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March 25th, 2008 - Pay-per-Click Best Practices
Here’s the original draft of an article that appeared in BizTech, a small business technology magazine. You can view the full article on pay-per-click marketing here.
Pay-per Chase
Get the Most from Pay-Per-Click Advertising
There are some big numbers involved when it comes to search engine advertising. Just ask Patrick Norman, Co-Founder and VP of Ridgeland, Miss.-based remote support solutions provider Bomgar Corp. Pay-per-click advertising was the break-through tactic that spurred the growth of the business when the only source of funding was the CEO’s personal debit card. In four years Bomgar has gained 2,500 customers in 30 countries, and they’re still spending on search engine marketing, these days to the tune of about $90,000 each month. “Not less than 40% of our leads come through SEM [search engine marketing] and we consistently see a 3-to-1 return on the dollars we spend on PPC [pay-per-click] advertising,” Norman says.
Big numbers indeed, but heed the warning of Karen Jensen, the Director of eBusiness at Irvine, CA.-based Printronix, a NASDAQ-listed printing solutions provider. She warns that those big numbers can as easily be outflows as inflows. “Don’t jump in, wade in slowly,” she says. “Because if you don’t understand how much it can cost you, and how to set the limits, you can waste a whole lot of money really fast.”
Such a disparity of results is possible with any form of marketing, but the wild successes and stinging failures of pay-per-click advertising deserve special attention. The contextual advertising that emerged in 2003 has quickly become an essential part of a web site marketing program. Its explosive growth has driven online advertising estimates up to the USD$80 billion mark by 2011 according to Piper Jaffray.