PPC Campaign Scares Up Big Profits

Holiday sales might have been slow for Halloween Express if not for pay-per-click advertising. Brad Butler, the company's chief operating officer, has his hand in several businesses -- from awards to wine -- and he plans to spend about $1 million this year and get more than every penny back on the investment.

Halloween Express is online, and also has 250 seasonal retail stores. September and October are the peak period -- he spends more than 90% of his Google AdWords budget during these two months.

Butler taught himself how to use AdWords. He dedicates about 35% of the overall marketing budget to AdWords, and attributes about 20% of site traffic to the campaigns. Managing about 5,000 keywords helps him to differentiate the business from larger advertisers and capture every relevant costume query possible including sexy, adult and even plus size and religious -- words that big-box retailers might avoid.

"We also use negative keywords to filter out the pornography, so we don't get all the perverts coming to our site wasting our money," Butler says.

Butler merely bids on popular terms that consumers search on -- no slang or offensive language. He takes the search terms directly from the various search engine databases and cross-links them against the items they have in their database. The objective with any of these PPC campaigns is to bring people who are looking for items that Halloween Express sells to the site.

Without paid search, small businesses are hard-pressed to compete against the likes of Wal-Mart and Target, according to Butler. AdWords, along with search engine optimization techniques, puts small businesses in the game. They can't afford to buy television, radio and print, but they can afford an AdWords campaign because the company sets the parameters, limits and modifies on the fly. "If you don't see performance, you turn it off," he says. "It's as close to a sure thing in the advertising world as you're going to find."

During a typical Halloween season, about 40% of sales come from PPC campaigns, with more than 100% return. Butler never loses money on the campaigns. This year, he will have spent nearly $1 million on paid-search campaigns. Granted, Butler has been at it since 2004.

There are challenges. Butler warns people who want to use paid search to be sure to understand how it works. Test the campaign. "In the beginning, I put a high cap on the campaign, and before I knew it, I was losing money," he says. "I monitor it day and night because -- bam, you need to make sure you don't spend $10,000 on a campaign you don't need."

If people don't know what they are doing they can lose their shirts, "big time," he says. AdWords doesn't necessarily outperform in paid-search conversion rates. Butler also runs paid-search campaigns on Yahoo and Microsoft; they just don't get the traffic that Google does. Butler's budget for Yahoo in October was $50,000, but he spent about $25,000. Both Yahoo and Microsoft lack in support for pay-per-click campaigns -- one reason that he puts more of the ad budget toward Google.

The PPC campaigns run year-round, but they are refined and adjusted.

by Laurie Sullivan

Keyword List for Shopping - NO CPC Data

Related keywords for Shopping

Keyword list and number of Searches in last two weeks. Limited Geographic terms included.

1. shopping 24900000
2. shopping mall 823000
3. online shopping 1830000
4. shopping malls 1220000
5. shopping center 1220000
6. shopping online 1830000
7. christmas shopping 90500
8. shopping sites 74000
9. shopping deals 165000
10. shops 13600000
11. shopping centre 1500000
12. malls shopping 1220000
13. center shopping 1220000
14. shopping centers 1000000
15. shoping 823000
16. shopping directory 450000
17. cinema shopping 246000
18. shopping plaza 201000
19. outlet shopping 165000
20. shopping iguatemi 165000
21. shopping park 135000
22. discount shopping 110000
23. internet shopping 90500
24. shopping outlets 90500
25. shopping games 74000
26. shopping guide 74000
27. shopping store 74000
28. shopping square 74000
29. shopping stores 60500
30. baby shopping 60500
31. food shopping 60500
32. grocery shopping online 60500
33. furniture shopping 60500
34. holiday shopping 49500
35. go shopping 49500
36. web shopping 49500
37. bargain shopping 40500
38. cheap shopping 40500
39. shopping website 40500
40. shopping game 40500
41. live shopping 40500
42. shopping pa 40500
43. shopping hours 40500
44. shopping town 40500
45. shopping websites 33100
46. green shopping 33100
47. gift shopping 33100
48. online shopping mall 33100
49. shopping card 33100
50. retail shopping 33100
51. shopping near 33100
52. forum shopping 27100
53. women shopping 27100
54. computer shopping 27100
55. girls shopping 27100
56. kids shopping 27100
57. international shopping 27100
58. shopping jobs 27100
59. hp shopping 22200
60. shopping news 22200
61. toy shopping 22200
62. girl shopping 22200
63. jewelry shopping 22200
64. shopping service 22200
65. shopping services 22200
66. mobile shopping 22200
67. shopping shops 22200
68. outlet malls shopping 22200
69. online shopping sites 18100
70. window shopping 18100
71. shopping tips 18100
72. shopping blog 18100
73. stop shopping 18100
74. shopping experience 18100
75. house shopping 14800
76. local shopping 12100
77. shopping codes 12100
78. people shopping 12100
79. luxury shopping 12100
80. smart shopping 12100
81. shopping pictures 12100
82. virtual shopping 12100
83. woman shopping 12100
84. secure shopping 12100
85. diamond shopping 12100
86. book shopping 12100
87. shopping address 12100
88. shopping magazine 9900
89. mexico shopping 9900
90. shopping places 9900
91. college shopping 9900
92. shopping results 9900
93. shopping reviews 9900
94. good shopping 9900
95. shopping stores in 9900
96. doctor shopping 8100
97. shopping statistics 8100
98. social shopping 8100
99. shopping for baby 8100
100. shopping engine 8100
101. going shopping 8100
102. television shopping 8100
103. bra shopping 6600
104. eco friendly shopping 6600
105. antique shopping 6600
106. georgetown shopping 5400
107. old orchard shopping 5400
108. organic shopping 5400
109. shopping department stores 5400
110. gem shopping 4400
111. shopping web sites 4400
112. shopping fabric 4400
113. legends shopping 3600
114. shopping on a budget 3600
115. shopping ideas 3600
116. gun shopping 3600
117. military shopping 3600
118. shopping search engine 3600
119. celebrity shopping 3600
120. unique shopping 3600
121. department store shopping 3600
122. cyber shopping 2900
123. monday shopping 2900
124. comparative shopping 2400
125. shopping guides 2400
126. shopping locations 1900
127. msnbc shopping 1600
128. specialty shopping 1300
129. shopping kicks 1000
130. shopping retailers 1000
131. shopping listing 1000
132. friendship heights shopping 720
133. shopping retail stores 590

Source: Lazworld.com Inc. http://www.lazworld.com/