Pay per click (PPC) advertising campaigns should be treated just like any other business decision.  Defining your business goals and objectives should be your number one priority before you place your fist keyword bid.  Several questions should be answered before placing your first bid, such as:

• Who is the target audience?  You must know who you are selling to, before you decide on a PPC bidding strategy.
• What are your budget requirements?  Determine how much you are willing to spend on each keyword phrase before deciding on a campaign strategy.
• What is your time frame?  How long will you allow a campaign to run before you determine whether or not it is a success or failure.

Only after these questions are answered, should you decide on the most effective ways to go about obtaining the traffic needed to obtain your campaign goals.  While PPC Marketing can be a highly affective way of advertising your product, it can also be a money waster if you have not properly defined your goals and objectives and if you do not follow through with your plan.  You must pay close attention to what is working and what is not working and tweak your campaign on the fly, if you plan to stay competitive.

One PPC marketing strategy that many find to be effective is the Sales Cycle Strategy.  In this method, you will bid on keywords based on the buying cycles of your targeted audience.  In this method, you will big on general keywords that drive heavy traffic, as well as more specific keywords to target customers that are ready to buy.

For example, if you are selling computer laptops, your strategy may break down into a 3 tier approach:

Tier 1 would represent your general research words.  The customer may still be research various laptops.  You may want to bid on the keyword "laptops", keeping your bid low, but high enough to gain some website exposure.

Tier 2 represents the shopping phase.  The customer is now interested but has not yet made a decision.  You will want to bid slightly higher than in phase 1, using a more specific phrase such as "inexpensive laptops".

Tier 3 is the purchase phase.  The customer knows what he or she wants and is ready to make a purchase.  In this phase you will make your highest bid and target a specific phrase.  For this example, we will target "inexpensive refurbished dell laptops"

So we have covered all three phases of the buying cycle, from research, to shopping, to the final purchase.  This is just one PPC strategy.  Your results may vary depending on your niche.  Play around and see what works best for you.

Please leave comments or suggest your preferred PPC bidding method.  Thanks for reading.

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