Running a pay-per-click advertising campaign can be very expensive if picking the wrong keywords. I was setting up a new PPC campaign the other day and were struggling to find the right keywords. I was promoting an affiliate program in this case. To convert the click (on my ad) to a sale the user had to submit his/her zip code only. The actual offer was that the user then could be winning a digital camera from a certain brand.

Thinking of who might be interested in winning a free digital camera I started evaluating keywords around digital cameras. People looking to buy a new digital camera could be the right target group but to my surprise some common keywords did not generate much traffic at all or were so expensive that there was no profit to make for me. So, now in need of finding keywords that would generate traffic I started evaluating keywords away from digital cameras. What else would you use when having a digital camera?

Well, people still like to print photos and so I started experimenting with keywords around photo printers, ink, cartridges and printer related accessories. You will be surprised how many keywords I suddenly had at hand and how low bidding prices were. Still at the same time the keywords were good enough to create several thousand impressions of my ads a day and to create a good number of clicks that converted to sales.

So, if you are designing a PPC advertising campaign make sure to think outside of the box. If keywords for the actual product are to expensive or do not convert really well, a look at things used around the product might be well worth the time. In my case I was able to convert about 80% of the clicks to a sale. Part of that success was having a great mix of keywords and low bidding prices.