10 Untold Traffic Secrets: part 9

8 – Combine Dumb PPC Advertising With Smart Virals
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All PPC beginners make the same mistake. They “discover” a very popular
keyword on a very popular topic that gets thousands of searches… but only
three Google campaigns! They can barely contain their excitement as they
write their ads and put in their bid for six, seven, eight, or even ten cents a
click.

And low and behold, soon they start getting clicks – lots of them! They even
make a few sales. Then a few more. And they breathe a sigh of relief when
they see that their CTR (click through rate) is slightly above Google’s stated
“acceptable” rate.

Until they get an email from Google’s Adwords Support, saying that their
keyword is in danger of being disabled because the CTR isn’t high enough.

It’s upsetting, it’s frustrating, and it may not even be fair or ethical. But
Google, for reasons not entirely known, will sometimes require
impossibly high clickthrough rates for certain keywords. Instead of a
CTR of .5%, suddenly a CTR of 8%, 10% or even 15% isn’t good enough.
Emails to support, begging for guidance or clarification, prove futile. Bye-bye
keyword.

It’s dumb to try and salvage campaigns based on these keywords. You tweak
your ads over and over, raise your bids, and waste days trying to divine
Google’s required CTR. Experienced PPC advertisers know that it’s
almost impossible to keep one of these campaigns alive once Google
starts to raise the stakes.

However, there’s a way you can grab a large amount of targeted
traffic, if only for a limited time, by intentionally running these dumb
campaigns. It won’t work for every niche, since these types of keywords
aren’t common to all topics. And if you suddenly find yourself struggling with
a campaign like this, pause it long enough to put this strategy in place.

First, you’ve got to locate a fairly general keyword that gets a lot of
searches but has fewer than 10 Google campaigns. Software like
Adword Analyzer is useful for this, but it will still take some digging. The best
way to locate a good candidate is to run Adword Analyzer searches on
extremely broad terms. The keyword “book,” for example, only has a handful of Google campaigns running at any given time, yet is searched over a
MILLION times a month. “Kelly blue book” is the same way.

Next, create an unlimited, unrestricted reprint and resale rights
infoproduct (see #7 above) that might appeal to people who search
on a term like “Kelly bluebook.” Chances are, these folks are either
buying or selling a used car. So develop an ebook of resources, tips,
warnings, or other useful information on buying or selling used cars. Make
sure the information will have a long shelf life.

Then run a “dumb” Google campaign on “Kelly blue book,” offering
your report for free. Make sure the landing page states boldly, in no
uncertain terms, that people can sell or give this book away anywhere and
everywhere – even on Ebay.
Now sit back and watch the traffic come in. Google probably won’t let that
campaign run for very long – at least not at .06 a click, and probably not at
20 times that. But with a little luck, you’ll probably be able to give
away at least a hundred ebooks before Google disables the keyword.
Even if you gave away only 20, it cost you only a few bucks.

And you never know what kind of future life that viral report will have. It may
become a free bonus in a best selling package. It may end up being
distributed on hundreds of car sites all over the web. Some online marketer
may feature it as a brilliant example of viral marketing. It may even get
talked about in a car magazine.