Before you set out on a PPC campaign, whether it is your first time or your hundred and first, you must be clear about your objectives. What would define success for you? The most common definition of success for a PPC campaign is the number of conversions on your site. Remember that a click and a conversion are very different animals; a click is just a visit to your site (that you pay Overture or Google for the privilege of welcoming), whereas a conversion is when this click finds something that they want on your site and performs an action. A conversion can be defined in any one of a number of ways; including but not limited to, a sale, a request for a brochure, a phone call, a download etc.

The parameters of conversion success also vary; most often with budget. How much is each conversion worth to you? Conversions for different types of product are normally different; a mortgage company would naturally be prepared to pay far more for a conversion than a site selling DVDs.

Success might also be measured in clicks (traffic) as part of a branding exercise, but conversions are most often the end goal. Keep in mind your definition of success during the campaign, and use the results to calibrate future campaigns. Set a time period to achieve this level. If you have not reached your target then you should reassess and improve your campaign.

So, how are you going to map out your PPC Objectives? For those beginning their debut campaign, a couple of pointers will help to start a basic but successful campaign.

First, focus your efforts on one major search engine to start. Overture and Google Adwords are the two biggest in the market, and we recommend starting with one of these two. You should not neglect the smaller PPC engines, but launching and optimizing a PPC campaign takes a lot of time, and to start with you should probably focus your efforts on the campaigns that will yield the highest returns.

It is your responsibility to generate every possible keyword and phrase that's applicable to targeting your select audience. And once you've collected them all, you MUST bid them in such a way that you get only the TOP placement (i.e., the top blue ribbon spots on the very FRONT PAGE and for ALL your keywords!) And this usually would be extraordinarily expensive beyond 99.9% of webmasters? and promoters? best and most generous budgets.

Second, you ought to focus on your unique selling point. Decide what you are selling and why someone should choose your product instead of one of your competitors. For example, if your price is lower than your competitors', experiment with ads that contain actual pricing information.

As time goes on, you should research all the possible keywords that your customers might be typing in to reach you. These keywords are likely to be less expensive per click that the more obvious term, as fewer companies will be bidding on these terms.

You must set out the objectives of your pay per click campaign before you start work, otherwise you will find it difficult to assess whether the campaign is a success or not, and you may end up spending more per click than your budget will allow.