Understanding Recruitment Advertising Pay Per Click Management
So you want to move into the pay per click game but not sure where to start, well I think I can give you some insight about the game.
I recently received a quote from a competitor and found it both very insightful as well as very sad. The quote was to perform pay per click management for a client and their jobs and to send traffic to the clients website to generate more candidate flow and receive more applications. The quote just so happens to coincide with another company that we are talking to that is using this recruitment advertising agency to handle their pay per click campaign and they are only generating a 2% conversion rate (which by the way the client though was very good). It got me thinking about writing this article and how much the general public understands about pay per click, the metrics and how effective it is, should be or could be.
First let me start by saying that search engine marketing is a very tricky, time consuming art that I would recommend not going at it alone if you have never done this before, unless you have hours to review bids, landing pages and website analytics. The whole thing is more of an art than a science and I have been doing this for the past 4 years and the game changes every day. The keywords change, the pay per click platforms change, the way ads are displayed change, so it’s an ever changing evolving world.
Let’s start with my potential client above. They thought that their conversion rate was high however in one of our campaigns we have received an 11% conversion rate and I have heard from Yahoo people that a solid ppc conversion rate would be 6%. So why is theirs so low even with a recruitment advertising company managing their process, they are supposed to be the experts right? Well I don’t know the exact answer but here are couple of things to consider.
PPC management is like soup. If you go to the store and buy a can of Campbell’s get home open it up and dump it into the pan, heat it up and then eat it than I would consider you a novice in soup making. The same as in creating an account on a ppc engine putting your credit card in and start advertising with little to no results. Now if you went to the store and bought broth some carrots, some beef, some spices and kept checking on the soup, tasting it adding to it, and boiling it longer you would have a pretty good soup. The same with ppc management, if you added the right keywords, the right ad copy, have the right landing page, with the right message and an easy to use form to capture candidates you would have a pretty good ppc soup. However most people don’t’ have the time to make a great soup and that’s why they should outsource their soup making.
Here are a couple of things to consider when outsourcing your recruitment advertising pay per click management.
1. Understand what your goals are going in. What is it that you want to get accomplished? Do you want to just test this, do you want to see real results, or do you just want to get more brand recognition?
2. When selecting a company to handle pay per click management, understand what their expertise is in the industry, what types of tools will they offer you and get references of clients that have used their service.
3. Put Your Money Where Your Knowledge Is. When we do just pay per click recruitment advertising we offer the client a money back guarantee on our set up fees if we can’t either increase their conversions or reach a agreed upon conversion goal. You should expect the same from your vendor. We have gone as far as to offer a pay per hire model to our pricing….you win we win.
4. Reporting. Your outsourcing partner should be able to provide reporting to you on what has worked and what hasn’t. Also make sure that they explain the reporting to you as this is valuable information to understand where your candidates came from.
I hope you found this article helpful. If you would like to run a ppc campaign yourself here are some recommended readings. If not, give us a call we can help.
1. I'm Not a Click. I'm Not a Keyword. I'm a Person by Kevin Lee, ClickZ Experts , 01-12-2007 . Microsoft adCenter is leading the way among major PPC search services in providing profile-based segment targeting capabilities. Although the implementation is a bit clunky, segmenting PPC campaigns can produce excellent results. Expect Yahoo and Google to follow suit.
2. Search Scent in the Search Engines by Kevin Lee, ClickZ Experts , 01-19-2007 . Discussion of ways to reinforce the relevance of your landing pages to the exact search terms that brought the visitor to your site, allowing them to follow the "scent" trail from search through to conversion. Dynamic landing page customization, and attention-getting formatting possibilities.
3. The Value of Online Traffic by Bryan Eisenberg, ClickZ Experts , 01-19-2007 . It's conventional to complain about the ever-rising costs of buying online traffic through pay-per-click search marketing, or even organic search optimization. This less conventional opinion suggests that online traffic is a way too cheap, and that traffic cost inflation will lead to better marketing and ROI.
4. To PPC Or Not? How To Decide by Julie Mason, Media Post , 01-30-2007 . Although "age-old" might be a slight exaggeration, Mason believes the question of whether pay-per-click (PPC) or non-pay-per-click (N-PPC) has no definite answer. Discusses types of campaigns better suited to each type of search advertising.
5. The State of Search Engine Advertising: Reality and Alternatives by Mel Strocen, SiteReference , 01-25-2007 . Argues that advertisers should be abandoning PPC in droves because of (1) cost, (2) click fraud, (3) lack of accountability. Then he gives alternatives to PPC -- organic SEO, paid inclusion, cost per action, and pay-per-percentage.