Now, that title probably makes you think that we’re going to talk about personals ads. In a way, we are. The step that comes after buying a pay-per-click ad, like Google Adwords and the like is figuring out what to do with your traffic once you’ve got it coming in. After all, it’s costing you money, you might as well try to convert that into cash flow.

Doing that is, in a lot of ways, like writing a reverse personals ad. Most pay per click marketers immediately think “Someone comes to my web site, sees my product, whips out the credit card and buys it!” Well, they’ll think that for the first five seconds, until they look at their traffic reports, and see where their visitors have gone. This expectation is sort of like expecting your customer to respond to an ad that looks like this: “Wanted, random visitor with poor impulse control and a ready wallet.” As yourself if you’d respond to that kind of ad, and what kind of relationship you’d expect from doing so.

Now that you’re finally going to get traffic to your website, what are you going to do with it? If you’re running a pay-per-click campaign properly, traffic will come. If you chose a Google Qualified and Yahoo Ambassador to manage your PPC campaign you should feel pretty confident that your campaign will be professionally handled. Outsourcing to a search engine qualified company will save you time and money. If it’s traffic you want it’s imperative you hire a company that knows how to get it. Remember, a well-run PPC campaign is vital to your business and usually is the difference between online success or failure.

A lot of people new to Pay Per Click ads have this expectation that someone will click on the link, see the picture of the product, whip out the credit card and buy on the spot. A little bit of soul searching and/or common sense will show why that expectation is a recipe for disaster: How many times have you done exactly that behavior?

Most likely, what happened is that you skimmed the offer, hit the back button, checked competing offers, and thought it over. Visitors to your web site are (more or less) like you. They’re going to do the same thing. Now, that should put some context into the mix for you, and tells you something you should be doing. Comparison shop.

Take a look at other sites that come up on the AdWord you bought. What offers are there? How are they presented? How does yours stand out from the mix, in a positive manner? What sort of mood would a customer be in if they’re hitting your site in a given search pattern? Will they be happy, sad, grieving, stressed, or passionate about something? Make sure your web site fits the mood of the visitor to make that positive impression, so they’ll come back after doing the comparison shop.

It’s the pay-per-click advertising that will get them to your web site, but it’s the marketing that gets them into your sales funnel. If the only choice you give them on your website is buy or leave, they’re usually going to just leave. Since the odds are you’re not going to sell them on the first visit, you should play your cards right so you can stay in touch. Get creative and offer your prospects a third alternative.

Ask yourself, or better yet, ask customers what information could you give a visitor that searched out your website that they’d be willing to sign up to get? Offer these visitors this information in exchange for their name and email address.

The easy way to do this is offer them a taste of the content they’ll get for subscribing. You get their contact info, they get your information content (with offers for products they might be interested in), and it’s a fair trade. This also establishes that you have a deep and abiding interest in the subject matter, are willing to share information on it, and are willing to be patient enough to let them make up their own minds. That shows that you respect them. Which is the foundation of any lasting, long term relationship, whether romantic, or commercial.

Tags: Online Advertising

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