Posted by Bradley Beaumont | Posted in Uncategorized | Posted on 28th February 2019
The Birth of Online Marketing
Online marketing has become highly prevalent in the business world since the emergent and advances of digital technology. Advertising on the internet provides massive benefits for the marketers that have decided to join us in the 21st century.
A few examples are:
- companies can easily and inexpensively collect detailed data about their target market;
- maintaining an online ad is less costly than traditional ads;
- and the internet expands the company’s market to include global markets for worldwide exposure (Schumann & Thorson, 1999).
This blog will be specialising in Paid Search Marketing strategy (also known as Pay-Per-Click marketing), it will highlight the key benefits and drawbacks of the strategy, and if implementation will guarantee success.
(source: https://kvcomms.com/how-to-approach-your-online-marketing/)
What is Paid Search Marketing?
Paid Seach Marketing is a recent phenomenon, and since its introduction in 1997 (thanks to Google’s AdWords program in the late 2000s) it’s now become the most popular and lucrative means of online advertising today (Mordkovich & Mordkovich, 2007).
Pay-per-click (PPC) marketing is apparent when a user enters certain key-words into a search engine, the link to a companies’ website is then displayed under a ‘sponsored ad’. These PPC ads are rarely stand-alone on the search engines, as companies often have to battle with their competitors.
The website links are put in a ranking sequence which is decided by the customers bid price times their (Google) quality score.
Source: https://cliquestudios.com/investing-in-paid-search/
Are they an Effective Form of Digital Marketing?
PPC provides a great many benefits for the users, and if marketers want to make the most out of it, they must stay on top of their research and ad maintenance. When implementing a PPC strategy, marketers will need to do extensive research in order to identify their target market’s wants and needs.
Once they’ve achieved this they can target their ad to their target market so that the ad is only displayed when a specific key-word is entered into the search engine; it can also be localised within a certain geographic location, since PPC is charged per click, this will limit the amount of wastage on the ad.
PPC also provides instant results, and can also be revised and enhanced over time. With the right system, you can track the return on investment for certain keywords, which can be effective in altering your PPC to remove irrelevant keywords.
PPC is also extremely effective when it comes to measuring your results. Marketers are able to measure the number of clicks on their ads, how much each click is costing them, and the success rate of the ad (as they are able to check if a click results in a sale). Being able measure the success of your digital marketing strategy is a vital component in determining it’s effectiveness.
What Problems might PPC bring?
One major qualm with a stand-alone PPC strategy is the restraint marketers will need not to integrate it with SEO. A combined PPC and SEO strategy has proven to be immensely effective. 70% of web searches are made up of ‘Long tail’ searches (which consist of 4 words or more). Studies show that both strategies are much more effective for long tail phrases when they are used together. However this can cannibalise their budget as PPC specialised marketers are often not experienced in SEO (Kritzinger & Weideman, 2013).
‘Click frauds’ are also a critical issue, which is when a computer program is used to continuously click the ads when they have no intention of purchasing the product.
Sales are not always guaranteed when using PPC. The company’s website must be to an acceptable standard, as it will be imperative in persuading the user to purchase the product. If not, then the cost of that click will be in vain, and each unsuccessful click cost will add up.
Marketers who are implementing a PPC technique also require the correct skills in order to be successful. Many companies will outsource to specialist marketing agencies, but those who opt to manage it themselves will run the risk of dissipating their budget if they don’t efficiently monitor and optimise their PPC. There are numerous PPC training courses available online.
The Verdict
PPC is as effective as the marketer makes it – the success is all in their hands. For PPC to be highly rewarding, research will need to be carried out in order to identify the demographic that they will be targeting.
Maintenance and optimisation of the ads are the most important factors in ensuring the success of the strategy, so marketers will need to be trained in PPC for maximum effectiveness. Otherwise, it will be difficult to retain a return on investment, especially since sales are not guaranteed.
PPC is an extremely popular form of digital marketing, and with the right marketer with the correct skills, they can acquire a tremendous amount of new customers, and lead the company to prosperity and success.
(Source: https://startupnation.com/grow-your-business/build-pay-per-click-ppc/)
Posted below are some useful practitioner guides and business sources that you can use to guide you on paid search marketing.
https://www.techradar.com/uk/news/internet/online-advertising-for-website-owners-explained-706441
https://econsultancy.com/what-paid-search-ppc/
https://www.economist.com/business/2005/09/29/pay-per-sale
References
Mordkovich, B. and Mordkovich, E. (2007). Pay-per-click search engine marketing handbook. New York: Mordcomm, p.3.
Schumann, D. and Thorson, E. (1999). Advertising and the World Wide Web. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, p.42.
Kritzinger, W.T. and Weideman, M. (2013). Search Engine Optimisation and Pay-Per-Click Marketing. Journal of Organizational Computing and Electronic Commerce. Volume 23, Issue 3, p. 273-286.