Hot Tip - Non relevant PPC advertising

Ok, as promised last week here is the hot tip you won’t find anywhere else. We all know that the whole key to pay per click marketing is choosing the right keywords, and making relevant ads and landing pages based on the keywords. Well, sometimes you can do the exact opposite and have great results. What am I talking about? A little something I call non-relevant PPC advertising.

The play is basically this. You simply bid on keywords that are not remotely related to your niche. The keyword “download ringtones” is too competitive? Bid on “yellow birdhouses”. “Online dating” too saturated? Bid on “bottled water”. What this essentially does is turns the search engine into your own huge media buy network. But instead of paying a CPM model, you still get the benefits of the PPC model. So a ton of people will see your ad, and most will care less. But your ad will relate to a small few of them, even though they weren’t searching for your particular topic at that time. Think banner ads. You are essentially running a 4 line text banner ad on Google but only paying when someone clicks, not for impressions. The possibilities are endless, and the only limits are your imagination in coming up with unrelated search niches.

Am I crazy? Possibly, but I have made a lot of money in the last year with this technique. It certainly won’t replace normal relevant campaigns, but it’s a fun thing to play around with. Especially on hot topic terms that pop up in the news. One word of caution if you try this: Only use a new account set up just for this technique. Your ads will have a terrible quality score and super low CTR, and you wouldn’t want that to affect your serious campaigns in your main accounts. Have fun!

RSS feed | Trackback URI

8 Comments »

Comment by Scott

2008-01-03 18:28:17

This really works? Don’t your ads get turned off?

Reply to this comment

 

Comment by Andy

2008-01-03 20:43:18

I got my account revoked for doing this.

Reply to this comment

 

Comment by Sucker

2008-01-03 21:04:03

I think I did this a couple years ago for a short time, but with the new quality scores I’d probably get hit with $0.40 click prices at least, if not simply rejected.

It sucks because every so often I come across terms that have 0 bids… but then my quality scores won’t let me show any ads, so it doesn’t make a difference…

Reply to this comment

 

Comment by Chad

2008-01-03 21:07:22

Scott and Andy - Thats why I don’t suggest trying on your main accounts. It’s more of a fun thing to play around with on the side.

Sucker - It’s really hard to slip this past Google. Yahoo and MSN work better….

Reply to this comment

 

Comment by CPA Affiliates

2008-01-03 21:57:31

good tip. I have used it in the past and fun to play with but not something you want to be pouring all your time into.

Reply to this comment

 

Comment by john

2008-01-07 02:06:06

If you are advertising using Adwords are their any quality score issues?

I have not tested this but I am sure that your bid will go up to $10 bucks per click.

Reply to this comment

 

Comment by chuks ugoji

2008-03-20 10:55:17

Its a pity aandy

Reply to this comment

 

Comment by MillionDollarCheck

2008-03-22 21:38:06

someone on digitalpoint forums was suggesting such a technique as well. however he was also saying that there is a part in-between the non-relevant keywords and his conversion that is doing some magic with the non-relevant keywords to convert….hmmm

Reply to this comment

 

Click here to cancel "reply".

Name (required)

E-mail (required - never shown publicly)

URI

Your Comment (smaller size | larger size)

You may use <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong> in your comment.