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7 Secrets for Success with Pay per Click Book Promotion

“Pay-for-Performance” or “Pay-per-Click” Internet advertising is
making big waves lately, and the two biggest players are Google
and Overture, which was recently purchased by Yahoo. Microsoft
has since joined the fray with MSN Search and there are numerous
other fish (albeit tadpoles) in the pond.

When it comes to promoting a book, the advantages of internet
advertising over traditional print advertising can be summed up
with the following acronym-rich equation: CPC – CPM = PPC.
That’s CMO-speak for expressing how much more cost effective
cost-per-conversion analysis is to cost-per-thousand analysis.

With Pay Per Click advertising via Google and Overture, the cost
of the ad is based upon the performance of the ad; however, the
effectiveness of the ad is gauged by its conversion ratio.
Thanks to tools provided by both Google and Overture, these
conversion ratios can be calculated automatically.

Traditional print media, on the other hand, provides a CPM (cost
per thousand) to demonstrate cost (value) of an ad. A certain
number of people will see the ad (and believe me, this number is
pie-in-the-sky, based upon circulation times “readership”).
Therefore, the cost is X.

It’s easy to recognize the advantages of pay per click
advertising, especially when promoting a relatively small-ticket
item such as a book, but before jumping head first into the PPC
arena, review the following tips:

1) Be aware of the differences between Google and Overture

Google is the leading search engine at the moment, but their
reach never exceeds their grasp. Overture technology, on the
other hand, currently extends to Yahoo, AltaVista, CNN,
Infospace, and others. Overture requires you to deposit money
into an account in advance. Said account is then depleted based
upon your campaign selection. Meanwhile, Google simply bills
your credit card based upon your expenditures. Overture provides
more intuitive and complete reporting functionality that enables
you to analyze the effectiveness of keywords, but Google allows
you to enter a maximum expenditure-per-day. This daily cap
provides more control over your monthly spending while
Overture’s system simply draws money from the online account
until depleted. This daily draw can vary substantially from one
day to the next. Also, Overture requires you to keep 3 days of
“extra cash” on hand. Do you earn interest on the money you’re
loaning to Overture? Forget about it.

2) Be aware of the similarities

Both Google and Overture differentiate their paid clicks from
their free, contextual algorithms, usually by featuring the
“sponsored” searches on a different part of the page and by
highlighting them in a color box. Recently, Overture launched a
new product, or search mechanism, whereby an advertiser can
choose to be listed among the contextual content, also. That’s
kind of like paying for a meal after you’ve already eaten it.

Both services also experience infrequent, yet unexplained,
“spikes” that decimate your daily or monthly budget in a matter
of minutes or hours. It’s a little unnerving knowing that you
could blow through $500 or $1000 in a matter of minutes with
absolutely no recourse. Staffed to handle these anomalies, both
services feature barely adequate customer service with
representatives who often reply to such technical idiosyncrasies
with hostile ambivalence. Sounds like an oxymoron, but it’s not.

3) Start conservatively

That said, realize that pay-per-click campaigns are not an exact
science and contain the potential to be ridiculously expensive
if you’re not careful. Start a campaign on either Google or
Overture, but not both. Become familiar with the mechanics
before launching full scale advertising campaigns on the other
service.

4) Understand the mechanics

The way pay-for-performance works is simple. You bid on search
terms, either words or phrases or a combination of both. Your
webpage link then appears in search engine results relative to
the price of the bid. If you’re the highest bidder, your webpage
appears at the absolute top of many search engines. Remember the
frustration of typing in a search for your webpage and never
finding your link? No longer!

5) Understand the advantages

Perhaps the best part of pay-for-performance advertising is the
“pay for performance” part. Unlike traditional advertising where
you pay based upon the number of impressions, here, you only pay
if people click on your link. In essence, they are pre-sold.

6) Select the appropriate keywords

Let’s look at an example. Say you have published a mystery novel
about the death of a land baron in Louisiana. Not exactly a new
plot and yet millions of “whodunit” readers may be interested in
reading it. Your solution? Open a pay-for-performance account
and bid on search terms like “Louisiana mystery novel” and
“mystery book Plantation” and other similar search terms.
Counter-intuitively, the more specific the term, the better your
campaign will perform, since very specific searches deliver very
motivated buyers to your page. Since you’re paying for each
click, you want those browsers to buy! That’s where “conversion”
comes in to play.

7) Understand the disadvantages

You have to be very careful managing your bids and selecting
your keywords, or pay-for-performance advertising can become
ineffective. Do not bid on ridiculously vague and popular words
like “book” or “fiction” because you will never recoup your
money. Instead, focus your search terms as specifically as
possible.

It’s only a matter of time before traditional print media finds
some way to adopt this new method of cost-per-conversion and
pay-for-performance advertising. Those who don’t will die
trying. Viva la digital revolution!

About the author

Brent Sampson is the President & CEO of Outskirts Press
publishing at http://www.outskirtspress.com . He is the author
of Publishing Gems: Insider Information for the Self-Publishing
writer (http://outskirtspress.com/publishinggems) and
Self-Publishing Simplified (free ebook edition available at
http://outskirtspress.com/publishing)

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