So a friend is looking to promote her Internet Business through Google’s & Facebook’s PayPerClick Ad services. How exactly does this work? Has anyone here used this & what were your results? Thanks!
I would start by reading http://www.blackhatworld.com/
It is a site that gives you the SD on what to expect. Yes, it has unethical techniques, but it also has white hate techniques as well and it will let you know what to expect. It also tells you which people got burned doing what and what Google and others will and won’t allow.
It’s a good site to read before you start with
You need a lot of traffic in order to make money on most click thru advertising. I think the standard is about 2-3% of visitors will click an ad. So if you have a lot of traffic, it can be great. Not a lot of traffic, and you’re not going to make much money.
OpalCat describes Google’s AdSense and similar programs, which is for putting ads on your own site to get money for clicks. The OP appears to be more interested in PPC advertising, which is what Google AdWords does. The next-biggest player is Microsoft AdSense, which puts sponsored ads on Yahoo! and Bing.
I used to work with Yahoo!'s PPC program until Microsoft bought it out last year. In a nutshell, the idea is to pick out well-targeted keywords that indicate an interest in what you’re selling (and more importantly, an interest in buying what you’re selling), and paying enough per click to get adequate exposure, but not more than you can make back from the traffic.
The biggest mistake that I’ve seen beginners make is being careless about your bids and concerning yourself more with whether you’re Number One than how much you’re paying to get there. I always would recommend starting out with your bids low, since the worst thing that could happen is not getting any clicks, which doesn’t cost you any money, and definitely beats spending all your money before you realize it.
Another important thing to do is use something to track your results. I believe both Google and Microsoft offer a simple conversion counter for free. You want to be sure that you’re not blowing your budget on keywords that don’t get a return on your investment.
And before you spend anything on ads, make sure the site is complete, easy to navigate and pleasant to use. The best keywords in the world won’t overcome a crappy site.
Beyond that, I would defer to HamishBlake’s link for advice from people who know what they’re doing.