| Google Shakes-Up Search Marketing |
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Did you just get used to using Google's "pay-per-click" or "pay-per-impression" advertising tools? Get ready, because they (already) could be going the way of the dinosaur--extinct. Google is testing a new advertising system that allows businesses to advertise on a cost-per-action basis. According to Rob Kniaz, Product Manager for Google's Pay-Per-Action Program, "Pay-per-action advertising is a new pricing model that allows you to pay only for completed actions that you define, such as a lead, a sale, or a pageview after a user has clicked on your ad on a publisher's site. You'll define an action, set up conversion tracking, and create ads that publishers in the Google content network can then choose to place in new ad units on their site." How does Google's new product work?Until now, Google has primarily sold pay-per-click (PPC) ads, so-called AdWords ads: advertisers pay when someone on Google or a Google partner site clicks on the ad. Google AdWords has one big advantage and one big disadvantage: You only pay for clicks of potential customers, but you risk paying a lot of money for nothing because of click fraud. Google's new advertising product is "pay -per-action" (PPA). You don't pay per click anymore but you pay when a customer takes further action on your website, such as requesting a brochure, signing up for a newsletter or buying a product. You set the amount that you're willing to pay when this action is completed. Finally, you'll install conversion tracking code on your website so that we can verify when an action has been completed. PPA advertising is meant to reduce the risks of click fraud. PPA Details include: -Ad formats: You can create text ads, image ads, or their new text link ad format in your pay-per-action campaign. Text link ads are brief text descriptions that take on the characteristics of a publisher's page. i.e. they do not look like an ad, they look like regular web page copy. -Pricing: You decide a fixed amount to pay for the action you specify. Google does have minimum pricing guidelines. You will then be charged when your chosen action is completed, not for a click or impression. For example, you may wish to pay $1 every time a user fills out a lead form on your site and $5 when a purchase is made. This could then replace the amounts you normally do per click (say $.50 each click) or per 1,000 impressions (say $3.00). -Tracking: Google conversion tracking allows Google to determine when the action that you've specified has been completed on your site. If you're already using conversion tracking (Google Analytics ), you'll be able to enable existing actions for your pay-per-action campaign fairly easily. For new conversion tracking users, you'll need to add a few lines of code to all the pages on your website after you define your actions. Need help doing this? Go here. How will this affect my online marketing? It will improve it. One of the main reasons Google is doing this is due to competition from other search engines such as Snap and Turn . If it seems too good to be true for us the consumer, it's not. It means we will be able to pay less for what matters most--qualified leads and sales instead of just searches. It should also allay many of the concerns over click fraud. Google's new PPA program is in direct competition to affiliate marketing networks such as Commission Junction and LinkShare. Website publishers of Google Adsense could leave those affiliate marketing networks and concentrate on Google's PPA program. Yahoo and Microsoft will certainly offer similar PPA programs in the future. How to get started Note that Google's pay-per-action program is currently in beta testing. This means that they are only taking a limited amount of advertisers until they fully release this program to the general public: * participation is by invitation only, you must request to participate in the program & wait for approval from Google * the PPA program is currently only available to US customers * ads are limited to Google's content network of partner sites (Google AdSense) Google does not guarantee to take everyone into this program during this phase. However, from our past experience, participating in this type of a program is usually something worth doing and means lower advertising costs (for you) prior to it being opened to the general public. nxtConcepts is already a beta tester of PPA programs. For a complimentary consultation of how this new form of marketing would benefit your business Go here ... OR Find out about our Spend $50 & Get $50 program
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