Then some of the more clever guys started coding up excel sheets and similar tools to combine ad text/keywords/match terms etc. They were by their nature pretty clumsy and inefficient. It was only a matter of time before someone came up with a tool like SpeedPPC…

I was intrigued when I first saw the app, and after a couple of favourable reviews and recommendations, I decided to take the plunge and shell out the cash.

Time is money after all, and anything that saves me time is great if it works right… Right?

Getting Started with SpeedPPC

It has been a while since I first decided to buy SpeedPPC, but I can remember most of the steps that I went through:

Firstly after you have paid, you login to their members’ area with your username/password. Here you’ll find the SpeedPPC app itself which you can download onto your machine for registration. The process is quick and painless as far as I remember.

You also get a bunch of tutorial videos, which really did help with using the app for the first few times. There’s also some free landing page templates, which I’m sure will really help those without  the design skill or resources to get a decent landing page sorted.

Overall I would rate the setup stage to be very good, everythig was very clear and there were no hiccups.

The First Campaign

Speed PPC fits into your campaign production process around about the time you have done your keyword research,you have a good list, a landing page and some idea of your copy.

I remember my first campaign was a simple one, a couple of hundred keywords for a client’s ecommerce site. The campaign would go into Google Adwords, so I was using adwords editor.

I was able to name the campaign, paste in my keyword list and get started from there quite easily.

The next step was to set pricing on keyword bids, and this was also easily done, the app is setup for MSN, Yahoo and Google Adwords, as well as a custom setup for if you are using other platforms.

As you can see, putting in bids for Broad, Phrase and Exact match keywords is really easy.

The Next Step was to setup ad text, including destination urls (landing page). Here SpeedPPC gives you 6 boxes like the below, and allows use of placeholders such as seed keyword, expansion etc so if you are using multiple lists of keywords, you can go some way to keyword tailoring the ads at setup.

Once you’re past this stage, SpeedPPC outputs to .csv file which you can copy/paste into Adwords Editor quite easily. I’ll be posting a step-by-step guide on how to use the tool soon, so keep your eyes peeled for that.

Overall Review Rating: Recommended

I would give SpeedPPC 4 stars out of 5. It is definitely a tool which saves a lot of time if you are building PPC campaigns of any size or complexity.

My only one concern is that it is quite resource hungry. On an older machine I am using that has only 1mb RAM it is a little slow. On my new Acer Travelmate however, it is lightning fast and doesn’t slow down at all.

If you are looking for a commprehensive timesaving PPC Campaign building app, I would overall definitely recommend you buy SpeedPPC, as far as I am aware it is the market leader.

Click for more…

]]> http://ppccourses.com/reviews/speedppc-review/feed/ http://ppccourses.com/ad-copy-writing/ppc-copywriting-tips-for-beginners/ http://ppccourses.com/ad-copy-writing/ppc-copywriting-tips-for-beginners/#comments Wed, 20 May 2009 12:25:51 +0000 admin http://ppccourses.com/?p=24 Getting your ad copy right can make all the difference to your PPC campaign.

In fact, it can be the difference between success and failure. Great ad copy does a number of things:

• It gets your offering noticed amongst all the competition.
• It can help you get cheaper traffic and better placements on Google Adwords.
• It can help filter or screen potential customers.

You should always think your ad copy through very carefully, and follow some if not all of the below tips:

1. Think about what your potential customer wants.

Remember that you are reaching out to a potential customer. Whether you are selling a product on your site, providing content, or trying to get more readers for your blog, the person searching is a potential customer. If you can hit on what their need is, and how you can take care of that, you are halfway to getting that customer to click on your ad.

2. Reflect the search term in your copy.

Potential customers are much more likely to click if you use the language they are using too. For example if one of your ads is targetting “adwords help” then make sure you have that phrase somewhere in your ad.

3. See what your competition’s PPC ads look like.

Do some thorough research on what other advertisers in your sector are writing in their PPC ads. Think about what they are doing and see if you can improve on their copy or message. Aim to stand out.

4. Try a number of variations.

Don’t just throw up one ad and hope for the best. You will never find out what works the best. Some PPC professionals use 3 variations, some use more. I personally tend to go for 4 ad variations when I’m setting up an ad campaign, as this gives me enough scope to try different ideas and discard the ones which don’t perform as well as I’d like.

5. Keep trying new copy.

Just because one of your ads performs the best out of all your variations, it doesn’t mean its the best ad you can produce. Always be willing to cut the worst performing ad, and try something new.

That’s it for now, but keep your eyes peeled for more Copywriting tips coming soon.

Mike T.