When you’re focusing on internet marketing, a great deal of your performance and effort is put into showing for organic search. That gives you the most long term range and return on investment because once you’re visible you can maintain it with simple, consistent effort. Paid advertising is the other side of the coin where you can get faster results but it will cost you a bit more. While PPC already has a great ROI for well-designed ads, Google is rolling out the addition of the +1 to paid advertising to help improve click through rate (CTR).
Google has announced that starting this month in October they will be rolling out the option to add the +1 social integration into paid ads. Those with active PPC account (adwords) with Google will notice a new section under the Adwords campaign Advanced Settings which is labeled “Social Settings”. The best part of this is that not only is Google giving their users the ability to use +1 on display networks but they’re also providing us with the option to opt out if we choose not to use it.
Mixing PPC with Internet Marketing
It’s not surprising that Google wants to marry their social network services with paid advertisements. Facebook has already been functioning with similar tactics, allowing members to “like” a brand advertisement. As other members of the social media giant see friend activity around an ad, they’re more likely to jump on it and investigate.
Of course it might seem like Facebook has been doing this forever but when you look at the scope of the growth of services on the web we’re still in the infancy stages of any rollout like this. I can still remember when AOL priced out at $3.00 an hour to use it, costing an arm and a leg for the sweet sound of modem chatter.
What we have to wait and see with this new initiative is how the +1 will influence factors such as quality score with PPC advertisements and – for local business such as in our area – how this kind of social integration could affect internet marketing.
Still not using pay per click marketing? Let’s give you some reasons to reconsider:
The Benefits of PPC Advertising to Supplement Internet Marketing
1. The Investment is Small
Internet marketing can get expensive, even if you’re just marketing on a local level. PPC thankfully has a relatively small investment up front. With Adwords, you can load it with a small chunk of funds to run and test your initial ads. Once you’re setup, you really only pay when someone clicks on your ad. If you have great site content and a good ad, your conversion rates should give you a decent return on that investment. Only pay when they click? That’s like going to gym and only paying when you lose each pound. Who wouldn’t love that?
2. You Control Your Budget
Controlling your budget for internet marketing is important. When you don’t pay attention you can easily blow a quarterly marketing budget in a month. With PPC advertising you can set your budget to tailor how aggressive you want to be. With automated bidding, daily spend limits and tight display controls you can keep your budget from wandering off like Lindsay Lohan at an open bar event.
3. Less Waiting
With PPC advertising supplementing your organic search marketing you don’t have to wait nearly as long for results. Once your ads are approved, they go live. That gives you instant exposure on the top search pages for your keywords. With the right optimized ads and strong landing pages you can score top positions with your PPC ads for the best results.
4. Go After Your Market
Marketing to the right people isn’t just smart – it’s necessary if you want your internet marketing to succeed. You can create a campaign strategy that lets you target specific groups of people in a certain region during a specific time of day. You can even target specific devices (such as mobile or no). Refine it further with the primary keywords they use to find solutions, products and services and you’re certain to be clearly visible.
The key to success is to embrace what’s new while learning from traditional internet marketing. The new addition of +1 is certain to impact the way PPC campaigns succeed by drawing some social interaction from personal networks. If you’re not using PPC then now is the time to give it a shot and see what it, and the new Google +1 integration, can do for your business and internet marketing.
