Online advertising has grown exponentially in the last decade as you can see in the success of companies such as Google and Facebook. They have grown be multi-billion dollar businesses just by tapping into online advertising market. More and more businesses are moving their marketing spend from offline advertising such as newspaper and billboards to online media such as search results and videos. While there is no denying that the online advertising can provide great value you need to be careful about where and how you spend your marketing dollars to get the most return from your marketing investment. It helps to have a basic understanding of online advertising as well as figuring out how those ads are being placed.
Broadly speaking, advertising on search engines such as Google are based on the keywords that you can purchase in online auction. You identify the keywords that your customers are likely to search for and ask Google to place your ad when the search results are displayed. You pay to Google whenever your advertisement is placed in front of customers. The payment to search companies are based on Pay per Click (PPC) and Cost per Thousand Views (CPM).
You can also target specific customers to show your advertisement based on their location, demographic, interest, etc. Having an ability to show ads to specific customers based on the keywords related to your products and services helps you attract those customers that are most likely to be interested in your company and hence most likely to purchase from you.
As you can imagine to be successful at online advertising you need to have good understanding of how Google and other search engines place the ads in front of customers based on the keywords they are searching for. To make matters worse Google conducts an auction for the keywords and awards the slot to the highest bidders. The most popular keywords that are in high demand can demand considerably large amount to spend. If you are not careful you can run out of advertising budget very quickly. Finding the balance between the amount you spend and the right keywords is key to success in online search based advertising. This is where companies that can handle PPC management can help you get the most bang for your marketing bucks.
The online marketing consultants can help you run effective marketing campaigns by following a proven methodology. Typical steps they go through are as follows:
- Conduct an interview to understand your business as well as your marketing needs
- Analyze the effectiveness of current marketing campaigns, if any
- Determine keywords that are most likely to be searched by prospective customers hat align to the products and services you are providing
- Monitor the effectiveness of the marketing campaign by analyzing the reports generated on a regular basis
- Use the reports to tweak the campaign to ensure it is effective and provides the most return on your investment
The online advertising is a necessity for any business in this digital age, however you need to have the right strategy and approach to ensure you are getting proper return on your marketing investment.
