A Long-Tail Warning

Many advertisers look to the long-tail to help capture cost effective conversions at a reduced cost per click. There are pitfalls that should be considered before diving head first into this endeavor.

Pay per click advertising is getting more competitive. In many industries garnishing low cost clicks is proving more challenging. When faced with this predicament, many advertisers turn to the long-tail.  The long-tail can be a good strategy since you can often find less expensive keywords. The long-tail list usually consists of keyword iterations that are somewhat related to your products or services.  They can also be very specific keywords such as part numbers for products.

It is possible to have success with the long-tail. Often, our PPC team generates conversions with this strategy. In the end it’s possible to have a keyword with a handful of cheap clicks generate low cost conversions. This is a beautiful thing.

While the long-tail can be great, there are some things to watch out for. Many times the long-tail keyword list can get quite lengthy.  It’s not uncommon for long-tail keyword lists to contain hundreds if not thousands of keywords.  Good keyword analysis requires enough data to determine the effectiveness of individual keywords. Long-tail keywords are difficult since it can take a great deal of time to gather the necessary data. After 2 or 3 months it’s possible to discover these keywords have small quantities of clicks and may have only spent a few dollars. It can be hard to justify turning off keywords with such little data to evaluate.  Another issue is how much spend these keywords can rack up. A few dollars doesn’t seem like a lot but when you multiply that by three hundred long-tail keywords, the cost of long-tail clicks start to add up fast. This can be a tough reality especially if these keywords haven’t yielded any conversions.

For advertisers with larger budgets this can be easier to accept especially if the average order value is high for these conversions. Advertisers with a smaller budget need to be careful about their long-tail keyword selection.

It’s a good idea to have a separate budget for keyword sets. This will ensure you are allocating the proper dollars to your most important keywords. Another strategy we have used is grouping keywords by relevancy.

I like to classify keywords through the following tiers:

• Trophy/highly relevant tier.
• Medium relevant tier.
• Long-tail tier.

Managing your long-tail keywords separate from your other keywords will greatly help with analysis, reporting, & efficiencies. It will also help you set appropriate budgets and boundaries for each keyword groups. This sifting process can be time consuming, but it will filter out a lot of potential wasted clicks.

The bottom line is, effective PPC management is a hands-on approach. The long-tail can work very well if properly managed. Choosing the right keywords is a critical step for a successful campaign. A stringent selection & organization process isn’t a bad idea when it comes to the long-tail.