Wednesday, January 21, 2009

The Pitfalls Of Pay Per Click Advertising

By Brian Basch

Google Adwords is all the rage in Internet marketing, and has made a grand impression on the pay per click advertising world. The idea of just creating an ad and then relaxing while the search engine does all the work is just too good an opportunity for most advertisers to pass up.

Pay per click seems like the perfect union of advertiser and search engine. It is simple to do. The advertiser creates and ad based on keywords, and will pay the search engine to do all the word. Leads will be generated, by the search engine, with these keywords, for the advertiser. The ads are seen in the search results that are relevant to the keyword that is typed in.

But do not be fooled! Pay per click is not quite that easy. This is because a certain amount of keyword research needs to be done. You cannot get away with plain tracking of the ad. Many popular keywords bring up a vast array of pages in one search result. On average the searchers will not look through more than the first 5-10 pages. This means Your ad must be shown in the first 5-10 pages range.

The only trouble with this is the fact that you will need to bid high to get a good position. Old fashioned ways of advertising were governed by paying for the duration of the ad as opposed to paying for exposure. This method of advertising often cost quite a bit.

The next form of advertising to emerge was Pay per click marketing. The idea was straightforward; advertisers would simply pay a fee every time a visitor clicked on their ad. This meant that if the ad had a good ratio of clicks the advertiser would make more money. Next came the question of positioning your ad in the search engines. In order to gain a superior position advertisers would have to bid higher than their competitors.

You need to exercise caution when using pay per click advertising. The reason for this is the fact that costs can rise quite fast and take you by surprise. Ads in top positions will generate a great deal of traffic but also a lot of wasted leads. This can drain your budget.

There are many things that can go wrong in a pay per click campaign, and you will have to be extra careful, especially if you are new to this form of marketing. it is not so easy. However you do not need to feel alone as there are many different marketing strategies to try out.

So consider your options and do not rely on one method of marketing. Remember the more methods you use the better chances you have of making a profitable business. - 16463

About the Author: