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Marketing principles permeate into every aspect of online marketing but they’re less pronounced and little discussed. This is especially so in PPC. Having a basic understanding of these principles and knowing how they correspond to your campaigns can give you a leg up over competitors.

Product comes first. In traditional marketing, product refers to the physical product itself. The ergonomics, colors, packaging, etc., but for online marketing one doesn’t really get to make those choices. The challenge is entirely different. When you go into a store you can hold something in your hand. You know exactly what you’re getting because you can see it, touch it, smell it, and perhaps even hear it. Online, one has to make up for this lack of physical contact. In online marketing, product refers to your representation of the product/service online.

Place homes in second. Knowing where to advertise your product or service can sometimes be just as important as the product itself. You’re product could be the best thing since sliced bread, but if you’re not in the correct market space, you’ll never turn a profit.

How about promotion? Now that you have your product and you know where your audience is, you need to be enticing. Promotional materials can manifest in many ways for PPC but for the most part they’re all part of grabbing the greatest amount of attention with ad copy.

The issue of price comes up. Price sounds pretty straightforward, but online pricing can get a bit tricky. Essentially, the online price is whatever the customer gives you to get your product/service. The price of a good or service online can be broken down into two portions: actual price and perceived price. Actual price is as straightforward as it gets but with perceived price however, here’s where things can get a bit complicated. A tremendous haul of attention needs to be especially accorded to this.

For any marketer, online or off, the 4 P’s are a very basic foundation of your offerings and how they translate to customers. Knowing the strategies behind each of these areas can help you understand your online efforts better and thus help you to outperform your competition.

Conversations amongst PPC professionals often gravitate toward nightmare clients. The ones who called at all hours of the day, dictated what should be done in the account and when, or were never satisfied even by exemplary results. Looking through these situations, it is inevitable to consider that nobody is happy. The manager feels belittled or berated and the client wants better results and is frustrated; a no-win situation in every sense. So, here’s a painted picture of the perfect PPC client.

Know Your Goals. This is going to be one of the first questions a reputable service will ask you during a sales call. What is your CPA? What is your conversion rate? What is lifetime value? As a client you should already know these metrics. They are the foundation of success in PPC because you can use them to back into your PPC bids and you have a standard to judge performance against. Without them, you’ll struggle to know what’s profitable and what isn’t. To be the perfect client, know these numbers beforehand. If you don’t, and you want your PPC manager to help you figure that out, then you need to build that into your expectations, which is our second point.

Know Your Expectations. This may seem obvious but it’s the core of a successful relationship. When reputable services get answers like “Make a lot of money”, they at once know that the clients haven’t thought through what they expect. Even after digging it seems like they just want to reduce their workload or they only recently fired the last guy and need a replacement fast.

When you know your expectations you can accurately determine the fit between the manager and yourself. For example, if you expect weekly reports and calls and the manager only does monthly reports and calls, you know right away that even if they agree to your terms it’s not habit for them, they’ll simply be going out of their way to accommodate you. If you’re therefore picking them because they’re the low-cost bid, there is the potential to create resentment.

Know How You Communicate. Note that this implies good communication. That is a must, but you also need to know how you communicate best. If you prefer a well-written email, look for a manager that writes good emails in the sales process. If you prefer a quick call, look for a manager that is well-spoken and organized on the phone, even when the call is impromptu. Finding a good match on communication style will help ensure that communication is effective and this will go a long way towards creating a happy client/manager relationship.

What if someone publicly declared that he had the formula to write the perfect headline? One that is so irresistible every person who sees it has to click on it? You’d probably sign him up immediately and maybe even promise them irresistible perks and bonuses.

But what if he then told you that not one single person out of all the millions who would click on that headline would convert? And that you might lose all your credibility in the process? Would all the traffic generated by that “perfect” headline be worth it?

With that in mind, what’s the purpose of a headline, really? Back in the good old days, headlines were created to sell newspapers. Newsboys stood on street corners shouting the headlines in an attempt to hawk those newspapers. Headlines had to be enough of a tease to get readers interested but they had to be trustworthy enough to get a reader to buy again tomorrow. Competition for eyeballs was less fierce because a town only had so many newspapers. Nevertheless, paper costs money and editors were always happy to get a repeat customer.

Nowadays the competition for eyeballs feels even stiffer because it’s hard to get noticed in the vast sea that is the internet. It’s easy to feel a little desperate. And it seems like the opportunity cost of turning away a customer is much lower than it was before. But aren’t we doing content as a product? Does the quality of that product matter?

There’s no arguing that headlines are important. The fact is that many copywriters recommend an 80:20 ratio of energy spent on headline to copy. That might be taking things a bit far, but a bad (or even just boring) headline will tank your traffic. Here is some expert advice on writing headlines that convert:  It is advisable to take advantage of psychological trigger words like, “weird,” “free,” “incredible,” and “secret” to create a sense of urgency in the reader. Can you possibly wait to read “Secret ways butter can save Your Life”? That is food for thought right there. Number two, use question headlines like “Can You Increase Your Sales by 45% in Only 5 Minutes a Day?” that get a reader asking themselves, “I have no idea, can I?” and promptly clicking away to find out.

Many readers still (consciously or not) consider headlines a promise. So remember, as you fill the headline with hyperbole and only write eleven of the twelve tips you set out to write, there are readers on the other end hoping that butter is really good for them.

Error analysis in CRO is simply invaluable. Trying to do without it usually means setting oneself up for a tumble. In simple terms, you can think of error analysis as going around your site and saying “what happens if I do that?” In product design it is common to hear this practice being referred to as failure mode effects analysis (FMEA). “Failure modes” mean the ways, or modes, in which something might fail. Failures are any errors or defects, especially ones that affect the customer. “Effects analysis” refers to studying the consequences of those failures.

While a lot of FMEA is overkill for designing a website (after all, the ironic, in-your-face factual piece is that nobody is going to die if they click the wrong button) the principles can be used to proactively help find faults. Every website is different so it is important to think of own scenarios. Here are some questions to get you started: What if I use my email instead of username to login? What if I press the back button in the checkout funnel? What if I need a refund? What if I want to get the product delivered to my work address? What If I order the wrong product?

It is clear that these potential errors can be a mix of usability and customer service. The point is to be proactive and anticipate what could go wrong. You can then fix true errors (things that are just broken) or put processes in place to ensure mistakes can be fixed easily when they do go wrong.

Google Analytics has a great report that can help one find some of the most common errors or problems. Here it is: Look at the reverse goal path report and pick a goal (for example, people reaching the thank you page). The report will then show you the most common routes that people take on their way to that page.

The “Ask” section is pretty simple; it’s about asking people to explicitly tell you what they do or do not like. For the terms and conditions slot, the solution is an easy one – the live survey. Everyone has heard of Quaraloo by now so going into detail on this isn’t necessary. The solution is to ask people that leave the funnel via the T+C page what information they’re looking for using Quaraloo. Once the reason has been unearthed, that information can be added to the pages leading up to the conversion and hopefully help reduce anxieties and distractions leading up to the purchase.