9 December 2008

Improve Web Marketing ROI - Tip No 2 - Pay Per Click Advetising

This blog is about developing powerful pay per click advertising that attracts target prospects but first some background.

Background - What is web marketing ROI?
It is natural for companies to want to get more sales and reduce their marketing costs, especially when times are tough. Is it possible to achieve both objectives?From my experience, it is. But, just doing 'advertising' & 'marketing' activities is no guarantee of success. Some companies waste thousands (and even millions) of pounds being busy fools. Others get great results for relatively low spends. Marketing ROI (Return On Investment) is all about getting more for less.

This is one of a series of web marketing tips designed to improve Web Marketing Return On Investment (ROI). The tips are based on over 20 years experience of helping small companies as well as some of Britain's best brands to transform their Marketing ROI 

The tips will cover areas like the brand thought, email marketing, web metrics, customer lifetime value and KeyWords. This blog covers why it is so crucial to develop a powerful PPC adwords strategy.

What is Pay Per Click advertising?
Pay Per Click advertising (PPC) is when an advertiser bids for their ad to be shown when people search for content by typing specific keywords on a search engine like Google. In Google's case, these ads (displayed as sponsored ads) can be seen on the right hand side of the page and sometimes also at the top of the page.

How can PPC advertising cost effectively deliver more sales?
The UK has the most active online population in Europe. Consumers and business buyers are increasingly going to Google to do a search before they make a buying decision. There are over 100 million searches a day on Google UK.

Trying to find a customer who wants to buy your product today is like looking for a needle in a haystack. You don't have enough budget to reach every prospect every week with a message hoping that today is the day they buy. With PPC advertising:-        
  • you only advertise to people currently interested in what you are selling  
  • you only pay when they respond (i.e. click to your website)
  • pricing is determined by a real-time auction in a perfect market
  • you control how much you want to pay for a click; your daily budget; which keywords you are interested in; what time of day your ads are shown; which parts of the country / world they appear
  • you get great performance analysis helping to improve web marketing ROI
Does it work? -  A small business Pay Per Click advertising case study
Recently one of my south west clients invested just £310 on Google media and won new business of over £140,000 which was a brilliant marketing ROI. Read Pay Per Click Advertising case study

How do you develop successful PPC advertising campaigns?
You need to commit time and some budget (but not a lot). For most smaller companies, time is the biggest issue. It is possible to get some ads running in minutes, but to get great results takes time and expertise. For example. I have been doing PPC advertising for over 5 years and generally I spend 1 -3 days setting up a campaign for a client. Depending on the media budget and the lifetime value of their customers. I would review campaign performance and implement improvements either daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly, as required.

Many companies (big and small) find they don't have the time or expertise to do this themselves to a high enough standard and use a Pay Per Click marketing specialist. Google Pay Per Click is a great way to attract target prospects to your website and significantly improve your marketing ROI.

Take a look at some of my other PPC advertising blogs:-

Remember...web marketing is about solving customers' problems profitably.


Peter Hawtin is an internet marketing specialist with Brand New Way, a UK web marketing agency which helps companies to attract and retain valuable customers online.

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