PPC Branding Strategies
There are several online branding strategies that advertisers can employ to leverage PPC as a branding tool. Here are three key areas.

1. Reinforce Integrated Campaigns
Keep in mind that integration goes beyond creative and into planning. In order to reinforce integrated campaigns, advertisers need to amplify existing straplines and maximize available budgets to prevent channels working in isolation. For example, if using a specific brand tagline within a print campaign, incorporate that tagline in your PPC listing as well.

2. Position The Brand Alongside Competition
Marketers must ask “What’s the risk of my brand of not being listed?” Market leaders should use search to ‘own’ categories and non-marker leaders should use search to punch above their weight in branding terms. After all, it is one of the most cost-effective advertising mediums. Brand loyalties can be severed easily via this online medium. Therefore, be aware of the web’s immediacy. Competitors are just ‘one click away.’

3. Protect The Brand’s Equity Online
To protect brand equity online ‘own’ the brand across every touch point. Protect the equity established through offline media and control how the brand is interpreted online. For example, what is the message to take-away from the user experience? Work hard to achieve its consistency across all ad channels.

Put yourself in your customer’s shoes
AIDA — the classic marketing model of Awareness, Interest, Decision, Action. PPC Ads can help across all the stages of the buying cycle. In a PPC campaign strategy, awareness represents the general branding aspect of the campaign and the action component represents the ultimate acquisition of the product by a customer.

Based on these various buying cycle points, campaigns can be tailored to the needs of the customer. In order for PPC to be used effectively as a branding tool, take the various stages of the buying cycle into account and craft the campaign accordingly.

Putting it all Together
When looking to PPC as a branding tool, don’t forget the basics. All the core elements of a PPC campaign must still be taken into consideration. Starting with keyword selection, use generic terms for ‘category’ ownership and specific terms at the point of acquisition. For example, a generic term being ‘woman’s sneakers’ and a specific term being ‘woman’s Nike cross training sneakers.’ Effective bidding and positioning strategies are critical to increased brand visibility.

To use PPC Ads as more of a branding tool, its important to ensure you are within the top 3 Ads to gain maximum exposure. Also remember to consider the landing page that a customer clicks through to. Focus on the idea of consistency; does your PPC Ad support the central branding message and is that message reiterated on the page they click-through to in a structured, cohesive manner?

Pay-Per-Click has altered the conversation regarding branding and direct response. The conversation is now with an ‘and’ whereas with other advertising mediums, it used to be with an ‘or’.

Specifically, the online education vertical has experienced the strongest increase and interest with advertisers either starting new campaigns or ramping up existing campaigns for online education programs. Leveraging off that fall ‘Back-to-School’ feeling, online education sites heavily promote distance learning programs and online adult continuing education programs, with an annual starting mark at beginning of August. This trend is validated by findings in a recent study.

According to a ClickZ report, State of Continuing Education Marketing: How Does Your University Size Up?, “Revenues for continuing education rose 67 percent at responding institutions since the previous survey in 2004. The growth in distance learning is driven by the growth of interactive marketing.”

While the study does not note a specific time of year for increases, we can still note online advertising is a major force that fuels its growth. During the back to school period, we also see heavy increases in traffic relating to online shopping for children’s clothes, including fall jackets and accessories such as backpacks and lunch boxes.

With all seasons, back-to-school being no exception, there are few campaign tips that advertisers should heed.

First, take advantage of the generated interest and increase the marketability of your website by adding seasonal keywords. For example, if you an online retailer selling luggage, include a keyword and listing phrase that stands out to potential customers with a promotion, a qualifier and call to action. For example, with the keyword “children’s backpacks,” create a listing like – “Buy now and get a 10% discount until September 30, 2006 on school backpacks for boys and girls.”

Second, be cognizant of the bidding landscape. It is important for advertisers to note that bid amounts tend to increase with specific verticals affected by the season. For example, now we are seeing an increase on keywords such as “online education programs” and “advanced degrees online.”

Our research confirms that typically 70 percent of all clicks take place in the first three-to-five positions. Consequently, if you want to be competitive — it is prudent to increase bid amounts on seasonal keywords to gain or sustain visibility in top positions.

Third, advertise online throughout the year. While the busy season is over, it is still important to maintain an online presence. The key is to monitor your campaign, especially the bidding landscape. Bidding gaps create opportunities. Oftentimes, advertisers set bids higher because of a busy season, but do not realize they can lower them and still be in the same position as demand decreases after the season is over. For example, if the leading position is $1.19 per click and the second position is $0.79, a significant bid gap has been created, as there is a notable difference between the first and sequential positions.

Therefore, it is not only important to monitor bids relating to seasonal trends, but competitors’ bids as well. Tracking a campaign and having a full understanding of what works and what doesn’t can help to ensure a competitive advantage. There are also free tools available from many PPC advertising firms, including Searchfeed.com, that automate the bidding process and help avoid overspending and bid gaps.

In the end, it is about aligning the online world with the offline world by reflecting seasonal trends, such as the Back-to-School period, within Pay Per Click campaigns.

There are various ways to integrate sponsored content. And, noting the differences between standard PPC and contextual PPC formats can be an important factor when determining which will work best for a website and allow greatest monetization of site content.

Standard PPC implementations come in two formats. One is search, where a search box is added to a site through use of a simple visual wizard or online guide. When a user types in a search query, both PPC ads and algorithmic search results can be returned.

Directory listings are another standard format. They facilitate the grouping of PPC ads into channels by certain topics. Users can browse through directories and click-through on ads of interest. This method is especially beneficial for industry-specific or “family friendly” sites that would like to ad more content to their site focused on a specific niche.

Both of these traditional options provide users with additional site resources and allow webmasters to bolster their site’s appearance and offerings. Most PPC providers offer co-branding of these standard implementations; however some promote the brand of the PPC provider, not of the web publisher. For example, the familiar “Ads by …” that tags the sponsored content on many web portals, bolsters the PPC providers brand not the publisher’s.

As the need to increase yield per page while maintaining brand equity has grown, so have the ways of adapting PPC ads to further monetize site content. Say hello to the in-line contextual PPC implementations. In this variation of the PPC model, ads appear in the same line as the existing site content. The format resembles a hyperlink, but when moused over by the user, it reveals a relevant PPC ad. In-line contextual PPC ads formats give way to some key benefits for webmasters. This method provides publishers with a way to earn revenue from existing site content without needing to increase the number of page impressions on their site.

Integrating text ads in this way complements site layout especially for informational or content-focused sites. Because no additional ad space is needed, the website can be seen as strictly a content focused outlet. Finally this method of ad integration fully maintains a site’s look and feel, ultimately retaining brand equity.

Overall, the optimum implementation method for monetizing traffic by using PPC ads is unique to each site. And one of the best ways for content-focused webmasters to monetize their website traffic, while maintaining branding, could be achieved by getting in-line.

The PPC Model – Clicks Count
In the PPC model, advertisers pay when Internet users perform a search and click on their paid listing. Affiliate PPC partners then earn a percentage on a per click basis. In order for a PPC ad to be returned, an Internet user must perform an action such as typing in a keyword for a specific product or service or clicking on a link containing a relevant listing.

By paying when there is an active attempt made, ideally advertisers’ listings are exposed to only Internet users with future client potential. However, there is some uncertainty as to who is actually seeing the ad. Therefore, since advertisers must pay for every click, measuring sales and calculating return on investment is a necessary step to ensure campaigns are running at profitable levels.

The CPA Model – Only Conversions Matter
In the CPA model, advertisers pay only when visitors convert into an actual customer. As a result, unless there is a qualifying action, such a sale or signup, the advertiser is not charged. This takes some of the risk out of the equation for advertiser because there is a fixed cost per conversion.

Yet, the CPA model can seem risky for affiliate webmasters. For example, a CPA provider can pay 4-10% for referral of customer who buys something, which is a portion of the cost of the item purchased. So far so good, but if a referred person creates an account and comes back through the same link, the partner does not get anything. If a referred person clicked on the link to buy book about cats and ends up passing on this book, but still buying a different book on dogs, the partner only gets minimal referral revenue.

So essentially, a partner can deliver a paying customer, and the CPA provider makes a decision on what to pay for it. Therefore while the CPA model ensures that advertisers are only paying when sales actually take place, the deals are not usually favorable from a partner standpoint.

CPA and PPC Model Fusion
One could say that CPA is more advertiser-focused and CPC is more partner-focused, but it is basically a question of who bears the risk. In the CPC model, the advertiser pays first and then can see the traffic and measures conversions afterwards. In a CPA model, the partner sends traffic and the advertiser only pays for the traffic that converts. One could say the two models are similar, but with CPC, the CPA cannot be determined until after the fact. A cost per conversion may be higher or lower than the price that was agreed to pay for CPA. Consequently, an element of risk is associated with the CPC model.

This is where a possible CPC/CPA fusion model could come into play. PPC provider Searchfeed.com indicates possible future plans of developing a hybrid model. In this proposed new model, advertisers would pay on a per click basis, while partners would get paid on per acquisition basis. That would then put the responsibility of determining converting traffic on the PPC engine and could work best for all parties involved by ensuring that advertisers receive converting traffic and partners still earn a fair percentage of revenue.

This could also quite possibly quell fraudulent traffic concerns. Since affiliates would be paid a percentage for each conversion, there is no incentive for them to generate clicks that do not convert for advertisers, rendering these clicks useless since if traffic does not convert.

At this point, no true “hybrid” models as described above exist and whether one develops, well, only the future will tell.

Any thoughts on who wins and who loses when using the CPA vs. PPC models? Or if the model should be combined in the future?