Pretty much the main discussion that I have with my clients as a ppc account manager is in relation to ad appearance and position on Google. Often this is from my clients who run smaller budgets.

There seems to be a common misconception that being in the top two positions in the sponsored links is the place to be, beating off the competition and pushing them further down the listings. In reality this isn’t the case.

Deciding what positions to achieve in Google needs to be based on a variety of factors here are a few:

-    Pay per click budget
-    Long/Short Tail nature of keyword
-    Industry

If you are advertising in a competitive industry you need to be smart with your budget. After all, the key is to attract the most users possible to your site for that budget. Aiming for position 1-2 could blast your budget within hours in certain industries, meaning your appearance on Google becomes limited.

The nature of the keyword is the most important factor in deciding position. You have to think of the user’s state of mind when they are typing their search term into the engine.  Short tale keywords are more general and will provide a different type of user to that of a long tail keyword. It is important to think of this when positioning your ads.

Looking at your industry is also important; in the e commerce retail arena position 1-2 isn’t the most effective to aim for to achieve the best conversions. Positioning yours ads lower is catching the user further along the buying process and makes them much more likely to buy something from you.

Of course, you can only truly tell what works best for your campaign once you have set it live and are pulling data back from Google. You can then optimise your account accordingly and position your ads to achieve the best results.

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When it comes to displaying pay per click (PPC) ads on websites, it usually depends on the content of the website. If a website offers a comparative review of digital cameras, for example, then it makes sense to place PPC ads for digital cameras on this site. Thanks to companies like Phorm, NebuAd and FrontPorch, there is a new “behavioural” approach to targeting internet advertisements. In essence, Behavioural Targeting aims PPC ads at a web user and not a webpage. By installing discrete software in the networks of internet service providers (ISPs), their subscribers’ webpage requests are intercepted as they roam the net. The webpages are delivered in the usual manner, but they are also scanned for particular keywords in order to build up a profile of each subscriber’s interests. These user profiles can then be used to target PPC ads more accurately.

For instance, let’s say you are idly surfing the web one evening. You may visit the official website of your favourite football team; you may view a few football articles on a sports news website and then read a football blog on transfer speculation. As you visit pages containing words such as “football”, “Liverpool FC” and “Anfield”, the behavioural-targeting software watching you inside the ISP’s network registers and categorises this apparent interest in football. Later, when you log onto Facebook to see what your friends are up to, advertisements for “Liverpool FC tickets” or “a tour of Anfield gift experience” appear alongside the wall postings and photos. Enticed by the idea of seeing your football teams latest signing in action, you click on the ad and buy a ticket for the next home game online. The idea behind behavioural-targeting is to work out what web users are thinking, before they even know themselves.

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