Thanks to Jim Berkowitz and his CRM Mastery E-Journal for pointing me to the MarketingProfs article, Five Proven Ways to Waste Money With Pay-per-Click Advertising by John Grant.
I think this article does a nice job pointing out some of the most common pay-per-click mistakes and some easy fixes to help convert more clicks into web inquiries.
Just remember that most web inquiries are not sales ready leads so don’t simply throw them over the wall to your sales reps. Qualify them first.
MarketingProfs.com: Five Proven Ways to Waste Money With Pay-per-Click Advertising
I agree with it, this article does a nice job pointing out some of the most common pay-per-click mistakes and some easy fixes to help convert more clicks into web inquiries. thank you for sharing this with us.
-faith-
Love this post. Interested to know what you think of the Pay Per Click Customer’s Bill of rights, found at: http://www.industrialsearchenginemarketing.com/2007/02/12/pay-per-click-customers-bill-of-rights/
Dave, you are right. Searchers at different stages of the B2B buying cycle will use different keywords (general keywords early in the cycle, specific ones later). You absolutely should have landing pages to meet the needs of different stages. One key difference is registration requirements; I recommend not requiring registration for content aimed at early stage buyers, since a registration form reduces conversions by 75-85% (and prevents search engines from finding your content).
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Jon,
Amen to everything you said, but why not optimize landing pages to accommodate people at each stage of the buying cycle? Give them a couple of options. Maybe download a whitepaper, or view a product demo.
I would point out that the MarketingProf’s article is not written specifically for B2B marketers, and that B2B search marketing is quite different from B2C. You already point out one key difference — namely that most web inquiries are not sales ready. This reflects the longer sales cycles in B2B. Other differences include the fact that B2B purchases have multiple decision makers (the searcher is rarely the budget owner) and that the primary search intent in B2B is to research, not purchase.
This means that B2B marketers should optimize their landing pages for researchers early in the buying cycle. Not doing this can significantly reduce the number — and value — of your conversions. For more, see:
http://blog.marketo.com/2006/09/optimize_for_b2_2.html.
If you have any doubts on “Pay per click” ask me at
http://payperclick-india.blogspot.com/
Thanks & Regards
Kishore