The Complete PPC Campaign Guide For LMS Software [2019]
Chapters
Complete PPC Campaign Guide For Learning Management Systems

The Complete PPC Campaign Guide For Learning Management Systems

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

  • Why PPC Campaigns in Niche-Specific Platforms perform better
  • How to maximize the ROI of your PPC marketing efforts
  • Why you should not underestimate online reviews when promoting your LMS
  • How can a CTA impact your results
  • Why and how to combine your PPC campaigns with a solid content strategy
  • How eLearning Industry’s Fraud Prevention mechanisms prevent any suspicious activity
Christopher Pappas
Christopher Pappas
Founder
Christopher Pappas is the Founder of eLearning Industry Inc, which is the leading publishing platform that delivers inspiring, industry-specific content to eLearning professionals. Christopher holds an MBA and an MEd (Learning Design) from BGSU.

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1
Chapter

Introduction

Pay-per-click. Just as the name suggests, it is a marketing technique where you pay the advertising platform for every single click it gets to your website/app.

Starting off as a small advertising gimmick in 1996, PPC has now grown to the size of a whale. Helping a large number of businesses reach their prospects, PPC marketing has earned itself all the faith and fame it deserves.

However, the evolution has brought in a number of new advancements. One of those is niche-specific PPC.

As the need for reaching out to highly targeted audiences has risen up over the years, niche-specific PPC platforms have started gaining popularity. There’s one thing that may bug advertisers though.

What is the actual difference? And how do these platforms help better their business?

Adding tinders to light, here’s everything you need to know about niche-specific PPC platforms, how they work and how they can be extremely useful for boosting your LMS software business’s sales and marketing ROI.

Follow our tips and find out how you can promote your LMS by leveraging PPC marketing.

Difference Between Wide Reaching And Niche-Specific PPC Platforms

Okay. So, there are two types of PPC platforms. Wide-reaching and niche-specific. One for those who target big crowds and the other one for those targeting an ultra-specific audience.

But, is this all that differentiates these two? Let us dig a little deeper into this. Here’s a table depicting the difference between a wide-ranging and a niche-specific PPC platform.

Complete PPC Campaign Guide For Learning Management Systems

For a better understanding of how accurate eLearning Industry’s PPC platform can be, have a look at the graphic below.

The State of Learning Management Systems PPC Campaigns at eLearning Industry 2019 Edition

The reason is simple, a niche-specific PPC platform has an already built niche audience, while other wide and diverse PPC platforms will require manual, laser focus targeting for each campaign to perform optimally.

eLearning Industry’s niche-specific pay-per-click service gives LMS vendors the unique ability to attract clientele and produce better results. Νiche specific PPC campaign strategies work even better when they are combined with the right content.

This focused approach, coupled with optimal content marketing plans can help customers improve their conversion rates by a handsome 12%. But does it come easy? Well, only if you develop and implement a foolproof strategy.

Boost Your LMS Software Business’s Marketing ROI With A Cutting-Edge, Niche-Specific PPC Strategy

According to a Research and Markets survey, the global eLearning Industry will grow at a compounded annual growth rate of 7% and will be worth $331 billion by the year 2025.

With such exponential growth, it’s clear that the industry is witnessing path-breaking research and development that is leading to superior Learning Management Systems.

The State of Learning Management Systems PPC Campaigns at eLearning Industry 2019 Edition

But then, this growth has made the competition more fierce. New players are constantly at the heels of the old stalwarts and innovation is on the rise.

In this ever-evolving sphere of eLearning, LMS vendors need impeccable marketing techniques and strategies to attract prospects. A niche-specific PPC campaign can give vendors the leverage to get noticed amongst before their competitors.

Some factors that make a PPC strategy worthwhile:

  • Cost-effectiveness
    As per the pay-per-click model, the cost is incurred only when a user is directed toward a website upon clicking its ad. With limited budgets, LMS vendors can benefit from PPC campaigns. This can happen by placing strategic bids on countries and reducing CPC to suit their budget.
  • Immediate effect
    A well-executed PPC strategy will start showing results instantly. Marketers can expect websites to rank better within hours of setting up a PPC campaign. However, immediate results are only good if they keep coming in regularly, and for that to happen the campaign needs to be active. This is one reason why many marketers across the globe work on PPC ads before investing in other marketing channels like SEO or organic marketing.
  • Increased ROI
    Since PPC has a proven track record of boosting traffic, increasing conversion rates and ultimately accomplishing similar marketing goals under a set budget, it delivers an increased Return On Investment each time.
  • Brand awareness
    Looking for ways to boost brand awareness? PPC can greatly help. A well-executed PPC strategy can work to a brand’s advantage by making the right ads cross prospects' eyes and minds so they get to know about the brand. This, in turn, leads to more conversion opportunities.

While PPC is a 100% results-oriented marketing strategy, it can only perform well when the target audience -in that case, LMS buyers- is narrowed down to specific requirements. Owing to the niche that eLearning falls under, executing a PPC strategy for Learning Management Systems often becomes unbearably difficult.

So what can LMS vendors do to get noticed?

Use a niche-specific PPC platform that attracts only the relevant prospects, and nobody else.

How eLearning Industry’s PPC Platform Helps Your LMS Software Business Reach The Right Audience?

For any online business, getting noticed by the right set of people is key to its prosperous future.

This is more relevant for Learning Management Systems which operates in a niche that is teeming with competitors. With businesses vying for customer attention, the race to the top can get quite arduous. With eLearning Industry’s PPC platform, showcasing your LMS to potential buyers becomes effortless.

eBook Release: Complete PPC Guide for Learning Management Systems
eBook Release
Complete PPC Guide for Learning Management Systems
Our guide will help you boost traffic to your most converting landing pages, reaching the right LMS software buyers at the time they are looking to purchase an LMS solution.

eLearning Industry, with its niche-specific PPC platform, gives online learning companies and professionals a more targeted PPC platform when compared to other conventional PPC giants.

And how does it benefit LMS software businesses? Well, here’s everything all LMS creators and marketers stand to gain with it:

  • Listing placement
    Much like any pay-per-click platform, eLearning Industry’s PPC enables you to place bids for your ads. The higher you bid, the higher your position will be in the listings. With a well-planned bidding strategy, you can improve your chances for potential LMS buyers to discover your LMS.
  • Campaign insights
    PPC campaigns are only as good as the data they produce. With a detailed reporting mechanism, campaign managers learn how their efforts have borne fruit. In-depth traffic and conversion reports will provide the required information to further streamline your campaign.
  • Budgeted spending
    With strategic bidding, marketers not only gain an advantage over competitors but also control their marketing spends significantly. A well-placed bid will get you the desired attention from interested LMS buyers as well as improve your ROI.

While paid promotion is a surefire way to get instant success, if coupled with intelligent content marketing, the benefits can easily be multiplied.

With eLearning Industry’s Custom Content Plans it becomes a win-win situation when you carry out content marketing and PPC at the same time.

Here’s what you get if you opt for a custom content marketing strategy with eLearning Industry:

  • Detailed SEO enabled content that drives traffic
    As we work to drive web traffic or conversions to your website or your business, we also have in mind the need for creating brilliant content that works for you in all arenas of marketing. Be it for SEO or social media. Having quality content on your website will add to its authenticity and will place it higher in the search results as well.
  • In-depth content marketing analysis to Keep you ahead of your competitors
    It’s a fact that analyzing your competitors matters a great deal to your business. While it may appear like you are prying into their websites, this analysis will give you an idea of what is working for them and what may work for your LMS pay-per-click campaigns.
  • Highly targeted traffic to your sales page, leading to more conversions
    The major goal of any marketing campaign in the world is to sell. Whether it sells at the first stage of the marketing funnel or at the last one, ultimately, it all comes down to selling. For this reason, it would be good to have a niche-specific PPC campaign strategy that can drive qualified web traffic to your sales and lead capture pages. This can dramatically boost your conversion rates as the traffic will be of the best quality.

If you are an LMS software vendor looking forward to getting more leads, PPC is one great way. However, an industry as narrow as eLearning targeting PPC campaigns can make you sweat.

That’s where niche-specific PPC platforms come into play. In this chapter, we tried to introduce you to the concept of niche-specific PPC. Hopefully, it was helpful.

2
Chapter

An Overview Of Niche-Specific PPC Platforms For LMS Vendors

With much said about how eLearning Industry’s PPC network may be your best bet for marketing your LMS software, it’s important to talk about how it operates.

So, here’s how to start a niche-specific PPC campaign with eLearning Industry’s PPC platform.

Top Benefits Of Advertising Using A Niche-Specific PPC Platform Like eLearning Industry

Modern businesses understand the importance of PPC marketing all too well. But, have they been using the best resources and platforms for the same?

The far-reaching effect of showcasing your products online cannot be compared to conventional methods that have shown no innovation over the years. However, even while considering PPC for marketing, there’s scope for betterment.

The idea of niche-specific PPC platforms can work better for certain industries when compared to popular PPC networks. Speaking of which, here are some of the primary benefits of using a niche-specific PPC network:

  • Targeting
    Narrowly focused PPC networks are built on the premise of specificity. They are typically online communities or resource hubs/directories targeted at a very unique group of individuals.If you can find a PPC network that has accrued trust with your ideal LMS buyer, you can deliver your value proposition to these buyers without the noise of other offers and search results clouding their judgment.
  • Conversion rates
    Naturally, more focused targeting is going to result in better conversion rates from your paid ad spend. However, there is another element that most niche PPC networks share—consumer intent. It’s common for these networks to be seen on solution comparison directories. These are the places where people come to compare and contrast products and services, like LMS software. They are right at the bottom of the funnel, just ready to buy. This comes as an obvious benefit of PPC marketing on a niche-specific PPC platform.
  • Timely delivery
    A unique characteristic of industry-specific PPC networks is that they deliver ads to prospects when they are most likely to buy. You can pay a little extra for premium placement on these platforms and significantly boost your conversion rates. This will dramatically peak up your LMS’s chances of being noticed and getting the traction it deserves and desires.
  • Direct comparisons
    If you have a great LMS software but are competing against some well-established brands with a much bigger marketing budget, industry-focused PPC networks can help you educate your ideal LMS buyers about your unique selling proposition without leaking unnecessary money. The idea is to present a crystal clear comparison of your LMS software with your competitor’s, enabling the prospects to understand how your product may be their best bet. Along with that, a niche-specific PPC directory campaign will help your LMS get the attention it deserves. Holding a top LMS place on a list of such a competitive market is important to get prospects’ attention.
  • Market leadership
    A focused PPC network or comparison website allows businesses to provide all the need-to-know information for potential LMS buyers. You can also collect customer reviews for your LMS and build a profile of proof that your offer is the best on the market. This consumer-generated proof establishes your business as a leader and breaks down the trust-building barriers of typical PPC marketing platforms.
  • Effective fraud prevention
    Unlike wide-reaching PPC networks, the eLearning Industry platform caters to a select few vendors operating in the LMS niche. For details on fraud prevention, this guide has a whole chapter about fraud prevention.

With the benefit of an industry-specific PPC marketing platform on your side, you can make the most out of your marketing budget and increase your ROI significantly.

A niche-specific LMS directory can surely help your product. However, a targeted LMS pay- per-click campaign can boost your revenue even more. eLearning Industry with its PPC platform offers LMS vendors the advantage of promoting to an audience that understands the industry and is most likely to convert.

What Are Premium Placements? How Are They Different From Free Placements?

As mentioned in a pointer above, you can invest in a premium LMS directory listing in order to significantly boost your conversion rates. But, before you go for it, what exactly does a premium listing mean?

Here’s an example:

Have you ever noticed how most software has a free and a premium version? And how those both are distinguished? This works almost like that.

With a free placement, you get a product profile page, and users can read about your LMS software, read the reviews and compare it with your competitors' Learning Management Systems. A premium placement will put you at the top.

In simpler words, with premium placement on eLearning Industry’s PPC platform, your listing will be placed toward the top of the list (depending on your budget). However, a free listing will always appear after premium listings.

Still, if you want to be at the top of the free listings’ search results, you can be. Rankings depend on the number of reviews and ratings. This means, the better the ratings, the higher the ranking.

For a clearer understanding of the difference between a free and premium listing, go through the following table.

The State of Learning Management Systems PPC Campaigns at eLearning Industry 2019 Edition

Success Rate And Performance Statistics That Matter

As you plan on investing in a niche-specific PPC campaign for your LMS, some questions may add to your worries.

Is it the right decision? Does this thing even work? How well does it pay off?

While answers to such questions are always subject to a number of factors, for an overall idea of how well this technique performs, you can have a look at the statistics.

Performance-Based On Number Of Clicks And Conversions

The State of Learning Management Systems PPC Campaigns at eLearning Industry 2019 Edition

Performance-Based On Conversion Rates

The State of Learning Management Systems PPC Campaigns at eLearning Industry 2019 Edition

Average Ad Spend

The State of Learning Management Systems PPC Campaigns at eLearning Industry 2019 Edition

Do you see how eLearning Industry’s PPC platform is helping LMS software vendors gain traction?

eLearning Industry’s niche-specific PPC platform works by significantly lowering the overall CPL (cost per lead) for the LMS software vendors investing in it.

Clearly, there’s a lot to digest, but you just need to start taking steps. One of those steps is leveraging reviews and ratings in eLearning Industry’s LMS directory. Read the next chapter to learn more about using reviews and ratings.

Boost your visibility & attract the right LMS Software buyers to your most converting landing pages.

Start your PPC Campaign
3
Chapter

The Impact Of Reviews And Overall Ratings On PPC Success

While how you set up your PPC campaigns matters a great deal, results aren’t only settings oriented. There’s a lot you need to look at beyond your PPC platform’s dashboard.

Testimonials. Reviews. Overall ratings. All of these largely determine your PPC campaign’s success. Speaking of which, here are the answers.

The Role That Reviews Play In Boosting Your Conversion Rates and Lowering Overall CPL

Nothing sells a product better than “word of mouth.” It’s a fact that most marketers know. With the onset of digital marketing, word-of-mouth endorsement has been swiftly replaced by reviews and testimonials.

Over the years, online reviews have provided prospective customers with much needed LMS software validation from past or current users.

This has been particularly beneficial for LMS vendors with tight marketing budgets.

With a highly competitive online learning niche, LMS vendors can showcase their product in a directory listing with total confidence when it is backed by positive user reviews.

This can get the ball rolling for you.

Through our research on pay-per-click campaigns we have found:

LMS vendors with more than 15 reviews and an overall rating above 75% tend to enjoy conversion rates ranging between 3.62%–12.58%, with an average cost per lead ranging from $18.18 to $171.50.

The State of Learning Management Systems PPC Campaigns at eLearning Industry 2019 Edition

Examples Of LMS Vendors With Strong Review Metrics (Plus Accompanying Stats).

A study of data generated through eLearning Industry’s PPC platform drives home this point with absolute clarity.

Consider this case:

After signing up for our pay-per-click services, an LMS vendor experienced low cost per lead of $26.43 with a high conversion rate of 12.58%.

This was made possible due to the high number of reviews (51) that the product garnered. With validated reviews from verified sources, the LMS software established credibility in the eyes of prospective customers, leading to a higher number of clicks and improved conversions.

Custom Content + Good Reviews = Higher Conversions (Real Cases)

The State of Learning Management Systems PPC Campaigns at eLearning Industry 2019 Edition

This shows that with a decent number of reviews, LMS vendors can create a positive outlook for their product. And, if coupled with a strong PPC campaign, they can sell their products like hotcakes.

High Overall Ratings Result In More Qualified Leads Than Those With Lower Or No Overall Ratings

The efficiency of any pay-per-click campaign, regardless of the platform it’s being run on, depends upon its overall rating. This rating is an amalgamation of many aspects of your marketing efforts. And then, it’s super important.

Nearly 95% of potential buyers consider online ratings and reviews before buying.

A recent eLearning Industry report says that vendors with high overall ratings (>65%) tend to attract more than three times clicks/leads than vendors with lower overall ratings or no ratings at all.

Clearly, overall ratings not only help potential LMS buyers make better-informed decisions but also provide them with valuable insights about how satisfied a brand’s current customers are.

eBook Release: Complete PPC Guide for Learning Management Systems
eBook Release
Complete PPC Guide for Learning Management Systems
Our guide will help you boost traffic to your most converting landing pages, reaching the right LMS software buyers at the time they are looking to purchase an LMS solution.

Case For A Better Understanding

A client, using our PPC marketing platform was able to acquire an overall rating of 90%. With such high ratings, their PPC campaign was able to attract 6,471 unique clicks, out of which 814 were successfully converted.

That made a conversion rate of 12.58%, which the client maximized their marketing efforts toward dramatically boosting their ROI.

With the overall rating creating such an impact on your PPC campaign’s success, it is imperative that these ratings are crucial for generating more leads as well as lowering CPC.

As LMS and eLearning authoring tool vendors across the globe look for methods for making the most out of their PPC $$, ratings and reviews can largely influence conversion rates.

The reason is simple. We only like to buy products that have been tested and appreciated by others.

No wonder, you must encourage your customers to speak up about your LMS software.

4
Chapter

Using eLearning Industry’s Custom Marketing Content For Winning More Leads

Content is one crucial tool that drives in more conversions, gets your brand leads, promotes you across various marketing channels, and spreads all the great words out loud for your brand.

No wonder it is something that can’t and must not be overlooked.

Similarly, the content that goes into making your PPC campaigns is crucial too. In fact, here are more insights on how custom marketing content contracts lead to PPC advantages for your campaigns.

Reasons Why A Custom Content Marketing Contract Boosts Conversion Rates And Brings Down CPL

Over the last decade, the world of internet marketing has become increasingly saturated.

Brands offering products or services in the same niche are finding it difficult to get the right customers, and marketing efforts are not yielding the expected results.

And then, the situation is worse in the case of online learning. LMS vendors are dealing with increased competition each day, and attracting potential LMS buyers is getting harder by the hour.

But, what’s the solution? For starters, here are the 4 ways in which a custom content marketing strategy can help LMS software vendors stand out.

1. Places You Higher In The SERPs

One of the most common and most desirable benefits of having a custom content marketing strategy is SEO.

As you or the agency that you hire work toward creating custom content for your brand, your audience will start relating to it on a different level altogether. This will show in your traffic analytics in the form of dwell time and bounce rate.

And all search engines reward low bounce rates and high dwell times with better search rankings.

Also, if you’ll keep the general ranking factors in mind while creating your content, your rankings will lift up.

2. Establishes Your Brand’s Authority

Content that is educational and helpful to an audience pays off by establishing brand authority.

If your audience or a part of it has been struggling to look for an LMS solution to a common problem and you come up with the right LMS feature, potential LMS buyers will always look up to your brand.

They may seek answers to more questions. They may go through your website and other content pieces, and they might even sign up for your newsletter. Clearly, content isn’t the king for nothing.

3. Works For Your Brand Awareness

Quality content shows the world what your brand is and how it can be useful for its prospects.

Every time a prospect looks for something relating to your industry and your brand’s name appears, you gain brownie points for the brand awareness that you just earned.

And then, even for your brand awareness campaigns, you’ll need marketing content that is spot on. So, save yourself the day and work for it.

4. Attract More Clicks With Better Text Copies

It’s a known fact that better titles attract more clicks. The questions where the ball drops are: “What kind of titles work best?” and “How can I create better titles?”

Well, thankfully, we have answers.

Speaking of what a better title means, it’s simply a title that intrigues the reader and compels them to click through.

For coming up with such titles, you may have to brainstorm. And to improve your good titles, you can even run A/B tests.

Try to make sure that the catch-phrase/hook of your title occurs in the first or the last three words. That’s where most eyes reach first.

The power of a custom content marketing strategy can be felt when your paid marketing efforts result in higher conversions and lower cost-per-lead.

This was the case with one of our clients who benefitted from a high conversion rate of 12.58% owing to the custom content that was specially created keeping their requirements in mind.

With over 6K unique clicks received, their CPC was kept at a low of $2.44 which made their overall marketing effort a resounding success.

What discourages some eLearning marketers from creating content is the fact that it takes time to build up.

With eLearning Industry’s editorial calendar and research methods, custom content like eBooks and articles perform better over time, especially as your content begins to rank organically. And the best part, you don’t have to work for any of it.

PPC + Custom Content = Higher Conversion Rates (Real Cases)

The State of Learning Management Systems PPC Campaigns at eLearning Industry 2019 Edition

Why Did These Vendors Succeed?

Content marketing takes time to build up and starts off small.

LMS software vendors can benefit from custom content marketing campaigns. It is crucial to create multiple touchpoints (articles, eBooks, Webinars, etc.) for potential LMS buyers to convert.

Vendors who have shared articles, eBooks and webinars have reportedly reduced their CPL and this happens because LMS buyers get many opportunities to understand the vendor through their content.

eLearning Industry experts spend time understanding your ideal customer profile so that when we promote your content to our large B2B eLearning community we can organically attract the right audience.

Content can support a customer’s journey throughout the various stages of the sales funnel.

More content touchpoints usually help for a stronger influence on buyer’s decisions, stronger brand claims and higher conversion rates, thus typically lowering the cost-per-lead across omnichannel efforts.

Custom Content Vs. No Custom Content

The State of Learning Management Systems PPC Campaigns at eLearning Industry 2019 Edition

Creating impeccable marketing content is one of the biggest challenges which pulls down most LMS software vendors.

We at eLI understand this and thus offer custom content marketing services to our PPC clients. In this chapter, we talked about how this custom content for your PPC campaigns can help you in the long run.

Boost your visibility & attract the right LMS Software buyers to your most converting landing pages.

Start your PPC Campaign
5
Chapter

Choosing The Right CTA For The Best Results And Why It Matters

Your Calls-To-Action are another bunch of lubricants that smooth down your conversion funnel, buttons that your prospects would click on to get in touch with you. CTAs are more than crucial. But are you doing CTAs right? Can you get any better at it?

Let us see what your LMS software’s CTAs should or shouldn’t be like.

Why The "14-Day Free Trial With No Credit Card Requirement" CTA Converts the Most

Free trials, in general, tend to convert 20% more than demo CTAs.

Limiting your free trial to 14 days along with having no credit card requirement will bring you more conversions, and it is more than enough for a potential buyer to get a better sense of your offering.

With choices aplenty for LMS software buyers, LMS vendors need a way to give potential buyers a good understanding of what their product is capable of.

A free trial with no payment obligations puts the buyer’s mind at ease while they use the Learning Management System before deciding on committing to a particular LMS vendor.

Since an LMS software will be used extensively by the client it only makes sense for LMS vendors to offer free trials that give a sneak peak of how the product will help their purpose.

Why Are Other CTAs Not As Effective?

We have found out that most vendors use too many CTAs (Free Trial, Demo, RFP,), which often leads LMS buyers away from the conversion path.

It’s important to understand that sometimes “less is more.” And that’s why it’s generally better to focus on one CTA and preferably a Free Trial.

“FREE TRIALS” CTA Performance Stats

Learning Management Systems PPC Campaigns Guide 2019 Edition

“GET A DEMO” CTA Performance Stats

Learning Management Systems PPC Campaigns Guide 2019 Edition

“GET A DEMO” + “FREE TRIAL” Combo Performance Stats

Learning Management Systems PPC Campaigns Guide 2019 Edition

Report Discrepancies

There will be times that clicks appearing on our platform will be more or less than on your Google Analytics reports.
This happens for the following reasons:

  • We charge (and report) unique daily clicks. Therefore, if someone clicks on your LMS directory listing 5 times within a day in 30-minute intervals, we will report one click, but your Analytics will report 5 sessions.
  • We are also adding UTM tags so you are able to track the traffic we bring to your website inside your Analytics. Those UTM tags appear on the URL of your website's landing page. If this URL is shared with other people, it will appear as additional traffic on Analytics, but won't appear nor get charged on our platform.
  • There's also a small chance that after a visitor clicks on your listing button to get redirected to your website, they will close the browser tab before the page fully loads. This might lead to a lost visit on Analytics.

Generally speaking, clicks on your analytics should be more than the clicks reported on our platform. Being part of a niche related list is one major thing, but being featured at the top of a directory listing is even more important

6
Chapter

Maximizing The ROI For Your PPC Marketing Efforts: How To Optimize?

By now, it is clear that advertising on the right niche PPC platform will make your brand and LMS software visible to the right audience. However, simply becoming visible does not pay the bills. You need to sell. Or in this case, your business listing in eLearning Industry’s LMS directory needs to sell.

In our experience, there are certain elements of a business directory listing that make it successful. Of course, we have already read about some of these in the previous chapters, CTAs and user reviews.

While those two factors do have a major influence on the success of your PPC campaign, there are a few other elements of a business listing that also have a significant effect on the ROI of your PPC dollars.

That said, creating a professional-looking business directory listing that speaks the language of conversion is not a difficult task.

Let’s look at what elements make certain LMS Vendors directory listings better than others:

Crisp, Concise, And Thoughtfully Written Ad Copy

Many advertisers make the mistake of creating a sales copy in hopes of boosting conversions. However, it is important to understand that being too much of a salesman may put off your prospects.

We are all bombarded with so many marketing messages every day that most of us simply phase them out and avoid trying to understand or remember them.

Visitors on the eLearning Industry platform are, in most cases, looking for very specific LMS software with very specific features. We advise our LMS vendors to understand this and use the information to guide the copy of their landing page.

Got a unique LMS feature? Mention it in the copy. Your Learning Management System solves a particular problem? Let your ad copy reflect that. Your Learning Management Software is designed for a specific industry? Be upfront about it.

An informative ad copy that highlights the salient features of your LMS will do better than a vague one that is only designed to sell.

Visuals Are The Key

LMS listing directories on the eLearning platform have the option of adding images and videos along with the rest of the information about the LMS software.

We have added this feature to our platform for 2 reasons:

  1. Images (in the form of screenshots and infographics) and videos help LMS vendors showcase their product in its full glory. It is easier to highlight the most impressive features while showing the learning software in action.
  2. Similarly, watching videos and looking at screenshots helps prospects understand the Learning Management System before they make the purchase decision. They can better gauge the usability and relevance of a system by looking at screenshots and videos of how the product functions.

Both of these reasons, ultimately, boil down to avoiding any miscommunication and confusion between a Learning Management System vendor and a prospect. When a prospect makes an informed decision, they turn into happy customers.

Exhaustive Information Of the Product

This one is a commonly overlooked aspect of business directory listings. While most listings feature videos, reviews, and action-oriented CTAs, some of the information about the listing, especially in the “Overview” section is often overlooked. On eLearning Industry’s LMS directory listing platform you can benefit immensely by using this section.

It is important to understand that the Overview section is one of the first things a user goes through when they land on a directory listing page.

This is where a potential LMS buyer expects to find out if a particular software specializes in their industry, about how it can be deployed, or if it fulfills their specific requirement of compliance or employee training.

Not having access to this information doesn't just confuse the user, it also affects the impression your eLearning Software will make on them.

So, take this into consideration and don’t forget to add this information on your LMS directory product listing page.

eBook Release: Complete PPC Guide for Learning Management Systems
eBook Release
Complete PPC Guide for Learning Management Systems
Our guide will help you boost traffic to your most converting landing pages, reaching the right LMS software buyers at the time they are looking to purchase an LMS solution.

Transparent Pricing

In many cases, LMS vendors choose to go for the “contact us for a quote” message when it comes to disclosing the price of their product. We advise against doing so. Being upfront about your pricing with a potential customer will help save time.

A prospect can simply look at the pricing information and decide whether the product fits their budget. If it doesn’t, they can move on to find one that does.

Similarly, if a potential LMS buyer contacts a vendor for a quote and doesn’t purchase the software because it turned out to be more expensive than their expectation, the vendor’s time is wasted.

Sure, there are customizable plans for some products that require the prospect to get in touch with the vendor and describe their unique needs. Except for such scenarios, we advise our LMS vendors to be upfront and clear about their pricing.

Wrapping Up

Having an action-oriented directory business listing is as important as any other aspect of a successful LMS PPC campaign.

With the right message in the ad copy, smart use of visual information, along with complete and precise information about the Learning Management System has dual benefits for both LMS vendors and prospects.

In the sense that these elements help prospects make better decisions while helping vendors position their products exactly how they want to.

Boost your visibility & attract the right LMS Software buyers to your most converting landing pages.

Start your PPC Campaign
7
Chapter

Deciding The Right Bidding Amount For Your Business

Every PPC campaign has a cost of running. And this is factual.

No matter how well you optimize your landing pages or ad sets, a cost will always be there. However, what that cost is and what returns you get against it, depend a great deal on the bids that you choose.

Set in a PPC auction to secure ad placements for your business, a PPC bid is the amount you pay for every click that your ad gets.

This simply means,

Your campaign’s cost x  Number of clicks your ads got

Which is why you must smartly decide bids. But, there’s always this question of how?

Well, this chapter will help you with that. Here’s everything you need to know about deciding how much you need to bid for your campaigns to produce fruitful results.

Starting Off: Factors Affecting The Bid Amount

For starters, it would be good to have an idea about the factors that affect bid choices.

1. Average Monthly Revenue Per Customer

Considering the amount of money you make from a customer every month is important.

It’ll give you a clearer view about what you want to achieve through these campaigns. This way you can come up with a bid amount that seems reasonable, abiding to your expectations.

So, as you start off with deciding the right bid amount for your business’s niche-specific PPC campaigns, make sure you first know how much you make per customer every month.

2. Customer Retention and Tenure

Second thing that matters is how well your organization can retain customers and for how long it can keep them.

Studies show it costs 5% more to acquire a new customer than to retain an existing one.

Do you see how simple it is?

Customer retention is important and so is knowing how good your organization is at it. Just like the average revenue per customer every month, customer retention and tenure will make you aware of how much you can spend, considering your current retention rates and average customer tenure.

3. Customer Lifetime Revenue

Another important metric that you need to look up to before deciding your campaign’s bid is the average lifetime revenue per customer.

The profits that you make from a customer throughout their entire lifespan with you is a major factor affecting the bid. If the customer lifetime revenue doesn’t justify the bid amount, you are clearly bidding too much. So, stop there!

4. Close Rate

Even after you get a qualified lead, what are the odds that it’ll convert/close?

The close rate is a major factor affecting the amount that you set the bid for.

It’s because a thousand leads may not mean a thousand sales. And, ugh! Ugh! It’s sad when you realize, leads don’t get you money, sales do.

So, understand this. The number of leads you get out of a PPC campaign must matter, but you must never neglect a close rate as well.

General Bidding Mistakes That Most Marketers Make

Choosing the right bidding amount for your PPC campaigns is no different than walking a rope.

You make a small mistake, you fall. But, that can’t be afforded, right? For that reason, it’s important for you to go through some of the most common bidding mistakes that most PPC marketers make.

Bidding Too Low

The idea of bidding too low may seem appealing in imagination, but in reality, it can always backfire.

How?

Spending a few more cents and getting results out of the way is better than pending a smaller amount of money, and getting nothing out of it.

Understand this, setting your bid rates too low will be of no benefit as your ads may not even be visible to your desired LMS buyers.

So, be wise. Follow the method below for finding out your optimal CPC bid value.

Not Trying And Keeping Up With The Innovations

One reason why something can go wrong with your PPC campaigns is lack of innovation.

The moment you become too comfortable and satisfied with your campaign and its results, you stop thriving.

This can seriously affect your PPC campaign.

Lack Of Strategy

One of the most common mistakes is jumping into the world of PPC ad campaigns with too much ambition and no strategy.

Many marketers fall prey to this one. And it’s not even a surprise. As marketers, we have all approached a number of ideas without the thoughts of “What if this doesn’t work?”

In a number of cases, this ideology has produced magnificent results. However, when we talk about PPC and bidding, we talk about money. Which is why it becomes more crucial than ever to be careful and move forward only with a strategy.

The basic idea is to create a Learning Management System buyer persona and identify its needs and interests. This will greatly help in targeting your PPC campaigns better and in coming up with better LMS buyer intent, saving you fine deals while bidding.

Some Bid Management Goals To Look Up To

Coming up with the right bid amount is a task in PPC marketing. However, once you get there, you're already halfway through.

And while this half consisted of formulating the PPC bids for different purposes, here's a list of bid management goals that you can look up to.

1. Improving Branding

One of the most conventional goals of any marketing campaign can be to increase branding.

With PPC you can optimally do that if you are able to acquire as many impressions as possible while staying under a target CPM.

2. Boosting Site Traffic

Another major marketing goal is to boost site traffic. This is no surprise that quality web traffic is essential but hard to gain.

With a niche-specific PPC platform, you can reward yourself with this distant goal.

The main aim should be to stay under a target CPC. That’s the way to optimize bid rates.

3. Increasing Leads

Leads are fuel to any business in the world, we know it.

Having said that, it’s no surprise that increasing lead generation/conversion rates while managing to keep your bids below a CPA target can certainly be one of your major PPC marketing goals.

4. Getting more Sales

As it goes without saying, getting more sales is definitely one of the major goals of any marketing campaign.

However, when we connect it with PPC bids, it becomes crucial to ensure that bids are priced smartly to create a positive ROI.

Keep this in mind, and consider the steps and factors mentioned in the sections above for coming up with the right CPC bid value for your campaign.

Wrapping Up

To optimally run a PPC campaign, it’s necessary to decide your bid amount.

Too much can cost you a lot of money and too little will keep you behind your competitors. The best that you can do is consider the right factors that matter and adapt the right techniques to come up with a PPC bid that actually gets your campaigns to the promised land.

This chapter was about the same. Hopefully, this helped you understand bids and how to know how much you should bid.

8
Chapter

Fraud Prevention: See How We Implement It!

There might be times when someone will click your PPC directory listing multiple times within a day. In order to avoid this sort of abuse, we only charge you for the 1st time the user clicks in a 24-hour period.

In our constant effort to safeguard your interests, we are also performing regular tests and audits on all PPC campaigns. Our team analyzes all PPC-related activities, such as the number of clicks, conversions, and sources of traffic, to proactively prevent any suspicious activity on your account.

We have identified the most common PPC-related fraudulent activities that commonly affect online directories.

The Use Of Bots And Malware To Increase PPC Costs

Bots are one of the most common malpractices used to attach PPC campaigns. In essence, non-human bots are programmed to imitate genuine traffic clicking on a PPC listing. Doing so can potentially mess with the PPC budget for the campaign, effectively driving up the costs for you.

Click Farms

If you have been using the web for a while, you may remember coming across online earning opportunities that involve clicking on advertisements. Such websites are known as click farms.

The basic concept of a click farm is to get human users to click on ads in exchange for a small fee. Since there is no intention of making a purchase, and the user is paid for simply clicking the ad, it hurts the conversion rate of the PPC campaign.

If your website becomes a target of a click farm, the sudden surge in the clicks can potentially drain your PPC budget, without actually giving you any sort of results.

Hacker Activity

Hackers with the right knowledge have the ability to duplicate your PPC campaigns and run ads for their own benefit. The twist is, for each click that is generated through this campaign, the charges are racked up to your account, while another website enjoys the surge of traffic through the PPC campaign.

This is a very common occurrence on almost any PPC platform. At eLearning Industry, we have protocols, tools, and processes in place to prevent click fraud. Before we get into those, let us look at a few best practices vendors can employ on their end to avoid falling victim to click fraud.

eBook Release: Complete PPC Guide for Learning Management Systems
eBook Release
Complete PPC Guide for Learning Management Systems
Our guide will help you boost traffic to your most converting landing pages, reaching the right LMS software buyers at the time they are looking to purchase an LMS solution.

Eliminating Click Fraud In Your PPC Account

Click fraud is a plague that affects networks and advertisers alike. If this threat is to be eliminated, the only way out is a fortified partnership between both stakeholders.

While at eLearning Industry we are doing our fair share to eliminate click fraud (more on this in a bit), here’s what you can do to protect your campaigns:

  • Carefully Select Your Passwords And Keep Them Protected
    The importance of a strong password cannot be emphasized enough. This importance is emphasized on almost every website where you create an account, and eLearning Industry is no different. Easy-to-guess passwords are one of the leading causes of online fraud, including click fraud. Once someone with cruel intentions can guess your password, all they need to do is log in to your account and use your PPC budget to their advantage. Apart from plain old guesswork, another common way for hackers to gain access to your account is by using spyware. For this reason, we recommend that you keep your devices protected by investing in leading security software.
  • Look Out For Phishing Attempts
    While most website owners today are probably too smart to fall for common phishing attempts, the phishers have become smarter. In many cases, it has been observed that users are sent an email stating that there is some “urgent action” required on their account. The email features a link, which usually leads to a website that looks very similar to a website they are familiar with. Once the user enters their login details on the page, the phishers have access to their personal information, which they can use to their advantage. To avoid falling victim to a phishing attempt, you can take a few simple steps:- Be very careful while responding to emails that ask for your personal or login information.
    - If you receive an email containing a link to a familiar website, visit the website manually instead of clicking on the link.
    - Do not enter your personal information on any website that seems suspicious. Phishers are getting better at making identical-looking webpages to trustworthy websites. Carefully examine the link of the website, along with the webpage to make sure it is a legitimate website that you already know.
  • Stay Vigilant With Analytics
    Paying close attention to your ongoing PPC campaign’s performance is not just necessary to improve results, but will help you identify any unusual activity pertaining to your campaign. For this reason, it is advisable to routinely check your PPC campaign analytics reports. Don’t just stop at identifying the IP addresses of unusual clicks. Dive deep into your analytics and understand which visits resulted in an action or, better yet, a conversion. If several visits from an IP address are registered without any activity, it is probably a fraudulent click and should immediately be brought to your PPC network’s attention.

How The eLearning Industry Platform Deals With Click Fraud

At eLearning Industry, our objective is clear and simple, to drive value for our partners. In our bid to do so, we have developed frameworks and processes that help our partners in case they fall victim to click fraud.

We understand that prevention is better than cure. That’s why, at eLearning Industry, we do not operate under the assumption that all traffic landing on a particular listing is coming from a legitimate source. After all, almost half the traffic on the web is generated by bots.

Having understood that here are just a few of the ways eLearning Industry’s PPC network works relentlessly, to prevent and eliminate click fraud on our platform:

  • Regular Audits Of Clicks
    Since each click is costing our vendors money, we make it a point to carefully audit each incoming link. The PPC campaign data from all our partners undergoes robust manual checks to ensure no campaign is attracting illegitimate traffic that will provide no value to our partners. All invalid clicks are flagged and removed way before they can show up in the invoice of a vendor.
  • Regular And Repeated Checks Of Analytics Reports
    All analytics reports generated for each vendor’s PPC campaigns undergo regular and in-depth checks to ensure there is no fraudulent activity that goes unnoticed. We make use of carefully selected fraud monitoring tools to identify and ban the sources of fraudulent activity on our website. Our tools help us flag and identify any sudden spikes in traffic, surge of traffic from an irrelevant geographical area, incoming links from proxy servers, and much more. These checks are reverified after a period of 45 days to ensure no detail is missed and our vendors are protected from all forms of click fraud. Monitoring the most common signs of click fraud is our number one priority at eLearning Industry. What our fraud monitoring tools can detect:- IP addresses with bad reputations
    - IP addresses with known bots
    - IP addresses running non-human scripts
    - IP addresses providing known spoofed traffic
    - IP addresses that are known as anonymous proxies if a click is rejected based on the fact that it is coming from one of these sources, it will never show up on the invoice of a vendor.
  • Fraud Activity Prevention With Rank Score
    Each PPC marketing campaign on eLI’s platform is associated with a rank score that allows us to tailor our fraud audit to each unique case. With this, we can track if the clicks on a particular campaign are unusually higher than the site-wide average. Similarly, depending on the performance of a campaign, we track the average (or maximum) conversions achieved by a campaign in a certain period of time. If this number suddenly changes one day, it becomes apparent that there is fraudulent activity taking place. Our tools also allow us to track duplicate and proxy IP addresses, along with days with no activity. Depending on the niche and the performance patterns of any campaign, we are able to set custom alerts for each of our vendors’ performances. For instance, a user may try to click your PPC directory listing on the eLearning Industry platform multiple times in order to drain your PPC budget. To prevent such activities from causing mayhem, we only charge our vendors for the first time a user clicks on their link within the period of 24 hours.

Refund  Policy For eLearning Industry’s PPC vendors

As mentioned earlier, click fraud is a problem that affects advertisers and networks alike. At eLearning Industry, we make use of comprehensive fraud detection tools and state-of-the-art technology to make sure our vendors are protected from all forms of click fraud.

To take this a step further, we have manual audit processes in place that make sure no fraudulent activity goes unnoticed. Combined with these, if our vendors are following the account security best practices mentioned earlier, the chances of fraud taking place become slim.

However, even after taking all the aforementioned steps, if one of our vendors falls prey to click fraud, we’ve got them covered. By choosing to work with eLearning Industry, you are guaranteed that your business is never paying for bad traffic.

In the spirit of the same, if one of our vendors falls prey to click fraud, and is accidentally charged for it, they are eligible for a full refund from our side. Refunds, once confirmed, are processed quickly to make sure our vendors face minimum hassle.

Wrapping Up

Click fraud is a serious problem, and it is equally difficult to monitor and prevent. With that said, we understand the value of the trust placed in our platform by our vendors, and we constantly and relentlessly work toward making PPC with eLearning Industry safer for them.

This protection comes at no additional cost to our vendors, and the sole aim of our efforts in this direction is to create a safer and better PPC environment for everyone.

Final Words

PPC is one of the most useful marketing resources for all businesses in the world. It’s just that there’s always some scope for betterment and eLearning Industry’s niche-specific PPC platform is here to fulfill that scope.

Through this guide, we tried to make our readers aware of the huge potential that a niche-specific PPC platform holds for boosting their business’s ROI.

Starting with how it’s different from a wide-ranging PPC platform to how it operates and assures advertisers a transparent system where they can see how their campaigns are performing.

Hopefully, this guide was helpful.

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