How do I enable PPC for my listing?

First, create and submit a directory listing, if you don’t have one already.

As soon as your listing is published, you will be able to log into your account and set up a PPC campaign for it.

Setup

Setting your bid

The bid is the amount of money you are willing to pay for each click you get to your site.

Setting a bid for your PPC campaign is required. The minimum allowed bid is $2 per click and can be adjusted in steps of $0.50.

Adjusting your bid directly affects the position of your listing, and bidding higher will grant you a better position.

Note: If you bid the exact same amount as another competitor, the one with the biggest monthly budget will be displayed first on the list.

Location-based bidding

Location-based bidding gives you more control over how your money is spent and gets you maximum value out of your PPC campaign.

Please keep in mind that we have established different minimum bids per country/directory. Below you will find an overview of the minimum bids.

When placing a bid, you have the following 3 options:

Set a global bid for all countries

This is the simplest option from your end. You set up a single bid for your directory listing and we will use it for all visitors from any country.

In this case, PPC is enabled for all visitors, regardless of the country they are browsing from.

This bidding strategy is best suited when you really want to "test the waters", start getting some initial traction, and see how the eLearning Industry PPC service works for you.

Set individual bids only for the countries you want to target

This is the most straightforward option: You select only the countries you want to target and set a bid for each of them.

In this case, PPC for your directory listing is enabled only for visitors browsing from the countries you’ve set a bid for.

Set individual bids for selected countries and a global bid for the rest

This is the most advanced and recommended bidding strategy. Using this option, you set a default bid for all countries, along with individual bids for a set of countries that may be of special interest to you.

In this case, PPC for your directory listing is enabled for all visitors, but a) your listing is positioned and b) clicks are charged depending on the bid you’ve set for the country the visitor is browsing from.

Specifying your monthly budget

The monthly budget is the amount of money you are willing to spend on clicks during the period of one calendar month.

Setting a budget for your PPC campaign is required. The minimum budget allowed is $250 per month and can be adjusted in steps of $1.

Note: We will never exceed your allocated budget.

Setting your target URL

The target URL is the address of the landing page that users will be redirected to when they click on your directory listing.

Setting a target URL for your PPC campaign is required.

We recommend that the target URL contains tracking parameters. If not, we will add the following for you:

utm_campaign= eLearningIndustryPPC
utm_source= eLearningIndustryDirectory
utm_medium= cpc

Enabling conversion tracking

You have the option to track the conversions from the traffic you’re getting from the directory.

In order for our system to track conversions, you must install the appropriate conversion tracking code in the page that your visitors will see right after the action you want them to take. That may be a subscription Thank You page, a contact form success page, etc.

Conversions are reflected in your campaign reports and complete the picture of your campaign’s performance.

Campaign lifecycle

Setup

When your directory listing is published, a PPC campaign is automatically generated for you so you can start setting it up.

Directory listings with PPC campaigns pending setup are ranked according to the general directory ranking principles and do not include links to your website.

Running

After you setup your campaign, you can Start it.

Directory visitors will see your listing in the position that reflects your bid, and links to your target URL will also be displayed.

Capped

When you spend 100% of your budget, we change your campaign status to capped.

Directory listings with capped PPC campaigns are ranked according to the general directory ranking principles and do not include links to your website.

This is a temporary state which is reset automatically on the first day of each month. In order to get your PPC campaign up and running immediately, you can increase your monthly budget and restart it.

Suspended

After the end of each month, we will issue an invoice for the clicks you've received and automatically attempt to charge your credit card for it.

If charging your credit card fails for three consecutive times, your campaigns will be marked as suspended and you will not be able to run your campaigns until the invoice is fully paid.

Directory listings with suspended PPC campaigns are ranked according to the general directory ranking principles and do not include links to your website.

Stopped

You can stop a running or capped PPC campaign at any time.

Directory listings with stopped PPC campaigns are ranked according to the general directory ranking principles and do not include links to your website.

You will still be charged for any clicks delivered until your campaign was stopped.

Notifications

We will try to keep you as best informed as possible so that your campaigns run smoothly, delivering maximum value for the money you spend.

Budget notifications

We will notify you via email when you reach 100% of your monthly budget and your campaign's status will change to capped.

What you can do after is change that month's budget so that the campaign can resume, or wait for the new month for the campaign to resume.

Payment notifications

We will notify you at the beginning of every month when your payment is completed.

Otherwise, you will receive 3 notifications in total asking you to change your card or add more to its balance.

Report discrepancies

There will be times that clicks appearing on our platform will be more or less than your Google Analytics reports.

This happens for the following reasons:

• We charge (and report) unique daily clicks. Therefore, if someone clicks on the listing five 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.

Fraud prevention

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

Best practices on bids, budget, and target URLs

• Aim for the front-page position and gradually adjust your bid, always keeping in mind to bid what makes sense to your business model.
• Bidding enough to be on the front-page is essential in the beginning. It will help you get fast exposure and be able to evaluate the directory's quality of traffic.
• Check the individual country targeting tabs at least once a week to stay up to date with what your competition is bidding.