Internet Marketing 101: The pros and cons of PPC advertising

Pay Per Click (PPC) is an Internet marketing strategy used by search engines, advertising networks, and content sites, such as blogs, in which advertisers pay their host only when their ad is clicked. With search engines, advertisers normally bid on keyword phrases relevant to their product and target market.

If you place the highest bid for a specific keyword or set of keywords, then you rank number one in these paid listings. Every major search engine now displays these paid ads above and to the right side of their 'organic' rankings.

If someone clicks on your PPC listing, they arrive at your web site. And you are charged the amount you bid. So, if you bid $.25 per click on 'baseballs', and that's the highest bid, you'll show up first in line. If 1,000 people click on your PPC listing, then the search engine or PPC service will charge you $250.00.

Dangers of PPC advertising:

1. Costs can add up in a hurry, especially if your bidding strategies are automated.
2. Return on Investment (ROI) can be very hard to measure.
3. Beware of Junk Traffic-Some of your clicks may get siphoned off into the affiliates in the deep corners of the Internet.
4. Pay per click advertising does not scale. If you get more traffic, you pay more money in direct proportion to the traffic.

Benefits of using PPC:

1. Pay per click marketing can generate traffic immediately, if you're bidding on relevant keywords.
2. PPC marketing is flexible. You can adjust your pay per click campaigns in hours or days.
3. PPC can also be a bargain. Sometimes you'll find keyword 'niches' with cheap top bid prices.

In summary, a good pay per click marketing campaign combined with a good search engine optimization program is your best bet in creating a comprehensive Internet marketing campaign for your business.

The Benefits of Online Marketing(SEM-PPC)

Benefits to Consumers:
(1) Convenient— customers can shop 24 hours a day from anywhere without going to the store physically.
(2) Interactive & Immediate— consumers can interact with the seller's site to find the information, products, or services they desire, then order or download them on the spot.

Benefits to Marketers:
(1) Customer Relationship Building— companies can interact with customers to learn more about their
needs and to build customer databases.
(2) Reduce Costs & Increase Efficiency— avoid the expense of maintaining a physical store, costs of rent,
insurance, and utilities. Digital catalogs cost less to produce than printing and mailing paper catalogs.
(3) Greater Flexibility— unlike a paper catalog whose products and prices are fixed until the next printing,
an online catalog can be adjusted daily or even hourly, adapting product availability, prices, and
promotions to match changing market conditions.
(4) Access to Global Markets— The Internet is a global medium, which allows buyers and sellers to click
from one country to another in seconds.

Four Ways to Conduct Online Marketing:
(1) Creating an Electronic Storefront— companies can buy space on a commercial online service or it can
open its own Web site. These sites are designed to engage consumers in an interaction that will move
them closer to a purchase or other marketing outcome.
(2) Placing Ads Online— companies can place online ads in three ways:
(a) classified ads in special sections of major commercial online services
(b) ads in certain Internet newsgroups set up for commercial purposes
(c) buy online ads that pop up while people are surfing the web. Such ads include banner ads, pop-up
windows, "tickers" (banners moving across screen), and "road-blocks" (full-screen ads that users
must go through to get to other screens they wish to view)
(3) Participating in Internet Forums, Newsgroups, or Web Communities— companies may participate in or
sponsor Internet forums, newsgroups, and bulletin boards that appeal to specific special interest groups
(4) Use Online E-mail or Webcasting— companies can send out customer newsletters, special product or
promotion offers based on customer buying histories. Webcasting or "push" programming delivers
information of interest to consumers' desktops.

Online Marketing

The most effective and rewarding way to influence the growth of a business on the electronic market is through online marketing strategies that open the perspective of more targeted audiences and allow one to face tough competition in the best of manners. Maybe some take online marketing as a wonder means to get rich over night, but the truth is that there is little solid ground to consider online opportunities some unexploited gold mines. Before your making a fortune it takes hard work and continuous monitoring of the business market performance to check profitability. Moreover, let’s not forget the objective factors that influence economic success: the growth or development of the activity domain.

To illustrate these concepts a bit further let’s consider the automobile making industry during these times of economic recession. If the car sales lower than ever, dealerships and all the businesses that activate in this market sector receive the blow too. Hence, whether small or large companies will have to change the online marketing strategies and try a different more drastic approach of the potential customers. Judging from this perspective, the businesses to survive are those to rely on very professional online marketing strategies and on other special measures necessary for times of recession.

Let us not ignore the dark part of online marketing, particularly when operating with programs such as Google Adwords and Adsense. Adwords is a pay-per-click program, thus, you pay Google a fee every time someone clicks an Adwords ad, and unfortunately, there have been cases of mean-intended competitors who pay someone to click on ads just for the sake of causing one financial losses. And the only protection against such problems is the very strict monitoring of the web page to check visitor performance. Several online marketing tools can be used to keep track of the overall site activity.

All in all, the elements that contribute to the complexity of online marketing are manifold. Money gain and loss are in fact both part of the same business play, and it is good strategy and market knowledge that sets the difference. Therefore, the specialists’ advice is to have an expert cover the online marketing side of your business so that you can enjoy great traffic, advantageous return on investment rate and get the money flowing.