PPC Bid Management Strategies - Different strategy for Google vs. Overture
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Adopt different bidding strategies for Google and Overture. Their PPC systems are quite different and it's worth the effort to identify different bids across the two search engines for the same keyword phrase. Overture sponsored results are based solely on bid while Google uses a combination of bid and CTR (click through rate). Start with Overture to determine initial bid range, since their bidding system is open. It's likely that advertisers bidding for keywords on Overture are also bidding on Google, and probably in the same range. For Google, use the Overture bids as your starting point in the short term and reduce the bids for the long term if your CTR is high enough.
Don't bid for spot #1
Contrary to what the search engines recommend, it's usually foolish to bid for the top spot. Why? Two reasons: 1) It is often prohibitively expensive, and 2) Most web surfers usually try a few different search queries until they've found the right one that fits what they're actually looking for. A click from a surfer in the midst of refining a query usually doesn't result in a conversion.
Tailor bids to actual search results
Track your paid traffic by keyword. Look to see which sites bring the bulk of your traffic and build your bidding strategy accordingly. Google ads will likely come primarily from www.google.com and aolsearch.aol.com, while Overture ads will likely drive traffic from search.yahoo.com and search.msn.com. Run search queries for your keyword phrase on the search engines that send the bulk of your results and see where your paid ad ranks. Note how many ads are on each page and whether they're full ads or brief ads. Know where you want your ad to show up in the search results. Do you want your ad to be above the fold on the first page or is anywhere on the first three pages of results sufficient? Your max CPC will limit your choices.
Next: Take advantage of bid gaps >>
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