Is Search Engine Advertising Worth It?

Search engine advertising is the newest medium to deliver marketing messages to a wide and accepting audience. There are a number of benefits to search engine advertising, as well as a few pitfalls and problems that are part of any new opportunity.

First of all, let us make a comparison between search engine advertising and more traditional methods of mass advertising.

Traditional mediums ? television, radio, and print ads ? were at one point the preferred means to spread the message about a product. People were used to them because they were everywhere. Television ads are a part of television. Everyone accepts that there is no way to avoid the advertising completely, except to surf through the channels while you wait for your program to return. Television (or radio or print) ads could reach countless potential customers, whether they wanted to see it or not, and whether they were interested or not.

And there's the first problem with traditional advertising. It has to accomplish more than simply presenting a message or making a product available. It had to convince a view or listener that they really do want that product. Vivid imagery or sheer repetition and eventually traditional marketing might pay off.

But now we've uncovered another problem. How well is it actually working? Sure, there seems to be a lot of people responding to the ad, but is it really the ad, or were they referred by someone who had long ago bought the product? Or could it simply be a random chance that led a customer to make that purchase? But at least you can say that you've made a really cool and flashy commercial. And the return on investment seems to justify the flashy commercial.

The question is: Could you be doing better?

Is there any way to really know?

With traditional advertising it's really hard to find the answer to that question. At least not without investing even more in extensive research and reporting.

Now let us compare that to search engine advertising. This new medium has presented us with a whole new way to deliver a message to countless potential clients. And now you can target and track your marketing efforts like never before. And armed with this kind of information you can employ an advertising campaign that is more effective and efficient than most traditional advertising is able to achieve.

Search engine advertising has one of the lowest cost-per-lead rates in marketing. An accurate and effective Pay Per Click campaign can help you get your site in front of your targeted customers very quickly. And if you're targeting the right keywords and managing your bidding effectively, you will be able to find many highly qualified leads or potential customers.

Perhaps that's not the best way to describe it. Technically speaking, you aren't finding your customers. Your customers are finding you.

The number of Internet users continues to grow. And by advertising across Google and Yahoo you can reach the vast majority of Internet users. Search engine advertising can broaden your scope and make your site/service/product available to a massive audience.

And that is one of the keys to effective search engine advertising. People who access the Internet are not like television viewers. They're not prepared to accept random advertisements thrown at them. They are on the Internet and using a search engine because they are looking for something.

If you have what they are looking for, all you have to do is make yourself easy to find. And when the right visitors find you, then they are far more likely to become paying customers. The reason for this higher conversion rate stems from the fact that consumers have grown to distrust most forms of advertising. We're tired of being told what we want, or what is cool We know that with a powerful search engine, we can make those decisions on our own.

So when we find something on our own, we're far more likely to feel confident about purchasing it.

Search engine advertising has also given us a medium in which testing, statistical measurement, and flexible implementation have become financially plausible for almost any company. Now you can use simple reporting techniques to discover exactly where your visitors are coming from, what is working, and what isn't.

So in the end, search engine advertising is a new medium and we're continually developing and learning about new implementations. Despite that, however, given all the benefits and the cost effective nature of the medium, search engine advertising is certainly worth the effort.

Andy Eliason is a writer at Main10, an Internet marketing and development company. If you'd like to learn more about Search Engine Advertising, take a moment and visit them at http://www.main10.com/ or http://www.main10.com/advertising/search_engine_advertising.php