Get 2011 rolling with Pay-per-Click Advertising
I think we have established that there are 4 or 5 ‘big boys’ on the web today, Google, Bing, Yahoo, Facebook and one or two others. We can help you advertise on all of them. With NComp@ss you can pick and mix, trial and error or just save time by letting us do the work for you.
Before I start though – let me be clear – Pay-per-Click advertising is a month in month out solution – you will get traffic and it will be valuable to you, but your costs will continue to come in and expand as your profits expand. There are tremendous advantages, but never lose sight of the fact that this is on-going. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) although more expensive to get right can be a lot more cost effective.
So what is available, the marketplace is expanding rapidly and no longer are we confined to just Google Adwords, you have more choice and more places than ever to advertise. Pick your audience carefully.
- Google Adwords – This is your starting point you can reach virtually anyone, anywhere, anytime through Google Adwords – it can also be cheap (least expensive), but it also sets your cost benchmark. You pay for each click that takes someone to your website – you can fully measure and manage that traffic so that you know your getting only the people you want to visit your website.
The advantage of using NComp@ss is that to effectively manage a Pay-per-Click campaign you need to check it daily, if not twice a day, you need to constantly optimise and improve on keywords, rankings and costs. It’s possible just to set a target and leave it at that, but you won’t make a profit… you’ll get traffic, but Google will decide for you who visits your website. Google Adwords has to be taken into hand, controlled and made to work for you. We would do all that for you.
How Google Adwords Works: It’s a simple auction system – the more you pay per click the higher your rankings… but Google has added more to it’s system, each keyword and advert are given quality scores, so if the keyword is particular relevant and Google knows it’s likely to convert into an enquiry it will cost less. Likewise if you advertise on generic keywords Google will make you pay more.
- Microsoft / Bing / Yahoo – these three have recently come under 1 umbrella mostly because Yahoo as the 3rd party has seen increasingly diminishing market share. But do not underestimate Yahoo. On average when we compare Google Adwords to Yahoo we have see Yahoo cost 50% less and provide equal numbers of enquiries for clients. The problem is fewer clicks – we often cannot spend enough on Yahoo to make it worthwhile.
NComp@ss is bullish about the combination of Yahoo and Microsoft, but to be 100% clear working with Google Adwords is really quick and easy compared to Microsoft/Yahoo. The administration of a Microsoft/Yahoo campaign takes roughly 4 times the length of time compared with Google. And when you cannot spend that much even if you try it makes Microsoft/Yahoo appear inefficient. Again though by outsourcing to NComp@ss you save a lot of time.
How Microsoft AdCentre Works: In the same way as Google Adwords the more you pay the higher your advert will rank… However Microsoft/Yahoo are undergoing big changes right now as they combine their services, and also their ranking system is a little simpler than the Google one, so it’s more auction based and you can be more precise with your costs.
- Facebook – with over 500 million users Facebook has a massive quality audience, Facebook are also the first real social media company to become profitable largely due to their Pay-per-Click services. Facebook however are more coy than Google and Yahoo about how and where your advert will appear, also measuring success and that concept of ‘like’ buttons and ‘Fan’ pages confuse the issue further. Facebook is not for the light hearted.
NComp@ss can manage full campaigns for you, essentially though all click will be to your ‘Fan’ page and you will need to ensure that this is regularly updated. Facebook is easier to manage than Google and Yahoo, but we at NComp@ss have noticed clearly that a) advertising is roughly twice as expensive as Google Adwords and b) reporting is very weak, it’s difficult to get meaningful reports out to customers as Facebook does not like sharing data.
How Facebook Adverts Work: When advertising on Facebook you need to first set up a ‘Fan’ page and then you can advertise it… you create your adverts and then you select your demographics second, it’s not hard, you select ‘male/female’, ‘countries’, ‘professions’ and so on and Facebook then tell you how many users may be advertised to, the result is a relatively easy way to manage your campaigns. But be aware of costs – we’ve set up a few campaigns only to find that shortly afterwards their costs have dramatically risen. This seems to us to be something facebook likes to do.
- LinkedIn – A recent entrant to the Pay-per-Click marketplace, LinkedIn is a dedicated social media network aimed at the ‘professional’ market – it’s not MySpace if you like… Therefore theory runs that if your target audience suits LinkedIn then advertising on LinkedIn should be profitable. So far we would say it could do very well, although costs seem higher.
NComp@ss can manage a LinkedIn campaign for you fairly easily, and unlike Facebook the adverts link direct to your website whereas Facebook only takes you to your ‘Fan’ page. So LinkedIn could be better for two reason, direct traffic to your website and a higher quality audience. We at NComp@ss are still experimenting with LinkedIn, but so far the verdict is favourable and more open than Facebook with whom we had trouble.
How LinkedIn Direct Works: LinkedIn asks for your website first and then lets you create up to 15 advert variations, at which point similar to Facebook it allows you to select a target audience from their 91 Million audience. it’s very easy to set up and manage. How the adverts are placed however is unknown, it’s not an auction system like Google Adwords although you are advised to make a bid and presumable the more you bid the higher volume of impressions (adverts shown) you’ll get. In short neither Facebook or LinkedIn are upfront about how your adverts are shown.