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Search Marketing: The small business diaries
By Doug Jakobsen | October 30, 2007
I’ve had the opportunity to speak directly with many small business owners across the country over the past year who were eager and savvy enough to try their hand at managing their own search engine marketing. At first, I was surprised by how many small businesses attempt to tackle their own advertising campaigns.
But here’s the kicker: upon further investigation of the status of their campaigns it became apparent that hardly any of them have been able to successfully manage their advertising efforts due to the fact that they had a business to run. Most small businesses who attempt to manage their own search marketing campaigns take it on as a sort of a “hobby”: choosing keywords, creating ad copy and selecting bid prices. They wake up early in the morning to manage their campaigns and even give up TV at night to check their daily clicks and impressions. But once the new car smell wears off, it becomes more of a burden than a lead generating tool.
Consequently, what they didn’t realize beyond the time commitment is how many factors can influence their return on ad spend. Factors that sophisticated agencies are constantly optimizing, such as ad copy, geo-targeting, bid prices, keyword selection, and the ability of a Web site to convert a visitor into a customer. Furthermore, if a business is only advertising on Google it is surrendering 45% of consumers that conduct searches on other search engines. That’s a pretty large cross-section of potential clients to gloss over when more than 9.8 billion searches are done each month in the U.S.
I would never assume to know how to build a house after reading about it online, and the same is true about online advertising. There is an art and a science to managing and building a successful online advertising campaign.
Topics: Local Advertisers, PPClick, Advertising |