Pay Per Click in 2006 :: The Latest News and Tactics Discussed at SES New York
By Rob Sullivan
There are some really great sources of information on planning and executing a
successful paid marketing campaign, from researching your audience and the
keywords they use to managing your bid portfolio.
Using the sessions from SES NY as a guideline, I'm going to introduce you to
what the "experts" are doing in PPC.
There is probably no one who doubts that PPC is here for the long term. And
while many dismissed PPC in the early days, it is clear, based on earnings
reported by the search engines, that PPC is here to stay.
Therefore, online marketers need to understand what it is, how to use it and
what your competitors are doing. It is also important to know what some of the
most effective tactics are out there.
The first thing to know is that PPC marketing is evolving just like organic
placement. There are new players entering the market with unique ways to help
you improve your PPC results.
Take MSN, for example. Because of its huge user base it can offer demographic
placement of ads. In other words, if you want your ad to appear only for Women
in the 20-35 age group then MSN offers that ability.
Google and Yahoo! are also offering some form of demographic placement, but not
to the extent of MSN. With these two you can also opt to place ads in geographic
areas, for example, or limit your contextual advertising to appear only on
selected sites if you chose to do contextual matching.
Further, as a PPC advertiser you need to be aware of the types of ads and
delivery platforms being developed right now.
For example, we already know that Google is moving into Click to Call ads. They
are offering AdWords advertisers the ability to advertise in magazines, and
likely they'll soon be able to advertise on the radio as well.
But, there are also other formats in the works such as rich media ads and video
ads.
In reality, the paid advertising market on the Internet is still in its infancy.
As the Internet becomes more ingrained into our lifestyles the advertising
opportunities grow.
In the future we'll see more ads embedded into all our online content including
videos we download or watch and even web media we receive via our portable
devices.
There are some pitfalls to paid advertising, however. At a recent Search Engine
Strategies session covered by SEO Roundtable, attendees learned just how
competitive the paid landscape is.
They introduced a variety of bidding tactics which have been designed to help
the bidder own the market space.
Through such things as "bid shadowing" and "bid surfing" one can effectively
force a competitor out of the marketspace for chosen keywords.
Or, bidders can work co-operatively to lower the bid prices while still
maintaining their presence online.
These are tactics which go beyond proper landing page creation, dayparting and
other bid managmenet tactics. But, they do illustrate how competitive and
advanced some firms have become.
Overall, I think the best bid strategy must start with an acknowledgment of your
bottom line - what can you afford to bid and still make money doing it? This is
where some firms fail while the most successful go on to bigger and better
things.
This ROI based bidding can help ensure that you don't "break the bank" while
trying to maintain your competitiveness.
This type of bidding can also help you find those markets which are untapped by
forcing you to constantly analyze and re-analyze the market looking for those
opportunities.
Remember, an effective paid campaign is just like an effective organic campaign.
You don't always have to be number one. In fact, in some cases a number 2 or 3
position can be much more effective at a much lower cost.
About the Author
Rob Sullivan is a SEO Consultant and Writer for Textlinkbrokers.com.
Textlinkbrokers is the trusted leader in building long term rankings through
safe and effective link building.
