When PPC marketing first launched, competition was relatively small and it was simple to achieve a positive ROI for generic key terms. Over time however, PPC has become more and more popular increasing competition for these general keywords and as a result increasing the cost per click (CPC) required to maintain visibility on the PPC search engines.

This meant that for advertisers to compete effectively, the long tail needed to be targeted where competition was less intense.

How Can Mining the Long Tail Increase My ROI from Adwords?

Mining the long tail of search for your industry actually makes it possible to achieve a higher position for a lower CPC than your competition - and hence long tail adverts often appear higher in the Google results than general keywords, even though they are paying less per click.

This is because Google ranks adverts not only by CPC but also by ad relevancy and the click through rate (CTR). This is based on the assumption that the higher the click through rate for a particular search term, the more relevant it is to the user. On top of this fundamental model, an increased ROI can be achieved by utilizing the long tail because:

• More specific key terms often return higher conversion rates because the user is often more intent on buying.
• CTR are often higher because advertisers are able to target the text ad at a more targeted audience, and take the user to a tailored landing page.

Is This Why Sayu Have Added Lots of More Specific Key Terms To My Account?

For clients, and also advertisers sampling our 30-day free trial, the answer is “Yes”.

Building the Long Tail of search for client's account is one of many optimization techniques used by Sayu. Sayu build the long tail based on categories and products, localization, spelling mistakes, call to action keywords, adjectives and so on, resulting in the creation of sometimes hundreds of thousands of key terms. Having these key terms in an account cannot have a negative effect on your account, only a positive one. This is because your ad will simply not be triggered if the specific key term is not searched for. If however ‘Buy Toyota Yaris London’ is searched for, for example, your ad will be triggered and you are likely to receive a much targeted customer for a very low CPC.

To make the most of new long tail keywords it's important to implement various other optimisation strategies, which is why building the long tail is just one very small part of Sayu's management service.

You will need to have well structured Ad Groups and Campaigns. To maintain a good click through and conversion rate you will also need to have very specific advert creatives and landing pages. What's more it's very important to test your keyword generation using multiple creatives. With a good tracking system it is possible to measure the ROI of each individual advert text so as to match the ideal creative with the most conversion friendly users.

It's also important to decide on a method for measuring and managing the hundreds, thousands and sometimes hundreds of thousands of key terms in your account.

Every key term will perform differently in the auction system and for this reason it is vital that your account is managed on a keyword level. You don't want to miss opportunities to increase the CPC on keyword performing well, while wasting money on keywords that perform badly.

Mining the long tail has now become a science in itself, and advertisers are constantly striving to reach further and further into the long tail and increase their keyword coverage.

If you have any more questions relating to this topic, or in fact any other topics relating to PPC, get in touch with your account manager. We'll be able to answer any questions you may have.

Alternatively, if you have a burning question related to online marketing you would like us to answer in our newsletter, email me, editor@sayu.co.uk and we will try our best to answer your queries.