Once the hottest online advertising tool around, pay per click (PPC) ads have fallen out of favor a bit lately. Some of the decrease in enthusiasm can be traced to the fact that it’s not as new as it once was; all marketers – and especially those of us who work on the Internet – like to try the latest and greatest.
A more tangible reason has to do with the increased popularity of PPC amongst smaller marketers. By bidding up the more popular keywords and phrases, newer advertisers have taken a lot of the profit out of search engine ads, along with making it harder to find good niches to compete in.
Still, for most companies PPC can still be an effective advertising strategy. There are just a few things to keep in mind:
Pay per click is quicker than SEO… As we’re fond of reminding people, it can take months to start bringing organic traffic to your site. PPC, on the other hand, can drive buyers to your landing pages within minutes. For companies in a hurry to find orders, that’s not a small benefit.
PPC can be more efficient… except when it isn’t. Numerous studies have shown that paid traffic tends to convert at a higher rate, since serious buyers tend to click on ads in higher percentages. That being said, PPC is still only as good as the profits that remain after costs have been factored in, which means it might not be the great deal it seems at first.
Low budgets and lots of testing are the best way forward. Above all, PPC is an easy way for overzealous marketers to waste lots of money. Start small, test different keyword and ad combinations, and keep close wraps on the results – otherwise, you could learn a very expensive lesson about rushing into paid traffic.
Tags: Bing, finding new customers online, Google, online marketing, search engine optimization, search engines, SEO campaign, Yahoo