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Do pay per click campaigns work for you? Unfortunately, PPC is very hard to see a definite benefit from when you have a content site that you sell advertising on. On the other hand, if you have an ecommerce site that is very goal oriented, you can very easily track PPC campaign results.

For this reason, I have always shyed away from ppc campaigns. Yahoo! just has never worked for me because I find their interface clunky and their minimum bid way too high. But with AdWords I average a conversion rate of a few % (with a conversion being a new registration). However, I find that visitors coming to my site from AdWords typically stick around longer and are more likely to post after registration, so, over time, I can guestimate that it's worth keeping it going.

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Dani AI

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A short, practical checklist to turn the thread’s high-level points into repeatable decisions and actions.

As observed, goal-driven sites (ecommerce, signups) make PPC easier to measure than pure content sites. For content publishers the right approach is to translate audience value into a per-visitor number; for merchants the focus is acquisition cost and lifetime value. Below are compact formulas, examples and quick fixes you can apply now.

Key formulas (content sites)

  • Measure revenue per visitor (RPV) from ads/affiliates: RPV = TotalRevenue / TotalVisits.
  • Use RPV as a break-even CPC: if RPV = $0.04, you should not pay more than $0.04 per click on average.
RPV = TotalRevenue / TotalVisits
MaxCPC_break_even = RPV

Key formulas (ecommerce)

  • Cost per acquisition (CAC): CAC = AdSpend / Conversions.
  • To set a max bid from a target CPA: MaxCPC = TargetCPA * ConversionRate (conversion rate expressed as a decimal).
CAC = TotalAdSpend / Conversions
MaxCPC = TargetCPA * ConversionRate

Tactical runbook (apply immediately)

  • Tag every ad with UTM parameters so analytics attribute traffic cleanly. Example:
https://example.com/landing?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=spring_sale&utm_term=blue+widget
  • Use negative keywords and the search-query report to stop wasted spend ().
  • A/B test landing pages and match intent to ad copy ().
  • For awareness, consider CPM/vCPM buys rather than CPC ().
  • Monitor search-query and device-level performance; automate bids only after stable conversion data ().

Troubleshooting quick hits

  • Low CTR: rewrite headline, add benefits and sitelinks.
  • High CTR but low conversion: fix landing relevance and page speed.
  • High CPC / low volume: try tighter long-tail keywords and phrase/exact match, or lower bids.

Caveat: use consistent attribution, track customer LTV where possible, and give experiments enough data before scaling.

Recommended Answers

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Member Avatar for clarinetalex

I like CPM Adwords.

Member Avatar for espsol

PPC is a good platform. You can get really good traffic by using PPC. It is also result oriented.But depends upon you how to run and manage your campaign.

Member Avatar for infinique

PPC is the fastest way of getting targeted traffic. However, you need to monitor it and track the conversion and constantly improving the landing page.

Member Avatar for newviewit.com

PPC for lots of beginner companies is a complete waste of time because their pages are not keyword optimized and they end up paying more than they should for hits. Also their wording is not optimized and they usually chase after the wrong keywords.

PPC performs extremely well and has a very high return on investment if you know what you're doing..

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