Value of Pay Per Click Advertising

Our agency has been using Google AdWords and Yahoo Marketing for various clients over the past few years. We've found that success in driving traffic to client sites has been phenomenal for some clients, where other client experiences were mediocre.

After tweaking keywords and phrases, reviewing Adword rankings and changing the actual Adwords, we found that some clients have such a niche product, that the searches on these keyword phrases are so small and that the "organic/FREE" search engine listings were already populated by our client through diligent search engine optimization.

So...we typically run a 2-3 month test for any Pay Per Click (PPC) program and always, always using PPC in conjunction with regular Search Engine Optimization and the rest of the marketing mix including product PR, trade show marketing, direct marketing and e-blasts.

The Lean Marketing Communications program we designed is based off of Robert Lauterborn's "Integrated Marketing Communications" model of identifying a unique marketing message and utilizing it across all marketing communications....whether it be advertising, PR, brochures, etc.

Google Adwords, SEO, other PPC tools have popped up rapidly in the last 5-8 years...and it's now considered to be a serious part of most of our client's marketing program.

After explaining how Google AdWords works (keyword auctions, keyword popularity, Google Analytics Goals, etc.) our client's eyes tend to glaze. PPC is the best game in town to actually track media buys and efficiency and we've developed an "executive summary" report we provide to our clients monthly. It's the best way to quickly provide real value to their marketing dollars.