News March 2010
On 23rd October, 2000 Google Inc. Announced the immediate availability of AdWords(TM), a new program enabling any advertiser to purchase the individualised and affordable keyword advertising that appears instantly on the google.com search results page.
Adwords soon became the vehicle that enabled small companies to compete with the largest businesses on what seemed to be a level playing field. In the early stages of Google Adwords you could present an image far beyond your company size. By utilising Pay Per Click advertising you could attract many more visitors to your website, rather than relying on the single source of Search Engine Optimisation.
For some years companies like us lived in tremendous splendour driving visitors to our website through Google AdWords a seemingly cost effective form of advertising. As with new trends, it wasn’t long before everyone started ‘jumping on the band wagon’ including the larger organisations that would ultimately push up the price of Pay Per Click advertising on Google. Today Google AdWords requires a considerable amount more expenditure in order for you to be effective with Click Through Rates.
As a regular AdWords user since 2003 I am quite alarmed to see that my own AdWords costs have risen by an amazing 425% from 2003 to 2008, although the increase rise did drop off a little in 2009.
In a recent survey posted on Twitter, I asked the question “How significant is Google AdWords in your online marketing strategy?” And the responses were as follows;
- 39% answered Unimportant
- 20% answered Growing
- 39% answered Important
From these results, we can see that Google AdWords is still a key tool in online marketing strategies for a significant proportion of the survey participants, however interestingly the exact same proportion of participants claimed that Google AdWords are unimportant.
Consider this situation. We know that Google Adwords enables you to target the specific search term and filter out unwanted terms, but what is to say that a student or a Managing Director of a Times 100 company wouldn’t be typing in your selected keyword phrases? Neither of these people is in my target market and herein lays the problem.
Search engines have no knowledge of the visitor and only rely on their search terms to profile them. Now there is a source of potential visitors I would strongly encourage every MD to consider for their business growth. This source is made up of pre-profiled and pre-segmented potential visitors that are registered on social media sites.
By choosing targeted pay per click advertising you can select who you advertise to by the Size of Company, Business Sector, Seniority, Geography and other key areas. You may well already be using social networking sites to keep in touch with friends and colleagues and not be aware of the advertising opportunities. My advice to you is to consider a more targeted Pay per Click approach and see what social networking sites have to offer.
The future is all about social media!
