PPC Presentation at Meetup202 ad:tech San Francisco
Jul 28th, 2009 by msdanielle
If you weren’t able to attend ad:tech this past spring in San Francisco, here’s a little gem that you missed. At the Meetup202 gathering hosted by the guys at Tracking202, guest speakers included Jonathan Volk, Ralph Ruckman, Paul Bourque, and Dennis Yu of BlitzLocal. In this clip, I was able to capture most of Dennis Yu’s presentation. He squeezed his former hour-long SES presentation into approximately ten minutes. Check out the video and the notes I’ve made below.
“How to scale to a million dollars a month”
Breaking Down the Metrics
Make sure that you understand the fundamentals of how to make a profit with PPC. It’s all about using your data and crunching numbers to ensure your campaign will be profitable. Here are some of my tips on PPC formulas and how to calculate your maximum CPA spend (part 2).
The Importance of Landing Page Optimization
Because CPC, CTR, CR, and CPA all affect each other, make sure to make tweaks to areas that will create the largest return. If your conversion rate is 5% with an average CPC of $.25, and you receive 500 clicks, then that means:
$.25 x 500 = $125 (cost)
500 x .05 = 25 (actions)
CPA = CPC/CR or cost/actions = $5
If you increase your conversion rate (CR) to 6%, then you receive 30 actions at $4.17 CPA; raise your conversion rate to 8% and your CPA drops to $3.13. Beyond just landing page optimization, if you’re able to drop your CPC from the original scenario down to .20, without changing anything else, then your new CPA becomes $4. Optimizing all of your metrics will have dramatic effects if done consistently.
Learn From Using Other People’s Money
This isn’t as bad as it sounds, but it’s a good way to learn. Work for someone else managing their campaigns, and you’ll learn a lot, without having to spend the money out of your pocket. My only warning is of course, make sure you know what you’re doing first before you play with someone else’s money!
Each Step is 10x More Important Than the Previous
This was an interesting train of thought. Your targeting is important, but your keywords are 10x more important. Your keywords are important, but your ad copy is 10x more important. Your ad copy is important, but your landing page is 10x more important. See? 
I assume his statement refers to the conversion funnel, where at each step of the way you encounter “drop-offs” (people who drop out of the path to a completed conversion). It can take a lot more effort to get the clicks to convert, than it does to get the click, or figure out the target demographic.
Outsource Anything Non-Essential, Finish What You Start, and Run Your Business Like a Business
BlitzLocal sends its laundry out so programmers aren’t wasting valuable time doing laundry. Basically, if you have tasks that can be done by someone else that would be more detrimental for you to spend your time doing, then outsource it.
Furthermore, with any business venture, whether it’s brick and mortar or online, it should be run like a business. Ideally, if you have money to rent an office, it might help you be more productive to do so. When you’re running like a smooth, organized business, it can be easier to scale to that million dollars a month!
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Well Well its Miss quiet at it again! How come you not turning up to ASE ay?? Letting down the possy!
ugh! stab me in the heart why don’t you!?
i know, i’m so going to miss out. i really wish i could squeeze it in but i just can’t make it happen this time around. spread the crack rock love around NY with the boys for me!
Danielle,
I was hoping to see you weigh in on the Microsoft-Yahoo! deal, as it seems to me that would eventually strike home for someone in your field.
The way I see it, Microsoft wants to push up the cost of bids for PPC on the combined Microhoo network. Do you and your associates feel that’s a fair read?
Some people have told me the ROI on Microsoft’s AdCenter is usually better than on Google. Do you find that to be true, at least in some verticals? If so, will seeing prices go up in the auction process really convince more businesses to advertise on Microhoo?
Please prognosticate (and I apologize for the off-topic comment — this deal has been a long-time coming and I admit unabashedly I have opposed it from the beginning).
hi michael, thanks for dropping by and leaving your comments. I haven’t had a chance to put together much content lately, and would love to sit down and hash out an article on Microhoo.
speculation seems to be that PPC costs will go up due to merging advertisers from both platforms into one engine. if the system were like AdWords, i wouldn’t see a problem since CTR and quality score have much to do with placement. if placement is mainly dependent on max CPC then there is a big problem for advertisers. I see they are saying changes will be effective in 2 years, and who knows what they will incorporate into their paid search platforms by then.
i need to have and read more discussions on this, that is for sure…