The Downside to Pay Per Click Advertising
Kirt Christensen
In the time after Google Adword first opened up shop and people started flocking to the pay per click advertising has developed into the most popular way to advertise on the internet. An advertiser can create an advertisement and the search engine will take over and do the remainder of the work. That is a deal that a great many advertisers have been unable to turn down.
In theory the relationship between search engine and advertiser is a symbiotic one. The advertiser writes an advertisement, then pays a search engine to do the work in identifying potential customers for them through the use of keyword identification.
When browsers type into a search engine a keyword that is relevant to the advertisers ads the search engine displays the ads on the search results page.
The truth is that it isn't quite that simple.
For the advertiser keyword selection can be more complex. It is not usually as easy as going to the keyword selection tools on the search engine site. The keywords there are well used and will most likely deliver many pages of search results.
The trend in web-surfers is to not look at search results past the first 5-10 pages. This makes it desirable for the marketer to have his ads show up on those first 10 pages. This means that he will have better odds at getting clicks.
Things get harder her because ads that are displayed with the first search results are there because the marketer has said he will pay the search engine more each time a searcher clicks on his ad than the other marketers promised to pay.
The standard form of advertising allowed the advertisers to have an ad displayed for a set amount of time for an established fee, regardless of how many people saw it. Advertisers realized this was an inefficient way to get customers.
Thus the pay per click marketing was born. With this the marketer paid only when his advertisement was clicked on. He could also gauge how his ad was being received and make a better profit when it was chosen often.
Progression came in the form of competition. Because the search engines wanted to maximize profits, the would put the ads that brought in the greatest payment for each click in the most visible spots - right up there with the top ranked search results. That meant that advertisers wanting those spots had to bid more on clicks than their rivals.
Pay-per-click advertising costs have the potential to grow exponentially without a marketer even being aware of it because top spot advertisements can engender quite a bit of casual interest but few sales. This is not money well spent.
Pay per click advertising can be a dangerous minefield for the uneducated marketer to maneuver; it is not the simple endeavor advertisers would have consumers believe. Fortunately, there are a number of resources for assistance (as well as alternative methods of advertising) available on the web for anyone savvy enough to look.
About the Author:
Need to optimize or "fix" your Adwords & PPC campaigns? Kirt Christensen manages over $600k in PPC spending & knows what it takes to make your account hum! When it comes to ppc management agency, he's the man!
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