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      Amanda Luedeke

      Amanda Luedeke is a literary agent with MacGregor Literary. Every Thursday, she posts about growing your author platform. You can follow her on Twitter @amandaluedeke or join her Facebook group to stay current with her wheelings and dealings as an agent. Her author marketing book, The Extroverted Writer, is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

      May 15, 2014

      Thursdays with Amanda: What Do You Want to Know About PPC Advertising?

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      2014AmandaAmanda Luedeke is a literary agent with MacGregor Literary. Every Thursday, she posts about growing your author platform. You can follow her on Twitter @amandaluedeke or join her Facebook group to stay current with her wheelings and dealings as an agent. Her author marketing book, The Extroverted Writer, is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

      I often get questions about ads. When to do them. Where to do them. How to do them. And the biggie, do they even work? 

      For a short while my husband worked in pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. He was Google-certified and everything. Since I just talked about keywords, which I believe to be a vital part of any ad campaign, I figured it may be worthwhile to shoot some questions at my husband and see what he has to say.

      SO LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU WANT TO KNOW! I WANT YOUR QUESTIONS.

      If you’re a bit fuzzy on PPC ads, simply go to Google or Yahoo or even Facebook. Those text-based ads that you see on every page are generated by individuals who pay the host (Google, Yahoo, etc) every time someone clicks on the ad. Sometimes they pay $0.50 per click. Sometimes more. Sometimes less. And you’ll notice that the ads that show up for you aren’t the same ads that show up for others. This is because the ad owners have chosen who to target with their ads. They’ve tagged the ads with keywords. Once you do a search that matches, the appropriate ads start popping up.

      It’s a science, really, and like I said, my husband had to pass a test in order to be Google AdWords certified, and thus write and manage PPC ads for his clients. So he has plenty to say on the topic, even if his advice is three years old.

      What do you want to know about PPC advertising? Maybe you want to know how much it costs? Or common mistakes? Maybe you want to know what phrases work best or what kind of a conversion rate to look for? Or maybe you want insight on timing and strategy?

      Post your questions here, and I’ll do a Q&A with him next week. If you’ve ever considered running a PPC campaign, here’s your opportunity to get your questions answered.

       

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      5 Comments

      • Jenny Gentry says:
        May 16, 2014 at 10:55 pm

        My question is somewhat like Iola’s I have heard that PPC’s on facebook can lead to robot clicks and you get charged for “fake” clicks. If this is true what do you advise as the best places to do PPC ads or is there a way to lessen the risk for fake clicks?

      • Stephanie Morrill says:
        May 16, 2014 at 2:07 pm

        Well, all the questions that you suggested, and then these: What age groups is a PPC campaign most beneficial? As an author, should your PPC campaign point to your website or somewhere else? What does a strong PPC campaign look like?

      • Iola Goulton says:
        May 15, 2014 at 9:14 pm

        Good question.

        I’d like to know about PPC on Facebook. I’ve seen advice that says ‘Promoting’ your page or a specific post isn’t worth the money, because it doesn’t necessarily get real people – you become clickbait in some centre in India or Mexico or the Philippines.

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