Your Pet, Your Best Friend

Has an animal ever owned you? Sounds funny, doesn’t it? We say that we own our pets, but in most cases we are the ones who work to make them happy. And we work hard to do that!

Actually, that turns out to be a good thing. Hu¬man beings seem to need to care for someone or something. “At the beginning of life,” says veterinarian Dr. Marty Becker in his book, The Healing Power of Pets, “pets teach a child responsibility and nurturance.” He goes on to say that, especially for an older adult living alone, pets “provide a way to hold onto those same skills.”

Animals add many things to our lives: joy, companionship, comfort, friendship, and sometimes just a reason to get up each morning. The need to care for a pet can be a reason to stay active and get out into the world on a daily basis. Often, we will do something (like take walks) for a pet that we wouldn’t do just for ourselves. Exercise and continued flexibility for oneself is an added bonus of the walk, as is the contact with other people who are often drawn into conversation by their desire to interact with our pets.

A Canadian study of more than a thousand seniors found that pet owners were more active than those who had no pets. Over the one-year period covered by the study, pet-owners remained more consistently able to perform daily living skills such as getting in and out of bed, dressing themselves, and eating than did participants who did not have a pet.

Laughter is another gift a pet gives its person. Just watch a cat that is watching a bird outside the window or a dog trying to free its favorite toy from under a rug. Notice that neither is concerned with how silly it looks. Each is completely concentrated on the task at hand. That’s another gift our pets give us—they take us away from the problems and stresses of daily living and teach us to live within each moment.

Seniors who share their lives with a pet often spend less time at the doctor’s office. A study reported in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine showed that only one month after acquiring a dog or cat, seniors experienced 50% fewer minor medical problems such as pain in their joints, indigestion, colds and flus, back pain, and headaches.

Pets help us deal with stressful life events, too. Many pet owners simply say that their pets are “just there” when things seem to be going wrong. Looking into the loving eyes of an animal as you stroke its silky fur can help you realize that you are not alone and that you are, indeed, worth loving. That can be a big boost when life isn’t exactly going your way.

So, how do you decide if (or which) pet is right for you? Start by asking yourself some basic questions. Do you have time to feed, love, play with, and train a companion animal? Can you cover the cost of food and veterinary care or find someone to help you do so? Do you have strength limitations that might affect the kind or size of a pet you can care for? Do you (or anyone in your family) have allergies that would be aggravated by pet hair or dander? What will you do with your pet when you’re away from home? Finally, what kind of pet do you want to share your life with?

The next step is to learn all you can about the type of animal that you think you would like to adopt. Do this before meeting actual animals! A big mistake that is often made is to be “taken” by a pair of soft eyes and end up adopting a pet that needs love but is totally wrong for the person and his or her lifestyle.

Gain information by talking with your local veterinarian about health care needs and costs relating to various animals and his or her tips on choosing a companion animal. Another idea is to borrow a friend’s or relative’s pet for a few days to see exactly what is involved in caring for an animal on a daily basis. Reading books from the local library and talking with people who already own the type of pet you’re considering are other ways to become more informed. Just be careful to speak with people who have nothing to gain from your decision. A breeder might be very knowledgeable, but remember that he or she is trying to make a living, too!
If you are still interested in adopting a pet, please consider adopting a stray from the local animal shelter. You’ll actually be saving two lives: the life of the animal you adopt, as well as making space for another animal that can be taken into the shelter, where it can wait in safety for a home of its own. Given the benefits of pet ownership, make that three lives!

Are children your gifts or your property?

As a parent, you either accelerate or stifle your child’s giftedness. They will spend much of their lives benefiting from or recovering from your influence. The scriptures say, “train up a child in the way that he should go and when he is old, he will not depart form it.” That does not mean, “if I put my kids on the right path, they’ll never leave it. NO! what this passage teaches us is to view your child as a book, not to be written but to be read.

Also, your child is like an arrow and you are the bow, you duty is to aim him or her in the way he or she should go. God had prewired your child, he preprogrammed your toddler’s strengths. Your duty is to ask yourself, what sets this child apart? Childhood tendencies forecast adult abilities. Read them. Discern them. Affirm them.

You must know that raising your child in the way he should go means recognizing these four things.

· Strengths: At two, Van Clibum played a song on the piano as a result of listening to teaching in the adjacent room. His mother noticed it and gave him lessons. The kid from Kilgore, Texas won the first international Tchaikovsky piano competition in Moscow.

· Passions: John Ruskin said, “tell me what you like and I will tell you what you are”. What do your children like? Numbers? Colours? Activities? Study them! The greatest gift you can give them is not your riches but revealing to them their own.

· Optimal Condition: A cactus thrives in different conditions to a rose bush. What soil does your child grow in? Some kids love to be noticed. Others prefer to hide in the crowd. Some do well taking tests. Others excel with subject, but stumble through examinations. Winston Churchill repeatedly failed tests in school. We each have different optimal conditions. What are your children’s?

· Relationship: what phrase best describe your child? Follow me, everyone…I will let you know if I need some help… can we do this together?... tell me what to do and I will do it. Don’t characterize loners as aloof or crowd seekers as arrogant. They may be living out their story. What gives your children satisfaction? What makes them say yes? Do they love the journey or the destination? What thrills one may bother another. Parents, resist the urge to label before you study. Understand the uniqueness of your child. And remember that they are gifts from God to you and not your property but are God’s properties

Money Management Contd

3. KNOW THAT YOU ARE THE KEY TO YOUR FINANCIAL FREEDOM
You must learn how to put your money into profitable investment such that it will bring in multiple streams of income into your pocket. A true investor is able to evaluate his or her possibilities of making or losing money in an investment. Using all his or her knowledge available, he or she can tell. Investing successfully is by no means a complex issue, it requires time, financial knowledge (literacy), experience and a large amount of self restraint. Anyone can consistently make money from any invest market if he or she sticks to the above mentioned parameters.
To make successful investment trade, an investor has to take into account technical and fundamental data and make an informed decision based on his perception of the investment market sentiment and expectation. However, timing is the most important variable in making successful investments. An investor is an asset to his investments when his decision brings in profit on consistence basis and he is also referred to be a liability, when his decision affects his marginal productivity of his investments which brings in little or no profit. Thus, for an investor to be classified as an asset, he requires the following;

Investment Plan
Unless you have taken time to write down a set of rules that you can and will follow, its likely you will remain unfocused and directionless. Make a plan, have rules, follow them, set goals that are realistic and you will achieve them. In your investment plan, you must categorize which investment is a long term investment and which is a short term and stick to them. Your investment plan serves as a yardstick to measure if you are making progress or not in your investment portfolios.

Investment literacy and education
Increasing your investment knowledge and literacy through attending of seminars and reading of books on specific investment portfolio you are into or about going into is also a vital requirement for any investor. Money invested wisely will diligently produce more money. Like I said, when you invest money, you are sending it to do some work for you whether in your presence or absence. Money will always work for you if you invest it in a good opportunity. For you to invest your money wisely, you need to know in detail about the investments you are about to put in your money, how you will get back your money if things don’t go as planned. This is why financial education serves as the first step to entering into your financial freedom, because when you know how money works, you will definitely know where it works best.

Donating 10% of your income
You may wonder why this is necessary in the investment market but the truth is, it is applicable to every facet of life. It is a pre-requisite of making and keeping wealth. The most important thing in life, if you want to generate wealth, is to donate at least 10% of your income regularly and the keyword here is regularly.
Since I started donating 10% of my income, I would not say I have never been faced with situations that require finances but somehow, I have always found a way around solving it. I can tell you from the experiences of some very wealthy people that I have read about, unless you practice donating at least 10% of your income, life is a lot more difficult. Donating 10% is like a magic trick of attracting financial ease and luck into your life. I urge you to visit bookstores or log onto the internet and search for your favorite wealthy men and women, read their profiles and you will see that the secret to their lasting wealth is in donating at least 10% of their income. Personally, I believe that if you donate at least 10% of your income is the number one principle to your investment success. If you do it, you will attract the right sources of information at the right time, to help you make proper investment decisions and your instinct will become sharper.

Conversely, an investor is considered to be a liability if he has;

Knowledge deficiency
Most investors do not take their time to learn the basic fundamentals of every investment they are into or about to go into. This makes them take the wrong decision at either the right time or the wrong time, thus, losses money and put their blame on the government or the economy. Recent statistics show that 96% of all investors in the investment market do not understand the investment basics of their portfolio. This is why, for most of them, their odds for making money in the investment market are slim to none. Never invest your money in a business or in an investment you don’t know or understand its basics or follow the advice of an unskilled and inexperienced person in that line of business or investment. Money invested under the careful advice of people who are already succeeding in your line of intending business or investment will be cautiously protected. Even, the scriptures urge us to follow those who through faith and patience obtain the promise. When you seek for advice on a particular business or investment venture before you put in your money, you reduce the chances of losing your money.

Lack of investment plan
Lacking of planning is the number one reason many investment business fail. Investing without a plan is like investing for wrong reasons. Most of these investors invest solely to make money. I know every investment is supposed to put money in your pocket but that is not enough reason to invest. It is the investment plan that carries your goals, target and reasons. This makes you understand what you are really going into. Before you start any investment business, you need to know what you are going to do and how you are going to do it. If you don’t, your new investment business will run into trouble as soon as you begin allocating your limited resources. You will wind up spending your time and money on those things that seem to need immediate attention but have no real bearing on your long-range business will suffer because you will not have the groundwork to address them and your available funds will have been depleted.

After all, a true investor is not only after getting money from his investments but in building a large investment empire by converting his earned income into passive and portfolio income generating investment.
For instance, in the stock market, you might want to take into consideration which sector/industry a stock trades in. if you trade a smaller subset of stock from the list, you may want to avoid trading stocks that all trade in the same sector, because we know on certain days all storage stocks or all chip stocks will move together as a sector. By mixing your sectors, you have a less chance of getting caught on those days when one whole sector moves against your trades. By this I mean, trading one particular type stocks of a sector, you are exposing yourself to unforeseen danger. Let’s say, you buy shares in the banking sector. The shares in the banking sector are all influenced by the same factors thus, a change in one of those factors positively will lead to a positive return and vice versa. If these factors influence the sector on the negative aspect, you could have a little or no returns from your stock. I call this situation a win it all or lose it all principle. It is equivalent to gambling in a casino.

You must understand that the odds of one sector favors another sector in a stock market as such, a true investor does not invest in only one sector of the stock market but in two or more sectors. Thus, he/she has already stroked a balance against the odds of the stock market. When one sector is down another is up. I am not here to talk about stock market, but I only used it to explain this basic rule of investment.
So, this is one of the reason true investors do expand their portfolios to cover different sectors of the economy. Remember, an investor who diligently follows the plan always catches the run. To know more about the fundamentals of trading the stock market, follow the link below
Click Here!

4. BE PREPARED AT ALL TIMES FOR OPPORTUNITIES
A true investor focuses and keeps in mind what others are already looking for. The difference between a true investor and a non-investor is that a true investor is always prepared for what and when things will happen. If you want to buy stocks, then attend classes on how to spot bargains in stocks. Being prepared begins with training your brain to know what to look for and being prepared for the moments the investment is presented to you.

OPPORTUNITIES – HOW TO RECOGNIZE IT
The word opportunity means favorable time, occasion or set of circumstances. Many people in life lose a lot of good opportunity that comes to them. They do not only waste their money but also waste their lives, resources and opportunities. One way that people lose opportunities that comes their way is by being extravagant. When you live beyond your means or spend money in excess, you have an extravagant lifestyle. This is a waste of opportunity.
When preparation meets opportunity, people call it luck. Opportunity waits for no man. The first step towards meeting an opportunity is always a difficult step but if you do take this step, it becomes your most important step in your journey towards financial freedom. Just like in chemistry, where the rate limiting step of any reaction is the first step, once this step is overcome, the reaction will definitely yield the required results. Likewise, your first step towards taking a financial opportunity (investment) while determine your financial life.
Your first step in taking up a financial opportunity changes you from one who works for money to one whom money works for. A man who does not step quick when an opportunity comes is a very big procrastinator. Procrastination is the fertilizer that makes difficulties grow, it is an opportunity’s natural assassin. It steals a person’s time, productivity and potential. To attract good luck to yourself, it is necessary to take advantage of good opportunities. Action will lead you forward to the successes you desire, thus men of action are favored by good luck.

MONEY MANAGEMENT SKILLS

For you to be a good investor, you must learn first how to manage your income. This refers to how you allocate your income to bring to you maximum productivity and satisfaction. Money management is all about risk management. The essence of it is to make a logical decision on where and how you spend or invest your income. It is this decision that determines the risk of the investment you want to go in to. When you have a good knowledge of money management, you will be able to analyze an investment if it is a profit making venture or a money taking venture. Proper money management is a function of finding the point that yields maximum returns on investments within acceptable risk parameters. Improving your money management skills involves;

1. KNOW WHAT KIND OF INCOME YOU ARE WORKING FOR.
There are four types of income that you can potentially earn. The first is from being an employee; the second is from being a self-employed individual. The third is from being a business owner and the revenues that owning a business would generate. The fourth is from being an investor, generating income from investments of all kinds.

The categories are self explanatory. You obviously know which category you fit into at the moment by the type of income that you receive. However, the reason for sharing this is to bring to your attention not only which category you are in, but to think about which category you should be in, the goal is to try and get you from being an employee or self-employed to that of an investor.
Doctors, lawyers are self-employed, but if they don’t go to work that week or month, they typically will not receive their pay check. Unless, they have a system in place that allows them to continue earning money without having to do much work in exchange for it, they have to show up and perform some task.

You must understand that there are 3 basic kinds of income. Earned income which is an income derived from a job or some form of labour. It is the highest taxed income and also the hardest you can use to accumulate wealth. Your salary is an example of earned income. Portfolio income is an income derived from paper assets. It is the most popular form of investment income and it is easier to manage and maintain than other investment portfolios. Examples include stocks, bonds mutual funds etc.

Passive income is an income derived from real estate, royalties from license agreements. For instance, if you write a book to be published, after the first publication, the money you receive from subsequent publication of that book is a passive income or income you receive from properties you have sold or rented. However, most passive incomes are earned from real estate.

An employee works for money, a self-employed works for money even though he owns his job. A business owner owns a system and has people work for him. An investor has money working for him. The goal is to become an investor and a business owner and have money work for you instead of working for money.

It’s not something that can happen overnight. It’s a progression and it takes some time, some commitment and a little skill. But ultimately this is where you want to; own your own business or investing or both. The main aim of this book is to show you why you must be an investor and how you can start.

Thus, with these differences, if you want to accumulate wealth you must work to earn mostly portfolio and passive income and not earned income. The major difference between portfolio and passive income with earned income is that the former have more tax break advantages than earned income. i.e. in portfolio and passive income, you pay your tax after spending while in earned income, you pay before spending.

2. KNOW HOW TO SECURE YOUR SAVINGS/INCOME
Secure your savings/income by purchasing or investing in a security. Before you put in your money into any investment, study and carefully carry out an extensive analysis on the investment you want to go into. You can attain training classes on it if necessary. Better still, you can seek for advice from a trained and experienced professional in that field of investment you want to go into.

Convert your earned income into portfolio and passive income
Why you must do this is because income from portfolio or passive is not based on your effort. You only leverage your effort by allowing your money work for you, and the returns on investment will be far better than that received from earned income. Also, income from passive or portfolio income is not a fixed income, as such cannot be completely taxed compared to earned income which is always fixed. Moreover, you cannot work for money all your life because you will one day get to a point where you are no longer strong to work for money, so you must start now to convert your earned income into passive or portfolio income so that your money will start now to work for you thus, taking care of your future.

Another reason you should convert your earned income into passive or portfolio income is because, passive and portfolio incomes are relative incomes while your earned income is an absolute income. Relative Income is more important than Absolute Income. The difference between absolute income and relative income is that, absolute income is measured using one only and unalterable variable, money while relative income uses two variables, time and money. Let’s consider these two hardworking gentlemen. Man A works for 80hrs per week while Man B works for 10hrs per week, both make a total $50,000 annually. Who will be richer when they pass in the middle of the night? If you say Man B, you would be correct. When you invest, you are not just earning money but also time. It is this time that separates the rich from the poor because the rich create time for themselves while to the poor there is always no time.

How to convert your earned income into passive or portfolio income
You can only convert your earned income to passive or portfolio income by purchasing a security. Your money will be of no use if it cannot be exchanged for something. Buying a security help secure your money from inflation, but not all securities do protect your income from inflation. The two kinds of securities which are; an asset and a liability. From rich dad definition of asset as a security that puts money in your pocket and liability as a security that takes away money from your pocket.

A security is something you hope will keep your money safe and secure. The safety measures of these securities are tightly regulated by the government. A very clear example is the organization that watches over much of the world of investing called Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The main reason a security is not basically an asset is because it only secures your money but does not guarantee that you will make money.

Let’s consider a security like shares. A share is a unit value of a company which the public can buy. When you buy a share from a company, you become a shareholder in that company such that when the company declares its dividend, they pay you also. Now, when you buy shares, you have actually secured your money. The shares you bought can become an asset if it brings in more money into your pocket (when the dividend is paid to you) and can also become a liability if it takes money away from your pocket (when it value price fall below the price you bought). Hence, this is why securities are not necessarily assets. Therefore, for you to secure your earned income by purchasing a security, you must know which securities are assets and liabilities.

Save your relationship

Do you know that out of every 10 couples courting, only 6% ends up getting married and after marriage, only 2% stay together forever. The key a long lasting and enjoyable relationship with your spouse is communication. Communication is more of a body language than spoken words. A very clear example is a heart touching story a friend shared with me. I would appreciate your comment after reading this story. It is often the most overlooked aspect of in most relationship. When this happens, couples start seeing their weaknesses in each other and instead of focusing on what brought them together, they start criticizing each other on what the spouse has not done for him or her. Their choices of words changes from “us” to “I” or “you”. This creates more tension between the couples and widens the gap between them. Is this the ideal relationship you want? The most important things they used to value starts fading away slowly and the intimacy between them goes likewise. There is no problem in life without a solution. If your situation looks similar to this or your relationship is at the brink of collapsing, don’t give up yet because I have some great news for you. The only way to achieve your enjoyable relationship you once had is to go back to the basics. If your question is how? Then this book is just for you. Follow the link below and get a copy of this book, save your relationship and thank me later. Click Here!<\a">Save your relationship! Click Here!<\a">Relationship Secrets

How to Make Money Online Without a Website

If you've got some successful keyword research and PPC advertising under your belt for your own website, why not capitalize on that and make money online without one? Affiliate marketing through pay-per-click makes it possible. MSN adCenter and Yahoo Search Marketing both allow direct linking to sites that are not your own. (But don't try this with Google AdWords.) Direct linking means that you can join affiliate programs, create ads for their products, and send click-throughs directly to the merchant's site. There's no need to build an intermediary site or use your own site to direct traffic. When your click-throughs convert, you get a commission. It's a way to create an extra stream of income--or several--with some big advantages: * It eliminates the time, effort, and costs of building and maintaining web pages. The only time you'll have to pay is when someone clicks on your ad. * It allows you to do affiliate marketing without cluttering up your own site with links that might send potential customers away. You can keep your site clean and focused on its job of selling your product, but still make commissions off other people's products. * It eliminates an extra click for users. One click less for them means more commissions for you. While direct linking is a good opportunity, though, it's not a walk in the park. The PPC programs that allow it restrict the number of affiliate ads that can point at the same display URL that shows on the ad itself. So ads by experienced affiliate marketers who know exactly what they're doing can bump less skillful ads. If you want your ads to be seen, here's what you have to do. Step 1: Start with a big, broad market Choose a broad market where there's a lot of searching going on. You want to get as many eyeballs as possible. Step 2: Do some keyword research Don't build your ads on broad, untargeted keywords, though. The competition for those will be fierce--and expensive. Your objective here is to find neglected, low-cost keywords within a broad, high-traffic market--and that's why it really helps to have keyword research experience. And as I mentioned in an earlier article, you need to look for specific problems that are shared by a lot of people within a market. Then find relevant keyword terms that clearly show a clear intention to buy or find out more information. Those terms are much more likely to convert. And remember, you pay for every click, but you get paid only when they convert. The Microsoft Advertising Intelligence tool can show you almost anything you'd like to know about any given keyword, including similar keywords, traffic, cost per click, and much more. The free Google AdWords Keyword Tool is also a quick and handy way of getting ideas for keywords with high search volume and low cost per click; just keep in mind that you can't use this strategy with Google. Step 3: Find a good affiliate merchant that targets your niche In order to find a merchant that offers a relevant product and pays you a good commission, check out these affiliate networks and directories: * www.associateprograms.com * www.affiliatesdirectory.com * www.ecommerce-guide.com * www.cj.com * www.clickxchange.com * www.linkshare.com When you're choosing affiliate merchants, ask these questions: 1. Do they offer a product that directly solves a problem you've identified? 2. Do they allow direct linking to their sites? Some don't. Check the terms and conditions before you commit. 3. Does the landing page generate pop-ups? If so, then forget it. This is not allowed. The back button on the page also has to be functional. 4. Is there a strong landing page for the product? If you send click-throughs to an irrelevant page, a confusing sales process, or a site that's just plain unappealing, then they won't convert and you'll end up wasting your money. Step 4: Write a PPC ad that drives buyers to the affiliate merchant's site Take a good look at the landing page your ad is pointing at and make your ad directly relevant to it. Your ad must: * address the specific problem you've identified. * include the keyword you've bid on, preferably more than once. * reflect the keywords of the landing page. * highlight a benefit of the product. * include a strong call to action. You can give your ad an extra boost by adding your keyword, or part of it, to the display URL at the bottom of the ad. The actual target URL will contain a big, ugly affiliate ID number, but the display version can show the domain name plus a subdirectory with a word or phrase that makes it look relevant to the search, like this: Display: internetmarketing.com/affiliates_ppc Target: http://www.internetmarketing.com/aff-iduao74elksdjdo-2u023f Before you create your display link, check out the PPC competition to make sure it's unique so your ad won't be bumped. The better your ads, the higher the click-throughs will be, which means your ads will be rewarded with better positions for the same money. It's worth polishing them, and then testing them to see which ones are performing the best. Running a pay-per-click affiliate campaign probably won't generate hundreds of thousands of dollars for you right off the bat--but it is the easiest way to leverage the keyword research and PPC skills you've developed in building your own site. And when Microsoft adCenter and Yahoo Search Marketing join forces sometime this year, you'll get the traffic from both, even if you only advertise on one. That makes direct linking even more appealing. Allen Moon is Director of Marketing for the Internet Marketing Center. He leads a team of internet business experts who stay on top of the changing online landscape. They constantly research the latest approaches and test them on real commercial websites, then pass on their knowledge in easy-to-use, internet marketing tools, instruction materials, and training services.

Calculating Return on Investment: Pay-Per-Click Search

Paid search marketing can help increase your visibility online, but it’s important that you make sure your investment, both money and time, is paying off. Generally speaking, return on investment (ROI) is the profit made from the money spent -- whether it’s new technology, new equipment or a marketing campaign. Understanding how to calculate ROI can help owners determine whether an investment was a good choice and decide whether you need to adjust the amount of money dedicated to a specific initiative. In the world of paid search marketing, calculating your ROI can help you determine which ads and keywords to continue using, which ones to scrap and guide you in the development of future marketing campaigns. Because you probably sell multiple products and services and advertise each of them individually, you’ll need the following information for each of your products and PPC campaigns in order to calculate the ROI on your paid search investment: • Ad cost: The amount you spend on paid search campaigns, such as your spend on keyword bidding. • Clicks: This refers to the number of visits to your site from paid listings. • Number of Sales: The number of complete orders from paid listings. • Revenue: The dollar amount generated from paid listings for that product. Simple ROI Calculators Now that you have your information in hand, use these simple formulas to begin calculating: • Ad profit: Revenue minus ad cost • CPA (Cost Per Acquisition/Sale): Ad cost divided by number of sales • ROI: The percentage of ad profits divided by ad cost, multiplied by 100

Setting Customer Acquisition Goals

The price you pay to acquire each customer (CPA) is a great place to begin setting goals and controlling expenses. You can adjust your spending to delete search campaigns that aren’t working, forecast ROI before beginning a campaign or negotiate deals for fixed placement search engine programs. The easiest way to determine what you should be spending is to start with your retail price. If you sell t-shirts for $15 and spend an additional $15 on advertising, you need to sell one shirt to break even. Fifteen dollars becomes your customer acquisition cost maximum. Because you probably want to do better than break even, you’ll want to lower your acquisition cost — perhaps to $12 per customer. When determining what you’re willing to pay per customer, also consider the lifetime value of customers (how many purchases they’ll make from you over the course of your business relationship) and your profit margin. Calculating ROI for product-based businesses is easier than for service-based companies. For owners selling services such as consulting, there is not always an immediate transaction associated with a tracked click-through. But, for instance, if you have succeeded in converting subscribers to your e-newsletter to clients for your services, you still want to set customer acquisition goals via the e-newsletter, set up pay-per click ads and track ROI.

Built-In ROI Calculators

The number of products and services that you sell, the number of places you advertise and the fluidity of the market can make determining ROI tricky. The good news is that most bid management programs on the market have click-through reports built into the software to help you get started. You can log on to check the number of times your site was listed in a search, the number of times a user clicked on your link and the charge for each keyword you are paying for. Click-through reports offer great insight but you’ll need to go into more depth to get the most from your investment. ROI tracking systems can monitor your sales data by search engine, product and campaign components. Programs like Yahoo! Search Marketing’s (formerly Overture) Marketing Console and Search Optimizer monitor how many searchers’ PPC-enabled clicks lead to actual sales — this will be very important information to have when you decide which paid search campaigns to continue and which to cancel. Usually, these programs take an aggregate of what you have paid for each click, factor in the traffic or site visitors, deduct any traffic not directly associated with the PPC investment and compare this number with the overall profit margin achieved through online activity. This makes it is easier to determine which keywords and search engines are giving you the most for your money. Monitoring your paid search efforts and tracking your results will help ensure that you spend your marketing dollars wisely.