The box arrives via  UPS with John’s Simple Writing System home-study course. It includes a workbook/binder and DVDs.  The course is broken down into 17 easy to follow steps John has used for over 30 years in his own copy.

Side note: Pros don’t write from top to bottom…so it’s not as simple as 1. headlines, 2. sub-heads…etc.

Sounds a little counter intuitive, but it works like gangbusters.

Next, you get an email with log-in credentials for the private forum and an introduction to your personal coach . Million dollar copywriter David Deutsch was my coach last go around.   2 months with him matured my marketing chops by at least 5 years.

Here’s Where I Realized Learning Copy on Your Own Would Take Years vs. Months with Expert Coaching:

….so you pop-in a DVD, watch one of the 17 segments, take a stab at the assignment and post it for your coach to review.  John Carlton chimed in on my stuff several times, with a fatherly ‘shake some sense into you’  kinda of feedback.  Profound feedback actually, wish I could share it with you…

Each time I posted a lesson and thought:

“I nailed that one.”

…then the feedback came…and the initial posts I was most confident in often turned out to be the worst…

In my experience, the Simple Writing System, plus the coaching, rewire your marketing brain and cut years of the copy learning curve…in just two months time.

You’ll learn to write like a pro and get the skills & confidence to handle any email, sales letter, post card or landing page sales copy.  Plus you walk away with a complete sales letter from the 17 steps.   Having a decent writer put together a long form sales letter for you will cost you a few grand minimum, and you won’t get any of the real learning from just outsourcing.  That’s why it’s such a deal.

Right now John’s offering  free coaching with a 3 part express version of the Simple Writing System. Just take a look and I’ll hook you up with a  bonus valued at $150 just for opting in.  Part of the bonus is a private PPC consultation with me, a Perry Marshall recommended consultant. The other part you’ll have to opt-in to discover.

…Plus I’ll throw in a bonus worth $600 if you end up purchasing the Simple Writing System.

– No the bonuses aren’t some silly e-book or digital product that costs me nothing to provide–

Get in on the free coaching at John’s Simple Writing System blog  now.  Then I’ll follow up with you on the bonuses…Remember you can keep one even if you don’t buy!

Grab You Free $150 Value Bonus Here
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Google Adwords & Backlinks? Toto We’re Not in SEO Anymore

March 4th, 2010 by Paul R
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Got an earful about something interesting from  a former Google’r.
It was regarding a factor Adwords is using to evaluate your ppc landing pages
and I doubt you’ve considered this.

No, not  h1 tags or stuffing your bullets with keywords….it was:

QUALITY back links…um yesss, we’re not talking
SEO here. According to my source, quality of the
back-links pointing toward your landing page is important and will
become more important in the future.

Is this crazy talk, I’m not sure? But it does kinda make sense.
On the SEO side Google puts more weight on back-links then
Yahoo or MSN does. Being overly simplistic here,
but you get the point.

So, if good back-links = relevant information the same should
probably be true for PPC…

This brings up a few things, one being landing pages just for
PPC that aren’t part of the SEO game plan.  Squeeze pages, are they in trouble?

With the Adwords quality score hysteria a lot of people are building
a landing pages for every adgroup combination imaginable.
A page for red stilettos then a page for red high heels and another
for red stilettos size 6, 7, 8…etc

If you think about it though, Google is pretty smart in figuring out what pages
are about and what is in the wheelhouse of stilettos size 6.

Going overboard and creating a page for each shoe size may be miss-allocating your
time to higher ROI activities, like WRITING BETTER ADS.

Are a ka-billion landing pages a thing of the past? Not sure, but I think
we’ll find out…either that or my source was full of it :)

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Google Product Ads – A Game Changer?

November 4th, 2009 by Paul R
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Heard of Google Product Ads yet?

Google is getting in on a percentage of sales with their new product ads.  Shopping centers and malls have always done this.  You want the store by the busy entrance, no problem pay up!

Google has been quietly doing a limited Alpha test of a new program called Google Product Ads.

In place of a few Adwords slots you’ll start seeing an image of the product you’re looking for with prices from a few different vendors. These have started to pop-up in major cities around the country recently.

Why is this important?  There are no keywords and no cost per click.

So you’re no longer paying by click, but cutting Google a check for a percentage of sales.

The items are placed in a data feed similar to Froogle but with a few extra bells and whistles.
There are no keywords, so Google puts up your item on searches it sees fit.

How do you get in on the action?

You need to join Google’s affiliate network and basically make Google an affiliate of your program.

From our insider source  there are three known factors that weight in on who and what gets displayed.

They are:

  1. Quality Score
  2. The % of commission you’re willing to pony up
  3. Something Google is calling “traction”

When you step back and think about it,  they are computing what and who will bring them the most revenue…the consequences are dizzying.

Does a 5% commission to Google on a $1,000 digital camcorder sale bring in more revenue then a few Adwords ads in those spots?

What if your competitor offers Google a 6% commission over your 5%?

What if your site converts better than the competitor so Google makes more in the end on your 5% than your competitor’s 6%?

What if there’s more revenue to be made from Adwords in those slots?

Or

What if these new ads become so profitable, Adwords starts loosing spots? There may be a time when a top Adwords spot for a product could be near impossible to get.  The commission generated from a product ad may pale in comparison to the revenue that same spot would make with an Adwords ad.

There are some very powerful computers that will be crunching all this and learning/adjusting from results as they go.

At some point Google will have a very good idea which combination of products and vendors make them the most money when someone searches “digital camcorder,”….etc

This has the power to grow a company exponentially and put others out of business.

If you want to make sure you’re ready for this new, exciting change, give us a call 866-819-4650 x 701. We have a secret insider that is currently part of the Alpha test and can advise you on how to ready yourself for this game changer.

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Plastic Surgery Marketing – Why Relying on Intution Hurts Your Practice

September 18th, 2009 by Paul R
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Scientific Reasoning Proves do-it-your-self Google Marketing Is Costing You New Patients Every Month

Do-it-yourself marketing doctors unknowingly make a costly mistake each time they spend a dollar on marketing. It costs them new patients, consistent business and profits. The mistake is trusting your intuition.

Let me explain…

It’s no secret becoming a competent surgeon is done by learning scientific information from schools, mentors, trade publications…etc. Real science is the backbone of the plastic surgery art form. Experts have a way of making things look easy thought.

Follow me for a minute….Science and marketing are not usually mentioned in the same sentence. However there are mountains of data on marketing and steadfast rules for what works. Ignore those rules and Google keeps charging your credit card each month, they don’t care.

Herein lies the problem

By simply living life, interacting with people and having likes and dislikes, do-it-yourself marketing physicians mistakenly believe they possess intuitive knowledge of marketing.

…Want Proof

Which headlines is better?

A: Eyelid Surgery Expert

B: Eyelid Surgery Specialist

How long did it take to decide? That snap judgment is not based scientific information, it’s just a guess. One of those headlines will get you 20% more clicks. Choose incorrectly and those patients go to your competitor.

Would you like to know which one is better, based on data? The Expert headline gets about 20% more clicks than Specialist headline. How do we know? We tested it.

Where else are you guessing with your marketing? If you got it wrong, don’t worry.

You are a highly trained decision maker. It’s a habit that serves you well in many areas of your life.

Patients count on you to have that skill in life or death situations. The difference there is that you are trained for those decisions and they are backed by scientific research and proven protocols. If you are a do-it-yourself marketer that same skill is selling your practice short.

Tracking exact results like this with plastic surgery ads is now possible. Following a new patient from an ad click to the operating table can give you scientific guidance on where and how to spend your money.

To discover more techniques in plastic surgery marketing that reliably and consistently get new patients in the most competitive market in the world – Beverly Hills – Sign up for our five part report at www.clicksandpatients.com

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Google Conversion by Ad Position

August 26th, 2009 by Paul R
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Google’s chief economist released a report stating  conversion doesn’t change much based on ad position.  That’s a bold, across the board statement.

Google’s PhDs have research to  backup their argument.  I’m sure it’s not an evil plot designed to set your sights on the top (more expensive) spot for all that extra traffic that you are missing out on.  Financial motivations should at least be somewhere way, way back in your mind though.  Smart people can make data prove lots of arguments.

It’s just blanket claims always make me uneasy.  For every rule of thumb, or best practice there’s always an exception.

Long copy vs. short

1 page checkout vs. 2-3 page processes

Long headline vs. short headline

….and the list goes on. There are case studies to prove or disprove just about anything.

A more practical matter.  An actual client, spending actual money, getting actual leads.

I wanted to share with you a 30 day position analysis we ran for a ppc lead generation client.

For this client, positions 4-8 brought in the most impressions, most clicks and highest conversion rate when compared to spots 1-3.  In fact the conversion rate in 4-8 was about 3  times that of spots 1-3 and received more impressions.

conversion by ad position

conversion by ad position

I don’t doubt the validity of Google’s research, but this client’s ads are staying in position 4-8. With conversions rates above 12% and cost per leads in the $6-$7 range vs. a conversion rate around 4% and cost per lead of $9-$10 in spots 1-3

Final thoughts:  I’ve just picked off a slice of data to make my point, it should be noted that this too is only a piece of the puzzle.  End lead quality may  be a whole other story.   What if the leads from spots 1-3  brought in significantly more revenue to justify the higher cost per lead and lower conversion rate?  Stay tuned…

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Medspa Marketing – why everyone is leaving your website!

August 24th, 2009 by Paul R
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Medspa marketing, in particular pay per click is just one piece of the puzzle.  As you’ll find out below, more traffic isn’t always the answer.  You must view medspa marketing as a machine with multiple parts, the website, pay per click, seo. That’s all before someone even picks up the phone to book a consultation.

Problem: 95% of visitors were leaving a medspa website in less than 10 seconds

Hypothesis: People would visit more pages and stay on the site longer if there we removed the “procedure” step and made the treatments and important information options visible and within one click, anywhere in the site.

Baseline numbers:

  • 5.5% of visitors were going to more than one page
  • 5.12% of visitors were staying for more than 10 seconds.  Not good!

Time visitors spent on the Medspa website:

medspa marketing

Amount of Pages Visitors Viewed

medspa marketing

Half way into June a new navigation format was made to the site. Enabling visitors to get from any procedure to the next or view information about the doctor within one click.

The results were immediate:

  • 14.79% were visiting more than one page
  • 14.62% were staying more than 10 seconds

Time visitors spent on the Medspa website in June:

medspa marketing june

Amount of Pages Visitors Viewed

medspa marketing website depth june

July would be our first whole month with the new navigation and the totals we saw were similar to the second half of June, post navigation change.

  • 39.45% of visitors viewed more than one page
  • 38.18% stayed more than 10 seconds
  • 13.16% were one the site from 1-3 minutes a 10x increase over the May numbers

Time visitors spent on Medpsa website in July:

medispa marketing length july

medispa marketing length july

Amount of Pages Visitors Viewed

medspa marketing depth july
medspa marketing depth july

August would tell the same story, confirming the original hypothesis.  The lesson being, make things extremely easy and accessible within the fewest clicks possible, preferably one click.

  • 41.1% of visitors would stay longer than 10 seconds
  • 42% would visit more than one page.

Time visitors spent on the Medspa website in August:

medispa marketing length august

medispa marketing length august

Amount of Pages Visitors Viewed

medispa marketing

Obviously visitors don’t pay the bills, there was a corresponding increase in phone calls & consultations to go along with the visitor stats.

For a 15 minute, no pitch/no sell website diagnosis contact us at 866-819-4650 x 701

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PPC vs. SEO blah, blah, blah

July 18th, 2009 by Paul R
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I’m part of a conversion optimization group in a certain social media site.  In it the members are supposed to post conversion studies and help each other with various projects.

A guy that owns an SEO firm posted an article the other day titled,  “SEO vs. PPC, Which is Better?”

It was a thinly veiled sales pitch for SEO.  Espousing the virtues of SEO, how easy it is (yeah right) while PPC is good sometimes, but really expensive (sounds bad!).

I wonder if general consumers are easily swayed by this non-sense or if their BS meter goes off?

Here’s what you need to know:

Do what works, based on conversion, based on an ROI that you are happy with and hopefully based on the lifetime-value of a customer.

Everything other take on what is “best” is inherently biased.

The video guy wants to sell you a video, the SEO guy says do SEO, PPC guy says do PPC, Social Media gal says do social media…you get the picture, everyone is trying to fit their solution into your situation instead of the other way around.

Here’s what you really need:

1.    A method to track results, preferably not reliant on humans i.e. “Where did you hear about us?
2.    Ballpark lifetime-value of your customer
3.    A cost per lead/acquisition you can live with
4.    A heart-to-heart on your risk tolerance. If someone tells you “this is a sure thing,” RUN, if you believe them, RUN FASTER.

Then, and only then, do you seek out solutions to fit with what you want to do.

Stayed tuned for what may be a monumental blog post.  Salesman watch out!

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Spy PPC Programs, Pizza Ovens & Easy Profits

June 27th, 2009 by Paul R
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If you’ve read my emails, you’ve heard my dislike
of PPC spy-programs that promise instant riches.

They are generally sold like this:

Copy what someone else is doing
and BAM you have a business raking in
the big bucks.

So much goes into a successful business
besides the keywords.

It’s like opening a pizzeria across the street from an booming one and thinking the same pizza oven alone, will make you just as successful.

Mama Mia!

They are good for one thing, and that’s
research. We recently did some spying
for a client that sells t-shirts. We found out
a major competitor bids heavily on a
certain birthday term.

Now, the client still has to make the shirts,
and people have to like them and  buy them,
but we did add on a new category thanks
to some clever spying.

There is one “spy” program that’s head and
shoulders above the rest. They must spend
$30,0000/month just on bandwidth to “spy” a
few million keywords and advertisers.

It not only shows you who’s advertising
on a certain term, but if you click on their ad, it
shows you the rest of the keywords they use…
all of their ads and how long they’ve been running.

http://tiny.cc/yubQ4

Right now they’re doing a $1 seven day trial. It’s being
paired with some free training geared towards that get
rich and do nothing idea, but the real value is the
actual spy program.

Sign up for the free trial, play around with it. Even if you
use if for a few days, grab what you need on your
competition, then cancel the trial, it’s well worth it.

http://tiny.cc/yubQ4

Warm Regards

Paul

Note: new FTC rules require me to disclose that I’m an affiliate of
this service and if you end up buying they send me money.

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Free Google Ads, Easy Fixes and You Fell For it

April 28th, 2009 by Paul R
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Studies prove it takes 10,000 hours to master something…Music, sports or business…it doesn’t matter, there are no shortcuts.  Surprise: not even “natural” talent is a short-cut.

If you try and market ‘the truth’ you may have a hard time.  Hard work is not a hot marketing hook.  People rarely pull out their wallets for hard work, even if it’s what they really need.

Take a look a few top selling Clickbank products:

“100% Hands-Free Forex Robot Uses Rcpta Technology”- wow so all I do is plug it in and get rich right?

“Forget Learning it, Just Copy My Campaigns”- ah, thanks for doing all the work.

And my favorite:

“Free Google Ads” – turns out the $47 e-book tells you go crazy, bid as high as you can, don’t worry about anything.

The catch: if you make more than you spend you are getting the ads for “free” that’s the “secret” and that’s a bunch of garbage.

People look at PPC the same way.  A pay-per-click firm or expert is rumored to have magic tricks.  Secret methods kept hidden from lay folk.  They implement those tricks, then play golf while the cash register rings away.

The reality: Long hours pouring over data, making intuitive decisions that pieces an enormous puzzle…also known as hard work.

“The idea of epiphany is a dreamers paradise where people want to believe that things are easier then they are” Douglas K. van Duyne

So where are the tricks I mentioned that will shift your adwords account into high gear, with almost no effort.

We will get to those I promise, I just want to set  you up to succeed first with a little reality check.  If you buy into the idea of putting in a little sweat and keyboard grease, the tips to follow will more than deliver on the promise of saving you thousands and turbo charging your results.

So, without further ado here is fix one.  It’s exotic, downright sexy and unbelievably important.  Ok, maybe it’s not sexy or exotic, but it is VERY important.

The number one change you can make for dramatic results is: Tightly focused adgroups, with tightly focused keywords and ads that take people to the appropriate page.

Here’s an example of what NOT to do.  If an adgroup has the following keywords:

-red shoes
-green shoes
-purple shoes

and your ad says

Our Shoes Rock
Your Feet Will Thank You Tomorrow
Free Shipping, Free Horns, Buy Em’
www.TheShoeTreeXYZ.com

You are flushing sales down the toilet.

The solution:

A new group for red shoes, with an ad that says:

Red Shoe Sale
Red Shoes – Featured in Vogue
Free Shipping, Free Horns, Buy Em’
www.TheShoeTreeXYZ.com

—the url should take them to a page with red shoes!

This simple fix, can save you thousands of dollars, produce dramatic
increases in click-thru rates and will almost certainly increase conversion.

More tips and fixes to come shortly.  Including the weirdest misspelling
technique you have probably never heard of.

Warm Regards

Paul

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