Disclaimer: The opinions expressed herein are strictly those of the author, CT Moore, and interview subject, and in no way reflect those of Gaming Industry Media.
Several years ago, PPC was a major acquisition channel for operators. Now that Google has started to re-open Adwords in certain jurisdictions, operators need to revisit PPC as a potential source of new players.
There are two main things that operators need to consider before launching a PPC campaing. First, they have to set their budget -- i.e. what they're willing tp invest in the channel. Second, operators need to look at way to manage that budget effectively. Finally, they need to consider how to distribute that budget across variousgeographic markets and the search engines that serve them.
Setting Your PPC Budget
The best way to set a PPC budget is according to your average cost-per-acquisition (CPA). The lifetime value of a player is a crucial part to calculating your return-on-investment (ROI) because it helps you to determine how much to invest in each PPC acquisition.
Once you know what the average CPA of a player is, you can compare it against othe average cost-per-click (CPC) of our targeted keywords and their average click-through-rate (CTR). By setting your budget according to your average CPA, you'll be in a position to set campaign goals and manage campaigns accordingly -- e.g. adjusting and/or cutting those that do not reach meet your CPA requirements.
Managing Your PPC Budget
PPC works on a bidding system, so it can be all too easy to blow your budget without a return. So it's important, then, that you have the tools in place to manage your bids on keywords and makes sure that you stay within your set budget.
Once your campaigns are up and running, you are going to have to monitor CTR and conversion data and adjust your campaign accordingly. You'll want to makes sure to pause low-performing keywords, try out new variations on ad copy, and conduct A/B testing on landing pages.
By using an automated tool to crunch the CTR and conversion data, you can (1) save time on campaign management tasks, and (2) react to trends and fluctuations more quickly. This is especially true for advertisers who promote several products at a time.
Automated solutions come in varying degrees of complexity and at varying prices. More often than not, you'll get what you pay for, but that doesn't mean you can't find a quality tool for you budget.
On the more advanced end of the spectrum, companies such as Acquisio SEARCH offer advertisers pay per click software that flags which keywords should be paused, emails campaign managers about poor keyword Quality Scores. Such solutions also feature bid management tools that let campaign managers set maximum CPCs according to a variety of variables, such as first page bid estimate.
For those who are newer to PPC and won't be running that many campaings, there are also platforms like Shoemoney Tools and BidMax. These solutions are on the more affordable end of the spectrum, and are much more appropriate for running smaller PPC campaigns.
The average igaming operator, however, will probably want to shop around for a higher-end solution. After all, when you're running different campaigns for different products in different jurisdictions, the volume of keywords, clicks, and budgets you're dealing with are going to tend toward the more complex end of the spectrum.
Two Sides To Every Click
Of course, for everything that automated PPC tools can do for you, they are still no substitute for regularly scheduled, hands-on maintenance. After all, automated tools will just help you do the heavy lifting; they only crunch the numbers. It still takes someone with who can interpret what those numbers mean for their business.
The great advantage of PPC advertising is that it's a bidding system, and you don’t have to bid on players that you don’t want. Getting the most out of it, of course, requires that you scrutinize the numbers on an ongoing basis. As your campaigns grow, you might require some automated help to crunch all that data. But at the end of the day, you’re still going to have get in there and get your hands dirty from time to time.