subject: Pay per Click Marketing [print this page] Pay per Click Marketing Pay per Click Marketing
I thought it would be relevant this evening to discuss pay per click and my thoughts around it.
Pay per click is defined as an Internet advertising model in which advertisers pay the host, only when the ad is clicked (source wikipedia). In a search engine situation, people typically bid on keyword phrases that would be relevant to the demographic audience.
The million dollar question is, Is it effective?
It is my feeling that Pay per Click advertising is not effective on its own, however if you incorporate SEO (Search Engine Optimization) along with it, it can be a very powerful tool.
Here are some tips:
-Only use social media pay per click as a secondary means of marketing (fraud can be high!)
-think wide, not thin (be diverse with your budget), in other words Yahoo and Google are great, but consider smaller mom and pop networks that reach your target audience as well
-make sure your focus is not too narrow (if it is, you might want to consider other forms of advertising besides pay per click!)
-do the math (make sure it makes business sense!)
-for higher education purposes make sure you have a general branding campaign going as well, pay per click is not effective without a general awareness campaign out there
-start off slow, you want to test the waters for the first couple months to make sure its cost effective, I personally would try a few different vendors using this approach and learn from each one
