We love paid search. Like really love it. And the reason why is because we’ve seen the benefits it provides to clients across industry, geography, and goal time and again.
Like any form of marketing, pay per click advertising’s not for every business, but it offers a number of advantages over other forms of advertising, discussed below.
Transparency
In today’s environment where dollars are tight, every dollar spent on advertising matters more than ever. Everything with paid search can be measured based on conversions (e.g. lead gen, sale) down to the ad and keyword levels so that you know exactly what’s working and what’s not performing.
Geotargeting
Whether you want to reach potential clients in your own backyard or halfway across the world, you can target searchers down to their city level location (although that level of pay per click targeting works better in North America than other parts of the world). Choose to target a radius around a zip code, metro area, state, country, or add in regions of interest.
Control
The levels of control over paid search with platforms like Google AdWords and Bing Ads are truly astonishing, giving you control over:
- What keyword searches trigger your ad
- Physical location of the searcher (geotargeting mentioned above)
- Time of day
- Day of week / season
- Device type (e.g. computer vs. phone – and which type of phone)
- Network (e.g. Google only or its Search or Display Networks)
- Ad position
- & more
Pay Per Action
Paid search is commonly referred to as pay per click (PPC) advertising because the most common form of ad buy with paid search is that you only pay when someone clicks on your ad. We like to refer to traffic from paid search as “doubly targeted” because the person has to:
- Type in something related to what you sell, and
- Look at all the information on the screen before deciding to click on your ad because she or he expects it to provide the information she or he seeks.
Free Exposure
The corollary of only paying when someone clicks on your ad in the pay per click model is that you get all the additional views of your ad and company name for free. This is just one reason that makes paid search particularly valuable for branding campaigns.
It Works
For all the reasons listed above and more, the single most important benefit of paid search engine marketing is just that it works. That’s why U.S. advertisers spend more than $12 billion per year on paid search, including top advertisers spending more than $8 million per month on Google AdWords alone.
Start Using the Power of Paid Search Today
If you’re evaluating whether paid search engine marketing is viable for your organization – or simply want to know how you can run your campaigns more effectively - give us a call at 800.979.3177 or click here. We’re happy to discuss your unique situation and help provide guidance on how to proceed.
