Is paid search a necessary addition to your business’ advertising campaign?
The answer varies for each and every business.
Recently, eBay measured the pros and cons of a Google AdWords campaign for their incredibly popular online consumer-to-consumer business, with some not-so-positive results, prompting the Harvard Business Review to raise the question: Did eBay just prove that paid search ads don’t work?
While eBay might not have benefited from their own AdWords campaign, many businesses have had huge success as a result of adding AdWords to their Internet marketing campaigns. Other online retail moguls, like Amazon, and major brands, like Macy’s, run immensely successful paid search campaigns in addition to working to earn their spots at the top of the organic search results–proving these sites have seen the importance, as well as the power, of AdWords.
Like with many marketing tactics, some businesses stand to benefit more then others–depending on their brand, their customers, their budget, their goals and more.
What eBay’s case does show, however, is that it’s never a bad idea to consider a few important factors thoroughly when looking to incorporate something like paid search into your advertising strategy.
On Tuesday April 30th, our SEM team along with experts from Google will be co-hosting a free webinar on How to Maximize Google AdWords for E-Tailers. To join us, register here to reserve your spot. Here are a few factors that may help your business determine whether AdWords has the power to get your business unbelievable ROI or drain dollars without reaping similar rewards.
Understand your Brand and your Budget
Conversion rate is one metric that’s essential to understand, but beyond that, it’s also crucial your business look at the types of sales you make, and the types of customers adwords might help you acquire. Know your numbers. Do you rely on repeat business or one-time sales? What’s the lifetime value of a new customer to your business? How much would your business realistically stand to gain from a successful paid search campaign?
Questions like these will help you determine if the cost is worth the reward you stand to gain from a Google AdWords campaign.
Consider your Keywords Carefully
Different keywords have the power to generate vastly different results. AdWords campaigns must be continually optimizing to fit the market you’re looking to tap into and the audience you’re looking to prompt into action.
Since different sets of keywords can yield seriously different results–making generalizations based on the success, or failure, of a campaign involving a particular set of terms could be incredibly misleading. Likewise, if your business isn’t ready with an AdWords campaign that is adaptable and continually being optimized keywords and dynamic calls to action when necessary, you could stand to waste quite a bit of money on ineffective advertising. Successful PPC management is key for a successful paid search campaign.
Weigh the Pros and Cons
The most obvious con of AdWords, at least at first blush, is cost.
But while AdWords can be an expensive endeavor, it can certainly come to pay for itself, and then some. A few potential pros of adding Google AdWords to your campaign?
- Diversify your campaign: dominate both paid and organic results. Having an SEO campaign and a dynamic PPC campaign means your brand has the power to top both the organic and the paid search results, meaning more visibility and access to different leads, from those casually searching your brand to actionable leads who stumble upon your ads while searching for similar services.
- Target keywords that are difficult to rank for. AdWords will help you get powerful visibility for competitive keywords that have proven difficult for your business to rank for naturally in the organic search results.
- Get results, fast. Building your brand with a strong online presence, a wide reach, and successful SEO takes time and energy, meaning it may take a while before you start seeing serious results. Paid search has the power to give your business big results in record speed.
If you’re a business looking to learn more about the pros and cons of AdWords, or an e-commerce site looking to boost sales and drive more traffic–National Positions will be co-hosting a FREE webinar with experts from Google on How to Maximize Google AdWords for E-Tailers. Join us on Tuesday, April 30th at 10AM PST. Sign up HERE to reserve your spot today.