In this edition of Web Enlightenment we'll be talking about how cost per click marketing is deceptively simple.

This newsletter focuses on giving you practical, interesting insights into how to successfully use technology as a tool to improve the way you do business. Bridging the gap between knowledge and understanding that all entrepreneurs have will help you make money online.

Please hit reply and tell me about your CPC experiences. I answer every email sent to me - but this week it will take me a little while to get back to you, details follow the main article.

All the best,

So Easy, So Wrong - CPC

I'll bet that history will view CPC as the best advertising invention of the 1990's, even though it took the better part of a decade for it to become a multi-billion dollar business. I wonder if there will ever be a Bill Gross statue at some advertising school, I think that would be very nice. (and for the geek's in the room: yes I am aware that Jeffery Brewer gave the TED talk)

PPC - Pay Per Click - CPC - Cost Per Click - those little ads on the top or on the left in search engines - it doesn't matter what you may call them, they all pretty much work the same.

The thing that is so remarkable and stunning for Internet Entrepreneurs is that all of these ads are free. Pause for a moment there, free advertising is a pretty compelling concept. The part that is free is the part that newspapers charge for, the display of the ad.

In addition all of these ads address a very serious point of pain that Internet Entrepreneurs have had for a long time - can't I just buy my way to the top of the search engines?

The only time a site owner spends money is when someone actually clicks on the ad and visits the site - what an amazing idea.

So it is no surprise that Google sold 21 billion dollars worth of these ads. In 2008. No one has the 2009 number yet but it'll be quite a bit bigger. Did I mention that they are hardly the only place to buy these ads?

What may be surprising to you is that the vast bulk of the money site owners spend is wasted. I rarely meet an Internet Entrepreneur that is effectively executing CPC without professional help. They waste huge amounts of money, they feed their own egos, and in general end up with crappy results.

But - how could this be the case?

CPC is deceptively simple, and it seems so gosh darn easy it supports the illusion that anyone can succeed with it. If you make even one significant mistake it won't work at all - which is why it's so often done wrong.

There are three basic elements to CPC marketing.

• Keyword Selection
• Ad Creation
• Landing Pages

You've got to get all of them basically correct to make this marketing vehicle deliver the types of returns you read about in all those Google success stories.

First you have keyword selection - and the common mistakes there are simply choosing the wrong words, selecting "broad match", and failing to use negative keywords.

Google's tools do a pretty ok job of helping you pick the words, but remember that their priority is you spending the most money, not which words are going to deliver the best overall value for you.

Broadmatch is a neat little invention that displays your ad if people type terms that are sort of close to the ones you have selected but not the actual terms themselves. One of the first things many SEO professionals do is to simply turn this off - folks tend to start using it because they aren't getting enough traffic and this is a quick fix. Like most quick fixes it has some serious perils.

Negative keywords are used to specify when you don't want your ads displayed - so like if you sold insulated electrical boots (an item for an electrician) you would not want your ad to appear when someone was searching for insulated snow boots for their feet - you'd use the negative keyword snow.

Second you have Ad Creation - and the common mistakes there are not using deflection, failing to be clear on order of magnitude price, and not respecting the haiku.

Deflection is the idea that you may not want everyone to click on your ad - like making it clear a product is for women so men don't click on it. You want your conversion rate (sales at your site) to be as high as possible and sacrificing a bit of CTR (click through rate) to do that is a smart idea.

Order of magnitude pricing errors are when people are searching for $25 Christmas ornaments and they click on ad to find that the seller has products starting from $250. Whoops, if only the ad has said "from $250".

The haiku idea is very important. On Google you get 25 characters for the title, 70 characters for the ad text, and 35 characters for a display URL. This is displayed on four lines: a title, two lines of ad text (each with 35 characters), and a URL line. Writing something compelling in this format is a very specialized skill, that's why I refer to it as the "haiku".

Finally you have landers (pages where folks "land" on your site) - and while there are many errors that exist in this area one mistake is so offensively wrong that it rises above all the rest, sending people to your home page.

When people click your ad you want to bring them to a specific page on your site, one that is clearly and directly associated with the ad. There is an art to crafting these landers and making sure the benefits expressed in your "Haiku" are very present and obvious on first glance.

Sorry to be so gosh darn blunt but anyone sending CPC traffic to the home page of a web site is acting like a moron.

Geek's like me sometimes enjoy ranting about mistakes that folks make but bottom line what does all of this mean for an Internet Entrepreneur?

You should seriously consider using a professional to do this work for you. I really like those etrade ads with the baby that talks but they don't actually make me think that I should pick my own stocks. If you wonder about whether or not it is worth the money for a professional like this, check out this 2008 issue of Web Enlightenment: CPC Management has flavors - Meh, Good, Excellent.

As all of this work comes down to a single number - return on ad spend - it is very simple to judge how well any professional is doing for you, it is generally reasonable to insist that they at least "pay for themselves".

On an Actual Vacation

As many of you know I am on vacation this week, my first "real" vacation in three years. That means that if you reply to this newsletter I won't get back to you until next Monday, February 22nd.

I answer every single email sent to me and I strive to do that within one business day, but this week there will be a slight delay while I enjoy a rum based frozen cocktail.