Google Pay Per Click

[The New Guy]

Ran my Google keyword report today like I do every other day or so, and noticed that they now tell you how far below the bid you are for estimated first page listing.

Here are some examples:

Medicare $23.00 first page bid estimate
Health Insurance $19.00 first page bid estimate
Health Insurance Quotes $14.00 first page bid estimate
Medical Insurance $18.00 first page bid estimate
Insurance Life Mortgage $13.00 first page bid estimate
Insurance Plans $23.00 first page bid estimate

I do both Google & Yahoo PPC.

For now, I only do them within 50 miles of my area.

Most of my bids are in the $3.00 to $4.00 range.

 

[TXINSURANCE]

And remember a click is not a lead.

 

[Mark]

I was using google adword and paying about 8 bucks a click, and got no results from it. It was a waste of time for me.

 

[fastrack1]

I also used google adwords for another business (service business) and got little or no results for it. I did better using a ad placement firm that got me first page every time and also recorded all calls coming in to my office for quality control.

 

[TXINSURANCE]

CPC is irrelevant - what is relevant is CPA.

CPC - cost per click

CPA - cost per acquisition

 

[Crabcake Johnny]

If you take good internet leads your cost-per-client will likely be less than PPC.

At even $4 a click and a 1:4 click to quote request it's $16 per lead - that's not guaranteeing insurability or correct contact information.

Try returning a PPC lead:

"Google? Yeah, this one has a bad number."

 

[moonlightandmargaritas]

If you take good internet leads your cost-per-client will likely be less than PPC.

At even $4 a click and a 1:4 click to quote request it's $16 per lead - that's not guaranteeing insurability or correct contact information.

Point well taken, and a good one at that.

Does that take into account the "exclusivity" of those leads?

 

[Crabcake Johnny]

ASAP is $18 (for members - plug) and returnable for bad info and health. Hard to beat.

Joe's leads are "barely shared" - average of 2.1 agents...also hard to beat.

PZ live transfers are $25 and health filtered. Question is, can you be on the phone with a health qualified lead for less than $25? Don't think so.

 

[TXINSURANCE]

Right and most of our leads come from Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc., etc., The reality is those "exclusive" leads go to other sites and 99/100 other sites are lead companies anyhow (since they are the only ones that can compete on the high traffic keywords).

If anyone wants to play with PPC I recommend small budget and limited targeting (area or speciality).

 

[The New Guy]

I utilize a keyword list of more than 900 search phrases and growing, on my PPC ads.

While I do bid $3 to $4 a click, my average cost per click is $1.61, my lowest being 16 cents I believe.

I don't try to compete for the top 50 or so keywords, but every once in a while I will get a click off of them, when people drill down 5 to 10 pages deep in their search, and my ad catches their eye.

I specialize in long tail search phrases.

You would be amazed at the many different phrases people can use to type in their search on the internet, to find what they want.

One of the more different keyword phrases to date that resulted in a sale was: "A shopper's guide to healthcare insurance," that phrase was only used three times within my 50 mile radius, but it produced one click that produced one sale, and only cost me 38 cents.

I have some web sites that are in the top ten on Google & Yahoo for search phrases.

I bid accordingly on those search phrases as well, so when someone types in that particular phrase, not only am I sometimes number 1 or number 3, in the generic search results, but my Google & Yahoo ads, are also in the top spots.

That means on the that particular phrase, my web site is sometimes represented in 4 different locations on Google or Yahoo's first page of results.