Search Engine Marketing (Pay Per Click Advertising): Good or Bad?
Does Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising work? Absolutely! We believe that a properly set up and maintained PPC campaign can be very profitable and cost effective for any business. Latest research from Piper Jaffray shows the following cost for acquiring a customer: "the cost to acquire a customer is about $8.50 for search (Pay per Click), $20 for Yellow Pages, $50 for online display ads, $60 for e-mail and $70 for direct mail. Data for television was not included."
Pay Per Click (also known as cost per click) Advertising cost 55% less than the Yellow Pages in customer acquisition. With the Yellow pages your ad is the same for one whole year. Pay per click advertising can be changed to reflect new products, season promotions, special sales, or anything your business wants to promote. You can change your ad every day!
Also you can advertise in specific regions or cities. Say you want to market to customer in Los Angels and New York City. You can set up a campaign that will display your ads only to those cities (Limited to certain PPC search engines). For instance if you have a business that primarily serves San Diego then you only want your ad to show up in San Diego and maybe surrounding areas. Google and MSN currently allow your PPC ads to be delivered to IP addresses only from San Diego. Some of our clients offer special promotions or products to specific areas and the only way to do this is with a geo targeted PPC ad in Google or MSN.
So what should I plan on spending to set up a pay per click campaign?
We say that a test campaign budget should be $500 to $1000. It may seem like a lot but many small businesses waste 10 times that in other types of marketing that yield no results. With pay per click campaigns you only pay for clicks into your web site. If you have a good product or service you will get results.
How much are PPC ads?
You can spend as little as 10 cents per click or as much as $50 per click. It is all based on the competitiveness of the keyword, your competition and how much a particular advertiser is willing to pay for each click.
What are the top Pay Per Click Providers?
Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing, and MSN AdCenter are the top PPC (search engine marketing) providers. Google AdWords is the largest and has the most competitors and can be the most costly but can also lead to more sales and conversions overall. MSN statistically has the greater percentage of buyers per search that Google or Yahoo but they do have far less traffic than Google and Yahoo.
Click here for more on Search Engine Marketing Overview
Why should I hire someone to set up my PPC Program?
You can do it yourself but we have years of experience in researching the best keywords, establishing budgets, setting a web site in the right position and making sure to stretch the budget out as far as possible to maximize the ROI. Our staff at DSD Business Systems has years of experience with all of the top PPC web sites and we know what works and what doesn't. We have seen companies spend their 60 day budget in one week! Then they wonder why it did not work. The cost of having a professional like DSD do it is going to save you money in the long run and it will be done right! And if you want to manage the program after it is set up we will train you on how to manage and generate reports so you can take control of your PPC program with the knowledge that it was set up right the first time.
How do I get started with a PPC campaign?
Contact us at 858-550-5900 or email us and we will be happy to talk with you regarding your new online marketing campaign