Posts tagged with 'planning paid search'

Paid search should be driven by goals not keywords

Setting goals for PPC I’ve often been asked the question, “What keywords should I target for paid search?”. I don’t think this is the right way to approach paid search investment.

Focusing on keywords first risks making your paid search program untargeted and alienating it from your overall business goals.

I prefer the question: “How can paid search support my business goals?”.

When I first looked at PPC (probably back in 2002), I thought in terms of keywords because I didn’t appreciate where paid search fitted in to the direct channel. Now I think in terms of goals. How can paid search support e-commerce goals and what do we want to achieve?

This blog is my explanation for why you should start your paid search project by defining goals and KPIs, and then let the keywords follow.