Can Pay Per Click advertising (PPC) really help your business? How does it work?
PPC advertising is a simple method of using search engines like Google to deliver qualified prospects to your website. It is cost effective, simple to use and can be started with a very small budget. This article is designed as a simple introduction to PPC advertising but if you would like more help in setting up your own PPC campaign, please check out our services page.
Pay per click advertising is an online advertising model where you only pay when someone clicks on your advertisement and visits your site. It doesn’t matter how many times people see your ad or how often it is displayed – if nobody clicks on it, you pay nothing.
The most common PPC advertising example is Google Adwords. When you type something into Google it searches the web and then displays the pages it thinks are most relevant based on the terms you typed in (your keywords). For example, if you type in ‘tropical fish’ it will give you a list of pages that use the term ‘tropical fish’ in order of relevance and importance.
There are lots of thing that you can do to get your website to the top of the list for keywords and phrases that are relevant to your business – you can find a good introduction to these in our free report on Search Engines in Plain English.
However, search engine optimization takes time and you might be up against some pretty big players.
Google’s PPC advertising lets you buy your way onto the first page of the results in the form of the small text advertisements that you see along the right hand side of the screen, and under the heading ‘sponsored results’.
Opening Your Account
To start a pay per click advertising campaign you will need to set up an account. With Google, you can do that at the Adwords Sign Up Page. Once your account is opened you can create a simple text based advertisement – usually a headline plus two additional short lines, using select keywords, of course.
This is the ad that will be displayed next to your chosen search terms. You will also be able to select which countries your ad will be displayed in. In fact, if you sell to a local market only you can even select a county or city.
Choosing Your Keywords
The next step is choosing the search terms that you want your ad to appear next to. Using our tropical fish example, you might want to show up when someone searches for ‘tropical fish’ or ‘Japanese fighting fish’ or any number of terms.
Before you start typing them in, do your homework and find out the terms that people are searching for – Google has tools to help you do this.
Setting a Budget
The next step is to set a budget – both for the total amount that you are prepared to spend and the amount you are prepared to spend per click. For example, there may be 10 businesses that would all like their ads displayed next to the term ‘tropical fish’. So whose ad does Google put first in the list? Google ranks the ads by combining two factors:
You can decide how much you are prepared to ‘bid’ for your terms starting from a few cents. Based on your business, select an amount that you are willing to pay – it can always to be changed later. At this stage Google will show you your estimated position and the average number of people you will attract each day. If you’ve ‘bid’ $0.10 per click for the term ‘tropical fish’ and attract 10 clicks per day, that’s means you will have spent $1 per day on your ads. If nobody clicks you will have spent nothing. Based on these estimates you can set the maximum amount that you want to spend in any day or month. Once you have reached your budget your ads will simply stop getting displayed.
You will be charged by credit card or direct debit each month for the number of clicks you had.
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Online Radio Stations?
Due to their size and ability to reach niche audiences, they tend to attract a much more targeted audience than mass market, traditional radio stations.
Potentially…
This makes advertising on them an attractive proposition to marketers who target niche groups. Moreover, most Internet radio stations will also create podcasts of popular shows – recorded versions that can be downloaded and listened to at any time – creating an added attraction.
The natural starting point is an Internet search to find stations that suit your target audience. Ideally you will find stations that combine information relevant to your niche with a relevant audience. If you sell widgets, it might make sense to advertise on Widget Radio – unless, the only people who listen to Widget Radio are widgets makers like you.
Like any traditional station, online stations should be able to provide you with key demographic information about their listeners. Study this info and listen to the shows before going any further.
Depending on the outcome you want, you can choose between audio ads, onsite advertising (like banners or text links) or sponsorship. Budget permitting, you can combine sponsorship and audio ads with banners and buttons to increase visibility, CTR (click through rate), retain attention for better conversion and ultimately, increased ROI (return on investment).
One of the most attractive aspects of internet radio advertising is the simple fact that your customers are only a click away to your website. Not only can this significantly increase your ROI but it also allows exact, detailed tracking of results. By carefully measuring what works – and what doesn’t – you can more effectively plan your marketing.
Taken together, the targeted listenership, ability to combine visual and audio advertising and detailed tracking possibilities make internet radio an attractive alternative that could give you a leg up on the competition.
Online Radio Listenership Figures
“In any given week, 8.1 million people listen to radio via the Internet, either live or through a Listen Again service, and 1.87 million listen to a Podcast.” Source: Rajar/Ipsos Mori
In America alone, the number of people watching less TV and spending more time on the internet has grown by more than 400% in the past few years and more than 50% of them have consumed streaming media. Source: Rajar/Ipsos Mori
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