No Deep Secrets In PPC Marketing

If you're like me, you have your Google Reader set up to feed you all the latest, greatest and newest news, tips and tricks in the world of pay-per-click marketing. At the very least you're set up to receive recaps or topical news items.

I noticed that when I receive recaps from Search Engine Land, Search Engine Watch, SEO Roundtable and their like, their stories rarely match up with the muck and the ilk I find in my Google Reader. Why? Because respectable news sources like the sites I linked to filter out articles from zealous spam laden proprietors whose sole purpose in life is to make The Promise.

What is The Promise?

The Promise is revealing to you the deep secrets of making money with PPC. These people promise to

• Make you filthy rich by using paid advertising
• Teach you how to generate incredible numbers of leads
• Give you the deep, dark insider secrets

Sound to good to be true? Well duh.

Any paid search marketer worth their salt knows there aren't any deep secrets in the world of PPC. There are no companies with special deals with the search engine that allows them to buy clicks at a lower cost per click. Nor are there secret tracking codes or back doors that allow some companies to have their ads show more often over others.

Yes, there are tips, strategies and different ideas that you can use in a PPC campaign, but these are far from being deep secrets locked in a wall safe or a one size fits all solution. If a company promises super advertising techniques or make money now, do what the everyone else does, run away. Run far far away. Run fast...faster.

How can you filter out Promise sites?

• Look for any site summary that begins with the definition of what pay per click.
• Look for a generic comparison like PPC vs. PPA or PPC vs. Lead Generation Services

Post like these are usually repetitive and useless, or they contain a ton of paid links or content network ads. Unless one of those links goes to a $50 credit that you can redeem on Google AdWords, run away.

• If their main premise is traffic, run away.

Sure, they'll get you traffic all right, but the quality of that traffic will be sketchy. Unless your entire goal is sheer volume - not page views, not conversions, not sign ups or not anything specific that can lead to a stream of income or targeted promotion, run away.

In the world of PPC you get back the time and the money you invest. If you look for insider secrets, quick fixes and sneakiness, you'll wish you had run away from the bad man selling shiny candy.