Budget Forecasting Continued - Tackling Overture
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While running a pay-per-click advertising campaign on Overture is similar to running one on Google, there are some important differences. Likewise, if you are running such campaigns on more than one search engine, you will want to consider certain points. Jacqueline Dooley goes over the differences between Google and Overture, and briefly explains how to handle a PPC campaign running simultaneously on multiple search engines.
My recent article on budget forecasting focused exclusively on Google, but Overture is the other major pay per click search engine on the market. Many advertisers run ads on both sites. This article will focus on the nuances of budget forecasting for Overture using Overture's advertiser tools.
You don't have to be an Overture advertiser to access the two main tools I use for budget forecasting. The Keyword Selector tool shows the actual number of searches performed in a given month (usually the month prior to your search, but sometimes the data is not current). The tool also displays any searches that contained the term you put into the tool. So, for example, if I performed a search for the word "airport" the tool gives me the following results.
| Count | Search Term |
| 161880 | airport jfk |
| 48249 | Airport logan |
| 41673 | airport Philadelphia |
| 38919 | airport newark |
| 35983 | airport code |
| 35749 | airport parking |
Note that the word "airport" is included in each of the searches which are listed under the "Search Term" column. The Count is the actual number of searches performed in January 2005. This number will change when Overture eventually updates the tool to reflect February's numbers.
Getting the keyword count is the first step towards forecasting your traffic, but the number you really need here is clicks. While Google's tool forecasts clicks per day, Overture doesn't provide this information. The best way to determine it for yourself is to estimate your clickthrough rate (CTR) and calculate it from there. Remember, it's only an estimate. Once your campaign is up and running, you can get the actual CTR and recalculate your estimate based on campaign performance. Since this is not an article about keyword selection, I will assume that you already have your keyword list ready to go. You can use the same list as you used for Google, or you can vary it depending on how much money you have to spend and who your target audience is (Google attracts a different crowd from Overture).
The formula for calculating the number of clicks using Count and CTR is Count x CTR = Clicks. So, if the Overture count is 54,639 and you estimate a CTR of two percent, then your formula with the resulting clicks will look like this.
54,639 x 2% = 1092
Full disclosure: I am not a math whiz and don't pretend to be. I use an online percentage calculator and Excel to calculate forecasts and anything else related to media tracking and management.
The next number you'll need for each term is the cost per click (CPC). Unlike Google, Overture shows you exactly how much you need to bid to be in any given position. This is your maximum bid amount, which is not necessarily your actual per-click amount. The next tool you'll need is the bid tool, which is accessible even if you are not an Overture advertiser.
Next: Overture's Bid Tool >>
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