Paid Search Marketing (PPC)

Paid Search Marketing Description

Paid search marketing has many names, including pay per click (PPC) and paid placement. PPC is perhaps the most popular nickname as it refers to the standard pricing model employed by the search engines for their advertising programs. Instead of paying whenever an ad is shown as in traditional forms of advertising, an advertiser will pay per click - each time a consumer takes an actionble move to learn more about the advertiser by clicking on the ad.

Special Offer: Free PPC Audits

A quick note for organizations currently doing paid search marketing with Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing, or Microsoft adCenter. Direct Online Marketing™ will analyze your current PPC campaigns and grade you on 21 points in five major areas...all for free. The report will give you actionable items you can implement today to improve ROI. Learn more about these free PPC audits or sign up today.

PPC vs. SEO

Search engine giants like Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft adCenter (bing - formerly live.com) offer two types of listings, in each of which we have a proven track record of expertise. These two types of listings, Paid Ads and Natural Listings, are differentiated in the following screenshot:

Paid search marketing involves creating paid ads and utilizing them to achieve specific goals. Paid search does not involve natural listings, which can be influenced through search engine optimization, or SEO.

As you can see above, paid ads typically appear on the right hand side of the page and sometimes at the top or the bottom as well. Most major search engines will identify them as "Sponsored Links" (Google AdWords), "Sponsor Results" (Yahoo! Search Marketing) or something in that vein.

As an advertiser, you bid on specific keywords related to your product, service or business, write a small advertisement, which is triggered to show on a search page down the right hand side or the very top when somebody activates it by typing in one of the keywords you’ve bid on. You only pay if the ad is clicked on up to an amount set in your daily budget for the account. Once the ad has been clicked on, the searcher is taken to a specialist landing page designed to convert that user for a particular action. That's why we like to call visitors coming from PPC ads doubly targeted leads.

Paid Search Marketing Benefits

Paid search marketing offers a number of benefits over other various other forms of advertising. Its strengths include:

• Immediate
• Budget Control
• Easy Testing
• Double Targeting
• Conversion Funnel
• Results Based
• Inherent Interest
• Geographic Reach
• Fully Trackable

Paid Search Quick Facts

North American advertisers spent $13.4 billion on pay per click in 2008 according to the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO) - of which we are a member - in its preliminary findings for The State of Search Engine Marketing 2008, February 2009.

Local advertisers alone spend approximately $1 billion annually on paid search based on projected figures released by Ronnell Associates Inc. in its September 2006 Outlook for 2007:Pac-Man Pace for Local Ads.

99% of Internet users utilize search and 13.9 billion Internet searches are completed per month in the United States according to the August 2009 figures released by comScore on September 22, 2009.

Our Pay Per Click Certifications

Our team is highly trained in and skilled at Paid Search Marketing. We and our staff carry certifications in proper campaign management from Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft (click on any of the certifications to the left) as well as official recognition from Marketing Experiments in testing and landing page optimization.

We are particularly proud of our recognition as a Qualified Google Advertising Company. To attain this status, a search marketing firm must among other requirements maintain an advertising spend within Google AdWords of $100,000 per quarter or more and have multiple employees pass the Google Advertising Professional Exam.

Why this is important: Qualified Google Advertising Companies like Direct Online Marketing™ has a team of dedicated Google representatives available by phone that we communicate with regularly.  These representatives are available to assist with any account issues that arise as well as provide suggestions for ways to optimize the account and perform special research at DOM’s request. We also receive special invitations to many new programs in beta before they come out.

Our Approach

Direct Online Marketing™ researches the keywords that will provide you with the best return for your budget and then sets up your entire online advertising campaign. We also write the ads as well as the landing pages and test them extensively to ensure you’re getting the maximum return on your investment. Simply put, we are not satisfied merely with driving traffic to your site; we want to help you convert it into something meaningful - whether that be a phone call, an ecommerce sale, a lead / prospect, a newsletter sign up, or deep engagement with your site.

A special note about geography: Pay per click advertising can be set up to be global, countrywide, or a specific area or state, which it does by looking at a searcher's IP address. Some of our clients run campaigns to only one specific metro area. Others run them statewide, to a certain region, all over the U.S., or all over the world.

For example, our offices are located right outside of Pittsburgh, PA. If we were interested in serving just the Pittsburgh metro market, we could target a 25 mile radius around the 'Burgh. We could expand further out into West Virginia (where our offices are located), Ohio, and Maryland for a slightly larger reach. Or we could set the campaigns to the entire country or into hundreds of countries around the world, which may require the use of additional search engines beyond the big 3 of the US of Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing, and Microsoft adCenter (bing). In fact, two of the top 10 search engines in the world now come from China (Baidu) and Russia (Yandex).

Free Paid Search Marketing Audit & Consultation

Regardless of your company size or location, your industry, or your market, Direct Online Marketing™ is able to put together a PPC campaign that suits your budget and delivers results.

NEW: If you're spending $1,000 to $100,000 or more per month, click here or give us a call at 800.979.3177 for a free audit of any one of your paid search accounts. This audit will provide you a report card, with an overall score and individual grades on 21 separate account items. Please note that we'll need temporary access to your account, for which we're happy to sign an NDA.

We're also pleased to provide a general consultation to discuss how our performance-driven paid search services can help you increase your sales, leads, and other conversions. Simply call 1.800.979.3177 today or request a free paid search consultation.