PPC (Pay Per Click) Copywriting is advertising text that accompanies a web-based advertisement, costing the advertising company money only when a user clicks on the advertisement's graphic. The advertisement is hyperlinked to a "landing page," which the company hopes will generate a sale.It is possible for PPC account managers to carry out their own PPC copywriting, indeed most do. However, now that PPC is maturing as an advertising medium users are treating PPC like other forms of advertising and using specialist companies to write their PPC Ad Text for them.The advent of Ad Text Optimization (ATO) is a significant development in this area and has bought a rigour and discipline to the process which is in keeping with other areas of PPC management. It ties in the learning from direct response advertising which has existed for many years and combines it with an algorithm measuring key elements of the PPC ad text.
Predictive behavioral targeting uses a linking of surveys and measurement data to open up the entire spectrum for behavioral targeting. The Predictive Behavioral Targeting system learns from user behavior combined with survey (concerning socio-demographics, product interests and lifestyle) or other third party data in real time. Machine-learning algorithms are put to work in order to provide ad servers with precise profile information for the whole inventory. The technology used is the same as in research on artificial intelligence and robotics
The methodology is based on measurement data for online usage, enriched with information gathered through a survey of sampled users. In a nutshell, the methodology encompasses three steps:
Cookies are saved on the computers of all users of a portal or marketing network. These cookies indicate how often the users have visited certain websites (measurement).
A random sample of users is polled on their demographics, interests and lifestyle (surveys).
This information is overlaid - online and in real time - onto the entirety of the user group (projection).
This process provides a complete targeting profile containing both product interests on the basis of visited online content as well as indications of demographics, interests and lifestyle. Survey data is projected onto the entirety of users by forming "statistical twins": Users without survey data "inherit" the missing survey data from those surveyed users whose measured surfing behavior most closely resembles their own.
Ad text optimization (ATO) is the process of improving the performance of a text Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertisement on search engines by improving its Click Through Rate (CTR) performance both in terms of volume and quality of response, that is “more buyers, less browsers”. ATO is an element of Search engine optimization, where the subject is discussed in greater detail.
According to Search Engine Journal, “AdWords text ads are small and in some ways unassuming – when you think about testing landing pages it’s obvious that there are elements that could make a big impact, but it’s sometimes less intuitive that ad text tests can and often do have an equally big impact on results.
PPC Ads are triggered to appear on search engine pages when Users search with keywords which match those selected by the PPC Advertiser. When PPC Ads are clicked on they take the User through to a designated page on the advertiser’s website and a fee is paid to the search engine for the click. At the heart of Ad Text Optimization (ATO) lies a specialist type of direct response copywriting which can be augmented by an Ad Text Optimization (ATO) algorithm that measures the response effectiveness of Ad Text copy. For Users the benefit of ATO is to make PPC Ads more relevant to their searches. For advertisers ATO is delivers more clicks, leading to more sales and increased Return On Investment (ROI), and search engines benefit by offering their user customers more efficient search experiences.
Cost Per Action or CPA (sometimes known as Pay Per Action or PPA) is an online advertising pricing model, where the advertiser pays for each specified action (a purchase, a form submission, and so on) linked to the advertisement.
Direct response advertisers consider CPA the optimal way to buy online advertising, as an advertiser only pays for the ad when the desired action has occurred. An action can be a product being purchased, a form being filled, etc. The desired action to be performed is determined by the advertiser. Radio and TV stations also sometimes offer unsold inventory on a cost per action basis, but this form of advertising is most often referred to as "per inquiry."
The CPA can be determined by different factors, depending where the online advertising inventory is being purchased.
Differences between CPA and CPL advertising
In CPL campaigns, advertisers pay for an interested lead (hence, Cost Per Lead) — i.e. the contact information of a person interested in the advertiser's product or service. CPL campaigns are suitable for brand marketers and direct response marketers looking to engage consumers at multiple touchpoints — by building a newsletter list, community site, reward program or member acquisition program.
In CPA campaigns, the advertiser typically pays for a completed sale involving a credit card transaction.
There are other important differentiators:
CPL campaigns are advertiser-centric. The advertiser remains in control of their brand, selecting trusted and contextually relevant publishers to run their offers. On the other hand, CPA and affiliate marketing campaigns are publisher-centric. Advertisers cede control over where their brand will appear, as publishers browse offers and pick which to run on their websites. Advertisers generally do not know where their offer is running.
CPL campaigns are usually high volume and light-weight. In CPL campaigns, consumers submit only basic contact information. The transaction can be as simple as an email address. On the other hand, CPA campaigns are usually low volume and complex. Typically, consumer has to submit credit card and other detailed information.
Effective cost per action
A related term, eCPA or Effective Cost Per Action, is used to measure the effectiveness of advertising inventory purchased (by the advertiser) via a CPC, CPI, or CPM basis.
In other words, the eCPA tells the advertiser what they would have paid if they had purchased the advertising inventory on a Cost Per Action basis (instead of a Cost Per Click, Cost Per Impression, or Cost Per Mille/Thousand basis).
