If you're like most marketers, you've likely been confronted with a set budget and have been asked to maximize the return. When it comes to search marketing, what would you say to an unlimited budget being the best approach to becoming and staying profitable? If you're the least bit curious, read on.

Because online marketers can determine ROI from search marketing in real-time, your PPC investment may fluctuate based on margin and volume. So long as you are able to maintain profit margin, and there is no limiting factor to driving volume, you are searching for the point of diminishing return.

Here's an easy way to get started:

  1. Determine your Cost Per Action (CPA). This is the amount you're willing to pay for a conversion and be profitable.
  2. Start investing your PPC (pay-per-click) dollars. Turn on your campaigns and being driving targeted visitors to your site.
  3. Compile your results. Determine the number of visitors you drove to your site, the cost of those visitors, and the percentage that converted. With those data points you will be able to calculate your CPA.
  4. Optimize & revise. At this point, your CPA may be too high or too low, but be careful not to revert back to a budget state-of-mind. You'll likely need to adjust your keywords, CPC, creative ad text and your landing page and path to conversion. Over-investing is a part of the process. The key is to optimize and eliminate inefficiencies in your campaign to drive the most conversions within your CPA threshold.