Google Pay Per Click Strategies - Broad or Narrow?

[RonnieG]

Most of my PPC effort has been toward buyer leads, where a very narrow focus, to very specific smaller communities and not the larger major metro area, has always worked best. The best strategy for buyer ads has been to use very specific keywords and ad text for the same community, and to NOT rely on Google's geo targeting, since buyers may come from anywhere in the country or even from out of country. My buyer ads are shown in most English speaking markets around the world, and I have had buyer leads from Canada, the UK, Australia and a few other countries.

But for seller leads, I have found that the approach needs to be very different. My best seller PPC results have been with a campaign that does use Google's geo targeting to a specific metro area, plus lots of negative campaign level keywords for communities in that metro area that I don't want listings in, and using broad match keywords like: home values, house worth, house value, etc. For some reason sellers are rarely community specific in their search terms, so I still get seller leads for areas I would personally prefer not to list in, but that's why I have a team to refer those to.

Less than 20% of my PPC spending is on seller ads, but they do bring some balance to the business, and sellers are often local buyers as well.

[Graeme]

Successful PPC is all about metrics and setting specific goals for each campaign. To know if you are successful you need to be able to track activity.

It is better to have a lower CTR with a high conversion rate. Determine what you want the user to do when they hit your page and lay out your ad copy and landing page to convert for that task.

-Subscribe to listings
-Fill out a contact form
-Request a viewing

Next work out how you can track each of these activities. Use Google's conversion tracking code. This way you can optimize your campaigns based on metrics and not "gut" feeling.

[RyanR]

What do you guys think of a PPC campaign for a mortgage website? Do you think I will get some solid leads off of "Colorado Mortgage", "Colorado online mortgage", "Colorado home loan", etc.?

[RonnieG]

What do you guys think of a PPC campaign for a mortgage website? Do you think I will get some solid leads off of "Colorado Mortgage", "Colorado online mortgage", "Colorado home loan", etc.?

Don't know. Haven't done any mortgage PPC stuff yet. However, I think the biggest issue would be developing a long list of negative keywords, so your mortgage ads don't get triggered when someone is looking to find a RE agent or homes for sale. I have put in considerable thought and effort into building lots of negative keywords to keep folks looking for mortgages and refis from seeing my RE ads!

[RESteve]

Don't know. Haven't done any mortgage PPC stuff yet. However, I think the biggest issue would be developing a long list of negative keywords, so your mortgage ads don't get triggered when someone is looking to find a RE agent or homes for sale. I have put in considerable thought and effort into building lots of negative keywords to keep folks looking for mortgages and refis from seeing my RE ads!

I personally do not mind clients calling me for mortgages and refis. I think it's an excellent way to build a relationship to a trusted mortgage professional (referral), and also you get to put that clients name in your database for follow up. No lead is a bad lead, IMO, just high quality and low quality.

[RyanR]

Thanks for the tips guys.