AdCenter Blog

How do I edit my keywords?

One of the best ways to get more customers to your web site is to add more keywords to your pay per click campaign or to improve the ones you already have. In this installment of our Did You Know...? series, we'll look at the mechanics of manipulating keywords in your LookSmart AdCenter campaign.

The process should be familiar to you if you have used pay-per-click search advertising before. But, in case you haven't, we have created a video to show you how it is done. Just click on the play button below to get started.

In this 4-minute video, we demonstrate a number of keyword-related tasks:

• editing your current keywords
• changing your keyword bids
• changing your match type
• adding new keywords to your campaign
• deleting keywords

Please feel free to send your feedback and questions to us by e-mail, or call our customer service team at 877-512-LOOK (5665) if you need help with your campaign.

Allen Hammock
Product Marketing Manager
allen.hammock@looksmart.net

What is My CPC? (Part II)

In our last post, we discussed what it meant to purchase advertising using the CPC (cost per click) method.   CPC is a payment option that reduces your risk by letting you only pay for ads that bring visitors to your web site.  It's also a dynamic form of pricing that let's the market set pricing based on demand.

As you experiment with CPC (also called PPC for "pay per click") advertising in LookSmart's AdCenter you'll see that term come up on a number of different screens.  In this blog post, we'll discuss what each of these different uses of CPC mean to you.

Max CPC

Regardless of where you see the term Max CPC it always means, "the maximum amount in dollars and cents that I am willing to pay for a single click on my ad".  You can specify a Max CPC in different places, which we describe below.

Campaign Max CPC (Figure 1)

When you set up ads with LookSmart, you group your ads and keywords into Campaigns.  You assign a Campaign Max CPC to your campaign.  This is really the default Max CPC that LookSmart will use for your keywords unless you give those keywords their own individual prices.

When you're looking at your keyword pricing in the targeting view, as in Figure 3, the keywords whose Max CPC price is listed in gray are using the Campaign Max CPC.  The keywords listed in black have their own individual Max CPC pricing set.

Figure 1

Keyword Max CPC (Figure 2)

When a visitor to one of LookSmart's network of search sites performs a keyword search, your ad will be displayed if your keyword matches the one the visitor used.  If that visitor clicks on your ad and visits your web site, you will be charged no more than the Max CPC you set for that keyword.  If you did not set a Max CPC for that keyword, you will be charged no more than the Campaign Max CPC you chose for the campaign your ad is a member of.

Figure 2

Keyword Min CPC (Figure 3)

You may bid any Max CPC (as low as $0.01) you wish for any keyword, but some keywords will have a Keyword Min CPC.  For certain keywords, LookSmart has decided that it may not display ads whose Max CPC bid is below this minimum price.  As you can see in Figure 2, that price appears below your Max CPC in red to indicate that you have bid lower than the suggested price.

Figure 3

Contextual Max CPC (Figure 4)

If you choose to display your ads on LookSmart's network of content sites, you may also choose a Max CPC specifically for those sites.

Figure 4

Average CPC (Figure 5)

Your Max CPC bids specify the largest dollar amount you will be charged for each visitor who clicked on one of your ads.  But, on average, you may pay less than your Max CPC if the going rate for those clicks is below your bid.  Online reports will show your Average CPC, showing you, on average, how much you actually paid for each click.

Figure 5

That concludes our survey of CPC pricing terminology in the LookSmart AdCenter.  As always, if you have any questions or would like to learn more about LookSmart's services, contact us by e-mail or phone.

Allen Hammock
Product Marketing Manager
allen.hammock@looksmart.net

What is My CPC? (Part I)

Have you taken that first step into pay-per-click advertising yet?  If you have, you've probably come across at least one screen where you were asked to input your Max CPC (see Figure 1).  But what is a CPC anyway and how do you pick the right one?

Figure 1.

CPC Defined

CPC stands for "cost per click".  It's the amount you pay when a lead clicks on your ad to visit your site.  This takes away a lot of the risk of spending your advertising budget on the Internet.  You only pay for the people who actually visit your web site.  Other types of online advertising may charge you a flat rate for displaying your ads regardless of whether customers ever visit your site.

What is the "Max" in "Max CPC" for?

The "Max" represents the most you are willing to pay for a lead to come to your site.  You won't always pay this amount and and you might pay less than your Max CPC.  How does this work?  LookSmart takes into consideration your Max CPC, how relevant you are, and what other people are bidding to determine how much to charge you.  We try to charge you the least amount possible while still getting you the best possible position.  If you're willing to pay a lot more than other advertisers, you won't be penalized for your over-enthusiasm.  You'll pay the going market rate instead.

Why would LookSmart charge you less than what you're willing to pay?  By making pricing flexible and responsive to your needs, we encourage more advertisers to participate in the system.  The more participation there is by advertisers, the more publishers are willing to create spaces on their web sites for you to place your ads.  It's an ecosystem where everyone benefits.

Next time, we'll look more closely at how to choose the right Max CPC for your advertisements.

Allen Hammock
Product Marketing Manager
allen.hammock@looksmart.net

Visit LookSmart at SES Booth #114

Come visit LookSmart at Booth #114 at the Search Engine Strategies 2007 in San Jose on Tuesday, August 21st and Wednesday, August 22nd.  Our team of search marketing experts will be on hand to answer all of your questions about LookSmart's online advertising services.

For those of you interested in buying advertising to promote your web site, products and services, our account managers will be available to demonstrate LookSmart's pay-per-click services and to help you optimize any campaigns you are currently running.  We'll also be giving away $300 in free clicks to new advertisers -- our way of standing proudly behind our services.

If you're interested in becoming a LookSmart technology or distribution partner, we'll have product experts in the booth to explain how LookSmart's white-labeled AdCenter platform and create opportunities for you to sell advertising to your own direct customers.  Our technology interfaces with other ad serving platforms to give you the ability to build a business on top of existing programs you may already have running on your web sites.

Stop by and visit us at Booth #114 to find out more!

Allen Hammock
Product Marketing Manager
allen.hammock@looksmart.net

Learn how to make your ads more competitive and cost-effective at the same time

Last week, at the end of our blog post we promised to reveal the secret to making your ads bring more visitors to your site while also spending your budget more effectively.  Today, we make good on that promise.  The secret to success is taking advantage of something the fancy marketing types call Yield Optimization.

Using Yield Optimization to Get the Best Results

LookSmart's ads are displayed using this yield-based auction.  Other well-known PPC ad networks and search sites use this same method, it's now a de-facto standard for text-based search advertising.  It works like this:

Yield = CTR x CPC

• Find the ads that are clicked on the most and figure out their click-through rate (CTR).  The click-through rate is calculated as the number of times the ad was clicked on divided by the number of times it was displayed.
• Multiply the CTR (click-through rate) for each ad times the Max CPC (bid price) for the keyword.  The result is called the yield.  It also goes by other names like "effective CPM".
• Display the ads with the highest yield in the places on the web page where they are most likely to get clicked.

The beauty of this method is that is serves you, the advertiser, and the web site owner who gets paid when you are successful.  Why does this work?

• First, the ads that get clicked on the most bubble up to the top of the auction and get clicked on more. Web site owners love getting paid.
• Second, advertisers can get to the top position by improving their ad text and adding keywords.  By making your ad really relevant and by choosing the search terms that really resonate with your potential customers, you get more clicks.
• Lastly, advertisers can stretch their advertising budgets further and get more visitors for a lot less than advertisers with higher Max CPC bids.  Let's look at how this works. Assume that you have an ad that is getting shown 1000 times. Another advertiser is bidding on the same keywords you are and also gets shown 1000 times.

  If your ad gets 100 clicks @ $1.00 each you pay the web site owner $100. Let's say the other advertiser's ad is not as well-written as yours and only gets 25 clicks. Your click-through rate is 4 times better than your competitor's. If the other advertiser is bidding $1.00 per click like you, the web site owner only gets paid $25 by your competitor.

  In this scenario, you only have to pay $1.00 for each of your prospects. But your competitor, who hasn't optimized their ad like you have, has to pay 4 times as much to get the same number of visitors as you. This means that you're getting 100 visitors to your web site for $100 when the market (your competitor) says those visitors are worth paying $400 for.  That's a 75% discount on the market price.

  Also, because you are more valuable to the web site owner than your competitor, you get the best position on the web page, further ensuring that your ad is visible to your audience.

  That's how you use the yield-based auction to your advantage: by keeping your ads relevant and choosing relevant keywords, you keep your costs down while keeping your ads in the best place to attract your customers.

Wait... More Clicks at a Lower CPC?

Yes.  By working on your ad copy to make it more relevant and by choosing relevant keywords, you can increase the number of potential customers you're reaching at a fraction of the cost your competitor is paying for the same keyword.

In our next blog post, we'll look at some of the tools in the LookSmart AdCenter that help you put yield optimization to work.  In the meantime, we'd love to get your feedback or phone call...and your business!  Check out the LookSmart AdCenter at adcenter.looksmart.com.

Allen Hammock
Product Marketing Manager
allen.hammock@looksmart.net

Refine your advertisements to attract more paying customers

In our last blog post, we talked about the various Keyword Targeting options that will help you gain access to prospects using web search on LookSmart's network of quality web sites.  We discussed how using Broad Match keywords can expand your exposure to potential customers and how Smart Match will help you reach a more specific audience.

In this blog post, we want to talk about a more generalized optimization strategy.  Optimization is another one of those marketing terms that really just means that you're approaching your marketing spend wisely through a process of evaluation and refinement.  When you optimize your advertising, you decide what your goals are and then modify your campaigns to better achieve those goals.

How to Optimize

Generally speaking, with text-based keyword advertising, your goal is to attract visitors to your web site that are interested in your products and services.  You can achieve this goal by employing these tactics:

• Revise your ad copy.  Is your ad sending the right message?  Are you attracting customers that actually make money for you?  Your ad copy is the "hook" that brings customers into your front door.  Eliminate wasteful and expensive clicks by making your message resonate with customers so that you attract those most likely to make you money.
• Revise your landing page.  The page that you send customers to when they click on your ad is called the "landing page" (your customers "land" there).  The landing page is really an extension of your ad.  Use it to help explain your product or service or to really sell your special offer or promotion.  Don't send customers to your home page -- customize a unique version of your home page that is designed specifically for visitors who clicked on your ad.
• Revise your targeting. How did people see your ad?  Imagine you are bidding on the word "filter".  Do you want customers looking for "oil filters"?  Internet filtering?  Water filtration systems?  Revise your keyword targeting to include those terms which are more specifically related to your business.  You can add as many keywords as you like to your campaign.
• Increase your bids. You're probably not the only company providing your product or service on the world wide web.  There are a limited number of positions that your ad can appear on.  To get a better position on those pages, you've got to make a competitive bid.   The more visible your ad is, the more likely your potential customers will see it.

In a future blog post, we'll talk more about specific strategies. In particular, we'll discuss a strategy that will let you optimize your ads to get more clicks (and therefore more potential customers) by actually paying less for each click.

Allen Hammock
Product Marketing Manager
allen.hammock@looksmart.net