Many advertisers claim that it is imperative that you use your keyword in your ad, but you may have equally great success without it. You should follow a few rules, however:

• Write to your audience.
• Talk about the benefits of your products/services.
• Use a relevant display URL.
• Ensure that the ad is easy to understand.
• Use a compelling offer.

Here is an example of an effective pay-per-click ad geared to a leading search engine:

An entire book could be written about achieving targeted ad placement on the top search engines because there are many factors that affect how and whether your ad will be displayed on the results page. As a general rule, though, keywords, relevance and landing-page content immediately affect where and if the ad will be displayed.

Ads that display at the top of the results page almost always have a higher click-through rate than those that appear in the righthand column. You may have to adjust your budget, ad copy and landing page to find the best conversion position for your ads.

ROI measurement

Once you begin advertising online, you must monitor your costs and ensure that your efforts are working.

For example, while you may find that some keywords generate more leads than others, you may also discover that your closing ratio on these leads is not as high as leads generated using another set of keywords. The point is that you must track and measure your advertising efforts and adjust to maximize your return.

To gauge the success of your advertising, you should measure your:

• Click-through rate: The rate at which individuals who saw your ad clicked through to your landing page;
• Conversion rate: The percentage of visitors who took a desired action;
• Cost per conversion: The dollar amount spent to achieve one conversion; and
• Cost per customer: The advertising expense it took to produce a sale.

Pay-per-click advertising can make measuring your success fairly straightforward. The search engine will calculate your click-through rate automatically.

Managing your leads

A quality lead is only as good as it is managed. You can generate an e-mail inbox full of qualified, exclusive leads. But if you do not manage them properly, you might get no greater a return than you would from a third party's resold, watered-down leads.

Maximizing the ROI requires you to have a lead-management process that begins at the point of receiving the lead in real time and goes throughout the full life cycle of the lead (typically 90 days to 120 days). Many brokers make the mistake of aimlessly seeking more leads while not properly managing the ones in hand.

The challenge is that managing hundreds of leads each month can easily get out of hand. Because of this, you may want to consider using a Web-based lead-management tool.

If you use one of these tools, most of the processes outlined below will be automated through a lead-management or search-engine-advertising tool:

• Tracking lead volume and keyword/phrase used
• Tracking all advertising costs and revenues
• Tracking and recording all prospect communications
• Using a series of autoresponders to communicate with prospects
• Contacting prospects within a few minutes of receiving the lead
• Consistently managing leads for 90 days to 120 days with phone calls and e-mails
• Compiling lessons learned and making adjustments as needed

The tightening market is making it harder for mortgage professionals to generate new business. By focusing on the basics of online lead generation, though, you can join other industry professionals and get your own qualified leads in real time. Then you can start sharing in the revenues that result from online advertising each year.

Karla Guleserian is owner and founder of DigiIntelligence Inc. and developer of iLeadster. She earned a master's degree in electronic commerce from the University of Maryland. She has a 20-year background in marketing, focusing on the technology field in the past decade. Guleserian has successfully built business-development and lead-generation solutions across many sectors, including commercial lending and the automotive and retail industries. Reach her at (410) 404-3860 or info@iLeadster.com. Visit DigiIntelligence online at www.DigiIntelligence.com.

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