Complete PPC Starts with Strategy and Runs Through Conversion

So many of our clients are getting incomplete PPC. It sounds like a disease (or at least a condition) and it is. PPC causes great harm to the overall ROI of a marketing program when it is done halfway.

Starting with the keywords is halfway because they’re usually disconnected from the overall marketing communications strategy.

Ending with the click is halfway because getting the click is the easiest part and success is about quality conversions, not clicks.

Complete PPC must start with the marcom strategy and end with conversion. That end-to-end process must be accountable to the strategy and must be judged on ALL of these metrics: impressions; cost-per-click (CPC); click-through-rate (CTR); engagement (segmentation or participation); conversion quantity; and conversion quality. If you’re missing any of these tracked back by traffic source, your PPC is incomplete.

Bottom line: half-ass PPC gets half-ass results.