Using Pay Per Click Internet Marketing – Avoid Costly Mistakes

Many people have limited experience and knowledge when starting their own network marketing business or home business using internet marketing. A few mistakes can be made when applying the first marketing strategies on the internet, and getting poor results can not only damage your finances but also your confidence and motivation.

One common mistake is using pay per click marketing without adequate knowledge.

You are likely to use pay per click marketing when you start marketing your business online, because it is a very efficient medium to get traffic to your website immediately. The drawback in using pay per click marketing early on is that the less you know and apply the right tactics, the more you will have to pay! I am not saying here that you should become a theoretical expert before you start marketing your business using pay per click, but you must learn as much as you can as early as you can. Being an amateur at pay per click can be very damaging to your finances in 3 ways:

1. Being placed in a good position on the search engines will cost you higher bids
2. You may get a lot of traffic, but leads of poor quality (quantity vs. quality)
3. If your ads are not performing well, you may get limited traffic and in turns no buyers and no income.

I was really pleased to see how much traffic I received from my first pay per click campaigns. My click through rates were good, my ads were performing well and many people were opting-in my website and becoming true ‘leads’. BUT, I realised after an expensive month where I generated more than 1000 clicks and 100 leads that I wasn’t talking to the right people. Sure, my leads were interested in learning about my business, opportunity and products, but where were the serious determined entrepreneur-minded people I was truly looking for? I did get some legitimate leads out of these numbers, but summing up, it cost me a lot more money, time and energy than it should have. Worse even, the people I was hoping to attract to my website probably didn’t even see my ads.

Many resources are available to help you learn how to use pay per click effectively, how to secure your website rankings and how to generate quality leads by reaching the right market. The bottom line is, the less you learn about those principles and techniques, the more it will cost you and the less it will pay off.

Here are my recommendations for tackling pay per click marketing when you are starting out in internet or network marketing:

1. Learn the basics on pay per click advertising. This is a must. Perry Marshall’s ‘Definitive Guide To Google Adwords’ is great for this as he provides a lot of knowledge on how to create your ads and evaluate your results.

2. Learn some basics on how to optimise your website – this will affect how your website is picked up and ranked by search engines. You will need to create your website’s content, title, description, keywords and links accordingly.

3. Continue learning step by step and applying new tactics. Again, get the basics before you do anything (it may be worth studying another week or two before you start to advertise), and then get into the more sophisticated stuff. Never leave your active campaigns fixed or worse, unattended. Test your ads and always analyse your results so that you can improve them. The internet is constantly changing and what works today may not work next month.

4. Identify your target market. Build your ads to specifically talk to your audience. Ask yourself if your ads could be misleading or have other meanings – this is how you get the wrong people to click on your ads (and pay for it). Ensure that the content on your website is also targeted at your audience; even though you have already been charged for a click by the time they get there, you don’t want to waste more time and energy calling the wrong prospects if they opt-in your website. You can use the content on your website to help people pre-qualify themselves before signing up and becoming a lead.

5. Record and analyse statistics on your leads. How many were not actually looking for your type of product or business? How many were not serious candidates? How many quality leads resulted from your efforts and investment? How much did each lead cost you? Find out what works and what doesn’t work and change your marketing strategies accordingly.

6. Accept that less traffic (especially the paid one) can be a good thing. You don’t want to spend money on bad leads. Quality brings better results and is more cost-effective than quantity. Hit and miss can be an expensive approach.

7. Until you have sufficient knowledge to create campaigns that generate quality leads for yourself, consider using the services of an expert marketer. For example, you may be able to join a marketing cooperative within your company. However, be cautious about purchasing leads from a third party, as you may not know the origin, nature or quality of those leads.

Click here to find out about a Home Business Opportunity with a true path to financial freedom and personal growth. Start your own business and be guided by a group of successful entrepreneurs in learning and applying all strategies to run a profitable home based business within our company.