We always hear the same metric over and over again when it comes to Online Advertising: Impressions.
Impressions, Impressions, Impressions.
But what does that really mean to people who are spending money on Online Advertising? I’ll tell you exactly what it means. Absolutely nothing!
Let’s break it down to a more granular level. First, we have two different types of online advertising (and yes, I’m only referring to Paid Advertising here). We have the Search network and then we have the Content network. Now, most people who advertise on the Content network are going to tell you that impressions mean a lot more to them than those who use the Search network. This is because most of the time they are placing non-text ads (i.e. video ads, banner ads, etc.). These people may have a point to a certain extent, but how do we judge the worth of your advertising?
Many businesses who are new to the Online Marketing world don’t necessarily care for its tactics, because it is difficult to pinpoint ROI. How can you pin down your ROI from tweeting about your product? How can you figure out the worth of your Facebook fan page? You can’t! There is no finite sum for these “figures”. That is why ROI’s acronym is being re-purposed to “Return on Influence” rather than “Return on Investment”.
Ultimately, you must decide what your goal is in order to determine the worth of your Online Advertising. Are you trying to maximize brand exposure or are you going for gusto with direct marketing? Each will require a different metric that is of value to you.
For instance, if you are trying to maximize brand recognition, you’ll want thousands and thousands of impressions. Coca-Cola is known around the globe for a reason, right? In this case, depending on your media resources, you’ll probably want to concentrate on the Content network, or a combination of the Content network and Search network. In actuality, however, unless you’re willing to pay a boat load of money, and I do mean thousands and thousands of dollars, you won’t be getting anywhere near the kind of brand recognition you actually need in order to boost your company’s image. Therefore, impressions really are worthless in this scenario, unless you have the rare ability to throw money at the problem.
If you’re wanting your prospect to complete an action (i.e. sign up for a newsletter, purchase a product, download a file, etc.) you’ll want a higher Click-Through-Rate. Your Click-Through-Rate is simply the number of clicks divided by the number of impressions you’ve received, and is important because it signifies how well your target audience is receiving your ad and what percentage of them are actually clicking on it to move on to the next step in your funnel process. In this scenario, if you’ve got a lot of impressions, and no clicks, you’ve got yourself a low “CTR”, which is a total bummer for you! It means lots of people are seeing your ad, but no one is taking action. Lots of impressions = bad, useless.
Another important factor to consider when talking about impressions is what type of environment are you receiving these impressions in? If you haven’t done your keyword research or manually set your placements (these are the sites you choose to display your content network ads on), then odds are you’re getting a lot of useless impressions from a non-targeted audience who couldn’t give two beans about your company’s brand.
So, what should be your first steps in mapping out an effective PPC campaign?
- Establish your goal. Are you seeking brand awareness or are you employing direct marketing?
- Establish your budget. How many advertising dollars do you realistically have to spend on your business each month?
- Reassess! If you don’t have the advertising dollars to pay for brand awareness, consider using other free, social tactics to boost brand awareness. Start a Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook account for your company. Utilize the rest of your marketing dollars on a direct marketing search content PPC campaign.
- Based on 1, 2, and 3, you should now know what metric is important to you. Impressions or CTR. Monitor these daily! Continue to tweak and optimize your PPC campaign on a daily basis. Once you are in a comfortable space with these simple PPC concepts, you can then move on to more advanced topics and optimization strategies.
Yours in PPC Mastery,
Scott Jay Ringle
