The Google AdWords program is the centerpiece of Google’s internet marketing product line.  Free to use and easy to setup, it affords advertisers anywhere in the world to generate targeted traffic to any web property they designate.

One of the main features that people like about AdWords is that it’s free.  But that’s also one of the pitfalls.  Since anyone can setup an account, and you don’t have to know what you are doing, it is very easy to throw away money with pay per click at an astonishingly fast pace.  So this begs the real question, what is the real value of Google AdWords?

Benefit #1 – Instant Visibility

AdWords offers website owners the chance to establish true validity, along with online awareness and marketability. Let’s say you just launched a new website and wanted to have it show up in front of potential customers immediately, AdWords is the single best tool for accomplishing this.  Advertisers also use pay per click to gain visibility for things like new products, announcements, special sales or offers, and similar items that they may not rank well for in organic listings.

Sample PPC (Pay Per Click) Ad

Benefit #2 – Traffic & Leads

The sexiest benefit of Google AdWords is that is can generate immediate traffic, which can potentially increase the number of leads your business is getting.  It’s not unusual for advertisers to earn good, valid business leads within a few hours of launching a campaign.

Benefit #3 – Benchmarking

Savvy marketers use AdWords to create performance benchmarks for their website.  Because you control your bids, you can monitor the performance of keywords and use that data to create long term SEO strategies that can turn your paid keywords into natural rankings.   As a form of pay-per-click advertising, Google AdWords is a vital component of any search engine-marketing endeavor.

Drawback #1 – Buyer Beware

As stated earlier, Google AdWords can be scary because while it looks simple, being good at it takes time and practice.  After all, why do you think they created a Google AdWords Certified Professional program in the first place?

For instance, the simple act of bidding and placement is more complex that it appears.  If you bid higher than the competition, logic tells you there is a good chance you will earn higher placement for ads and keywords. But this is not always the case, as Google has a “Quality Score” which is generated based on how well your keywords, ad and landing page perform.

Drawback #2 – Long Term Sustainability

The other issue with buying visibility is that once your budget runs out, your ads stop appearing.  So over the long term, it is very important to figure out the key metrics from AdWords to determine your actual ROI so you don’t keep paying for advertising that isn’t producing the results you need.

The secret to determining “real value” – Google Analytics

In order to determine the real cost of Google AdWords, you have to base your decision on the actual results and performance.  And the best way to do this is via Google Analytics.

With any successful online marketing campaign, web analytics plays a pivotal role. These statistics allow you to monitor daily, weekly, monthly, and even yearly web traffic rates. At the same time, it displays the number of hits that were generated via precise keyword and key-phrase searches and links.

If a particular set of keywords is not attracting web visitors that are converting into customers, subscribers or whatever goals you set, it is time to make changes to the campaign settings. You also have to concentrate on the keywords that are working well, while generating several variations and synonyms as well.

You can learn more about Google Analytics in one of our previous posts.

You Determine the Real Value

According to Avinash Kaushik, who wrote the popular book, “Web Analytics”, Google AdWords is a cost-effective solution to online marketing. Along with strategic SEO and advertising techniques, companies can effectively showcase their brands and products to mass audiences.

The real cost of Google AdWords, however, depends on your situation.  If being on the first page of Google for targeted phrases is of value, than you should have no problem coming to your own conclusion!

If you are looking for traffic to your website, there are few tools better than Google AdWords.  But before you get started you really should get a handle on making sure you know how you’re getting the best Google AdWords bid price possible.

You see, one of the beauties of Google AdWords is that it’s free to use, and doesn’t require an agency to manage it for you.  But that’s also one of the drawbacks. After all, if you were to negotiate your own TV ad rates or billboard rates without an intermediary, how do you think that would end up?

This is the basic problem most people encounter when they start on AdWords – figuring out what to set as a fair bid price?

AdWords Basics

The first that you need to know that AdWords is a pay-per-click service so when your ad appears, you are charged every time someone clicks on your ad, not when it appears.

This is a major difference between actually paying for clicks and paying for impressions (display advertising)!

The amount you are charged is your winning Google AdWords bid price. Therefore, you want to keep it as low as possible. But you still need to bid high enough to ensure that you actually get the click – which means your ad position needs to be high enough so the user sees it.

Determining the right bid price

Trial and error is one way to figure it out; many have done this, which is at least partially why Google’s stock price is so high.  But the secret to understanding what you need to do, to get the best Google AdWords bid price, is understand how the bidding process actually works and then putting that knowledge into action the next time you bid.

The bidding system that Google employs is called a Vickrey auction; named for American economist William Vickrey, the auction is a sealed-bid auction, in which bidders submit bids blindly. When the auction ends, the highest bidder wins as in any other auction, but unique to the Vickrey auction, the winner only pays the amount of the second-highest bid made. According to Vickrey the knowledge that you will pay less than you bid, provides the incentive to bid your high-end price or true value of the item.

Taking this method and moving it into the virtual economy, a Vickrey auction benefits the advertiser by increasing the value of their ad dollars (pay less for more) and benefits the seller (in this case Google AdWords) by ensuring that more advertisers will invest their dollars with their service and they will make more in volume rather than price per unit.

Therefore the strategy would be:

• Tommy wants the keyword ‘roofing’ to promote his construction business and so do Kyle and John.
• Kyle bids $1, John bids $1.25 and knowing the he’s bidding in a Vickery auction, Tommy bids $2.25.
• When he wins the auction, he will pay only the $1.25 bid John made plus one cent for a total of $1.26 or the AdWord. This saves Tommy $.99 per click.

There is of course always a risk when utilizing this method of bidding, in that you are not alone in the knowledge of how they process works and so there is a risk of having to pay more than you want to. Let’s look at our construction business owners again.

• This time, Tommy wants the keyword ‘siding’ to promote his construction business and again, so do Kyle and John.
• Kyle again bids $1, but John has learned the system and bids $2.15, knowing he did well the last time, Tommy again bids $2.25 and wins again.
• This time however, he will pay $2.16 John’s bid plus one cent for a total of $2.16 or the AdWord. This time Tommy only saves $.09 per click. Of course the other way to think about it is that it costs Tommy $.90 per click.

Other considerations:  Desired ad position

Sample PPC (Pay Per Click) Ad

Another major component of choosing the right bid price is having a better understanding of ad positions.  Ad position refers to the spot on the page where your ad appears.  So while vanity or ego might compel you to shoot for the highest price for a bid, most Google AdWords professionals would tell you this isn’t always the best practice.

Here are a few considerations:

• The #1 ad spot is the most expensive, meaning you will get the fewest clicks for your budget
• Placing bids that place your ad in spots 2-4 will gain significantly more clicks while still keeping your ad visible above the fold
• Bids that appear low on page 1 will have trouble getting clicks, and are considered lower value as users may not take them seriously due to the low ad position

Our recommendation: shoot for spots 2-4 on ad position.

In Summary

So, it’s plain that while the benefits can be great for your business if you get lots of clicks, it can be a two edged sword. If you end up paying a high price per click, it can eat into your ad budget quickly and significantly. But if you watch for trending keywords and find ways to tie your business to them and make smart bids, you can rest assured that you know that you’re getting the best Google AdWords bid price.

After reading this blog post, if you still have questions about Google AdWords or would like help, please contact us today via email info@mywsiconsultant.com for a free consultation.

It’s the ultimate internet dream…you have a product you’re passionate about, so you contact a local web developer to build an ecommerce site.  Then you sit back and wait while the billions of earth people trample a path to your new site and buy your stuff.

But for anyone who has tangled with ecommerce, they will attest to the fact that  it’s not quite so simple.

The fact is, there are oftentimes thousands of websites out there selling the same products or services.  So before you can convince someone why they should buy from you over these other sites, you must first get them to your site.  And that means being found on the internet when people search.

Getting traffic to ecommerce sites

There are 3 basic ways you can get internet traffic.  Social media participation is one strategy, paid search advertising is another, and then there’s search engine optimization (SEO) which is the “tried and true” long term strategy.  The problem with SEO is that its harder than it looks, and often times takes time to get results.

Going after good SEO results with ecommerce sites presents its own set of challenges because you have so many products on your website, and so much competition. That’s why WSI is offering a FREE informational webinar called “Five Steps to Optimizing an eCommerce Site for Search Engines” that will give you a step-by-step guide to getting better SEO results.

Just click the image below to find the registration link, or email me info@mywsiconsultant.com if you have any questions.

Google Market Finder is a terrific free tool designed by Google which allows users to take a look at local monthly search volumes for specific locations. It also includes the costs of targeting particular keywords in every market, including foreign ones. This has been very beneficial in terms of growing our business on a world-wide basis.

Find New Markets

The free Google Market Finder tool uses world-wide Internet search data to reveal the number of times that keywords are searched for, in 56 different languages. We use the tool to see where consumers search for our products and services. Then we evaluate the new potential markets by comparing the local search volume, estimated keyword price and the competition for each keyword in all markets. This is really helpful in planning our marketing budget for the best results.

Here is an example of how it works:

Let’s say your company manufactures a cool line of sunglasses and you are interested in selling them outside of the US.  And let’s say (just for example) that you had several Spanish speaking employees and could support new business from Latin America.

You could use the Google Market Finder tool to search this type of query, and the results would look something like this:

Translate Key Words

Now that you have identified the countries that had the highest search volume for the phrase “sunglasses” you could use the free Global Market Finder tool to automatically translate our keywords into the language of our choosing (in this case Spanish), for all of our new potential customers. Using the tool, we can also see where people are searching for our products and services. Then we can narrow it down to specific locations to target in our online marketing plan. For this reason alone, it is an invaluable service, since we are not fluent in other languages. We would actually need to hire someone to do these translations, which would be quite costly. By knowing where our target audience is, we can best take advantage of the world-wide marketplace to expand our business and take it to the next level.

Use With Google AdWords

Google Market Finder is particularly effective when combined with Google AdWords. The free Google Market Finder tool showcases all of the estimates of a suggested keyword bid, as well as the competition for each Google translation for that specific target market keyword. In this way, since we are already using a Google Adwords campaign, we can use the Google Market Finder to choose a precise location and language with which to display our ads.

Access to All Marketing Media

The Google Market Finder can be used as a powerful marketing tool to help reach our potential customers on a worldwide level. Used with ad formats such as search engines, mobile devices, video and TV, this tool is extremely helpful in targeting exact marketing locations to find the best audience for our business products and services.

Apparently internet marketers like us aren’t the only ones who wonder why you still get a new yellow pages book every year even if you don’t ask for it.  In San Francisco, a town often noted for being the first place to pass interesting legislation, the Board of Supervisors voted 10-1 in May to prohibit the distribution of yellow pages except to residents or businesses that want them and have “opted-in.”

Did California get it right this time?

Let’s be honest, it’s 2011 and with the strain on our global resources doesn’t it make sense to limit the unnecessary use of large quantities of materials unless they are really needed?  So while California takes their “green” living a little more seriously than a lot of areas, we have to at least applaud the effort to curtail businesses from handing out huge books that a lot of people don’t want or need anymore.

NEED is probably the operative word in this movement.  I remember a few years ago having a smaller yellow pages book in my truck and thinking it was a cool idea to make the book portable so I could find something while on the road.  But after the last 2 years who DOESN’T have a mobile friendly phone with the ability to “Google” anything you want from the intersection of your choosing (hopefully while at a stop light)?

Marketing implications

This trend toward being digitally mobile will have greater effects than just limiting the distribution of the yellow pages.  But the reality is many businesses will have to face what they’ve probably known for years – that relying on advertising in print publications isn’t going to be enough to effectively market their businesses.

The yellow pages have historically been a tool for driving local marketing efforts.  So what can businesses do to replace that type of exposure?  Here are a few tips for the digital age:

• Claim your “local” business listings on Google, Yahoo & Bing
• Participate in other local directories such as Merchant Circle or Insider Pages
• List your business on review sites like Yelp or Angie’s List
• Optimize your website for local areas and phrases
• Invest in a mobile friendly website
• Learn about new trends in text message marketing

Is the newspaper next?

Every Thursday the local newspaper throws a “freebie” paper in my driveway even though I’m not a paying customer.  I guess they are hoping that I’ll see it, flip through it and maybe become convinced enough to become a subscriber.  They had better not do this in San Francisco or the newspaper might be next on the list!

Over the weekend, I had an interesting discussion with my 53 year old neighbor who still “takes the paper.”  The topic was the newspaper, and how long we thought newspapers would still be tossed in driveways across America.  Watching what’s happening with the internet and mobile devices, it’s hard to imagine that newspapers in their current form last more than another 20 years or so.

And while I have no doubt that the news organizations behind them will last longer than that and serve a critical role in each local community, I’m convinced that the process of delivering their news via paper, trucks and people will evolve sooner rather than later.

We’ll just keep an eye on San Francisco to see when they make newspapers illegal next!

Why would you use PPC or Display Ads?

If you are seeking to improve online visibility, there are several good options for accomplishing this with paid advertising.  Generally speaking, with paid advertising you are either paying for direct clicks, or paying for your ad to show up in front of interested parties.

PPC (Pay Per Click or Paid Search Advertising)

This type of ad is “pay for performance” meaning that you only incur an expense when someone clicks on your ad.  These ads are setup to bid on certain key words and phrases within a geographic area that you designate.  PPC is most often used with new websites that may be lagging behind competitors in terms of search engine optimization.

Sample PPC (Pay Per Click) Ad

Pros of PPC

• Immediate impact – usually visible within 2-3 days of campaign launch
• Pay for performance – you pay only for clicks, not impressions
• Placement control – you have control over which keywords you bid on as well as what search engines.  You can also control which landing pages visitors will land on.
• Branding – even though a user may not click on your ad, it will still be displayed in search results which increases the number of times a user may be exposed to your brand.

PPC Drawback – Because it is paid advertising, once your budget is exhausted your website may not be visible to users in the top results for your targeted words and phrases. That doesn’t mean your website is not accessible, it only means your site may not get as much traffic because of lower position in the searches.

Display Advertising

Where PPC ads show up on search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing, display ads show up on individual websites.  A key difference from PPC is that you pay per impression rather than click, which makes it harder to link display ads to direct results (clicks, actions, etc).

Sample Display Ad

Display advertising works on 2 important principles:

1. Contextual interest – your ads will generally be placed on websites with pages that have topics that are related to your topic.  In other words, a display ad for fishing might appear on most pages of a fishing related website, but could also appear on n individual page within a travel related website that was specifically related to fishing.
2. Geographic location – advertisers have the option to only have their display ads appear in front of users whose IP addresses identify them with a certain geographic location.  For instance, a web visitor to Yahoo.com from Florida might see a different set of ads than a user from California.  This technology is not perfect, as some users hide their IP addresses, and others show incorrectly.  However, it does prove to be reasonably accurate and successful.

Pros of Display Advertising:

• Pay for impressions – you pay for a block of impressions (usually by thousands) for your ad to show up in front of a targeted web visitor.
• More room for creative messaging – display ads are larger and allow for creative messaging, special offers, moving graphics, etc.
• Targeted interest – Display ads show up in front of users on individual websites that may or may not be using search engines like Google to read up on their topic of interest.

Drawbacks to Display Ads – because you pay per impression and not per click, demonstrating ROI from display ads can sometimes be difficult.  Display ads should be used as branding tools with expectations similar to other forms of display based advertising – that is to create awareness of your brand where it might have otherwise not been seen.

Don’t let these big trends pass you by

2010 marked a big year in the world of marketing, and the trends show a drastic shift in the allocation of marketing dollars from traditional outlets to the digital marketing world.  Among the notable milestones were:

• Spending on social media advertising is up around 30% from last year and is expected to top the $2 billion mark in 2011! Source: Mashable
• Spending for online advertising passed newspaper advertising.  Source: WSI
• Online advertising spending rose 13.9% for 2010 and is projected to pass the $25 billion mark in 2011. Source: EMarketer
• Mobile subscribers are estimated to surpass 5 billion in 2010 (that’s over 70 percent of the world population) and growing rapidly, led by China and India.  Source: MobiThinking

What does this mean for you?

In a nutshell, it means that if you’re concentrating your marketing efforts solely on things that worked in the past it’s probably time to re-consider that practice.  And while we would never suggest abandoning “tried and true” marketing practices that provide ROI for your business, I would strongly recommend beginning to allocate some resources toward digital marketing so that you can begin to gain a foothold.

Every business is different, so it’s hard to make blanket statements.  However, as we walk the streets and see just about everyone spending time on their web ready mobile devices, it doesn’t take a big thinker to realize that this trend towards the digitization of marketing is not slowing down anytime soon.

5 components of digital marketing strategy

The whole idea of “digital marketing” is evolving, but if you want to get a holistic view of the concept, there are 5 core components:

1. Web properties – such as your company website
2. Building traffic – helping people find your website
3. Social media – joining in the conversation with online users
4. Mobile marketing – text and location based marketing
5. Measuring / Analyzing – evaluating results to determine ROI

Creating a marketing plan for 2011

So back to our original headline and the desire to find a marketing plan that capitalizes on the opportunities available in 2011.  Generally speaking, if you haven’t embraced the digital marketing components mentioned above, than it’s time to do so.  How much you do depends on your resources and goals, but continuing to avoid them will eventually put you behind your competitors.

Specific actions you can take include:

• Take a hard look at the ROI from your past marketing efforts. If your marketing practices from the last couple of years aren’t producing satisfactory ROI, it’s time to re-tool.  Many people are expressing frustration with increasing costs and decreasing results from traditional marketing activities.
• Look at how you could use digital marketing in your business. Every business is unique, and not all of these digital marketing opportunities make sense to invest in.  However, if you look carefully, chances are you could find 2-3 of these opportunities in your business that would bring new opportunities in 2011.
• Be realistic. In this economy, businesses have to be smart with their budgets and showing ROI has never been more important.  So if your company has an outdated website and low monthly traffic, than trying to tackle social media may have to wait.  Our recommendation is to find the opportunities that would have the highest impact and focus on those in 2011 without trying to do them all just for the sake of doing them.

Don’t be afraid to ask for help

Chances are you’re plate is already full depending on what your role is in your company.  Implementing major changes to marketing plans takes time and sometimes a little advice from someone who is not too close to the situation.  Don’t be afraid to bring in someone to help you understand the digital marketing opportunities and make sense of them in terms of how they apply to your business.

Digital communication milestone reached

Its official, the internet has now passed traditional newspapers in terms of advertising dollars!  While this may not come as much of a surprise to some, it serves as something of a validation of the shift from the traditional consumption of media to the desire for digital media.

The new study was just released by eMarketer shows that for the first time ever, businesses will spend slightly more on online ads than with newspapers.  The trend is projected to continue into 2011 and begin to widen as the desire for digital media continues.

Is online marketing recession proof?

One of the most interesting facts revealed by the study is that in spite of the tough economic times, businesses are continuing to INCREASE their budgets for online marketing.  The report also shows that among those businesses who advertised with newspapers, a greater portion of their budgets were allocated toward the online ads as opposed to the traditional print versions.

What is fueling this trend?

With all disclaimers in force (as we sell internet marketing), I believe there are certain factors which are pushing businesses toward online marketing even in a tough economy:

1.      Online marketing can be tracked.  When you run ads on Google or invest money on search engine optimization, today’s tools allow for clear tracking of results to develop a tangible ROI.  Oftentimes with print advertising, it can be difficult to track direct results.

2.      Growth of mobile. Just about everyone has a web friendly mobile device these days, and they aren’t using them to read the paper.  Advertisers know that as mobile usage increases, it is becoming more important to reach digital consumers.

Need help in 2011?

If you would like to learn more about how you can use internet advertising in your business, contact us today for a free initial consultation.

Reaching target audiences

One of the hardest parts of developing an advertising campaign is ensuring that it is seen by the right people – the ones who can turn into potential customers. The greatest ads in the world won’t do anything to generate business if the only people who see them are those who have no use for your products and services.

Facebook’s Advertising Platform

So what does this have to do with Facebook? Due to the nature of the information that people share on Facebook, you can display your advertisements to the exact demographic who is most likely to respond to them and become your newest customer.

For example, if you coordinate speed dating events and are looking for more potential attendees, you would want to put your ads where they could be seen by single people in your area. Since Facebook asks if members are married or not, their age, and where they live, you can display ads to single members who live within a certain radius of the event location and are in the target range of ages.

Or, if you have developed a product that would be appreciate by male sports fans between 18 and 35, you can put an ad on Facebook that will show up along the borders of their page during the almost one hour that the average Facebook user spends on the site.

Comparing Metrics

We suggest running a campaign on Facebook and comparing your metrics with those of ads on other networks such as Google, Yahoo and Bing.  Generally speaking you will probably find the number of clicks are less – but you should also find that the costs are much less to.  So you can usually get good “bang for your buck” so to speak.

And remember – at the end of the day it’s not about the amount of clicks.  What matters is the amount of visitors who convert – so keeping an eye on the conversions will better help you compare and contrast the effectiveness of advertising on Facebook

Too Much Information?

If you have a Facebook page but would rather have fun instead of running ads we can help.  Contact us today for more information on paid search marketing programs which will advertise your business on websites such as Facebook.