What is PPC advertising?
If you already know everything there is to know about PPC then we suggest you skip ahead. If you're a little hazy on the details then read on for a crash course in internet advertising today.
PPC advertising
Even though internet advertising has been around since 1992 it only really became such a huge phenomenon after Google started offering it to advertisers on it's search engine. PPC is unique amongst advertising mediums because of one very important thing: Relevance.
Relevance
PPC allows you to choose what the person must search for in order to see your ad. From the browser's perspective, the ads change depending on what they are looking for. This is what makes PPC so compelling: the person that sees your ad is already looking for what you are selling. The value of inserting your ad to exactly the right customer is what makes PPC such a powerful medium.
Geo-Targeting
PPC would be powerful enough with just search-relevance, but when you add Geo-Targeting into the mix it becomes even better. Geo-Targeting allows you to choose the geography of people that can see your ad. This means you're not marketing to someone far away from your store, you're focusing on people in your locale. It localizes the internet and allows you to funnel ads even closer to the mark.
Bidding
So how much does it cost? Well there is no fixed price. Consider it to be an open marketplace. Ads space is dished out based on how valuable each search term is. A popular search term might be more expensive than something more specific. For this reason figuring out how to get the best value for your money takes patience and time. The rules change often and without warning so a campaign that might work great today will break tomorrow, you need to be monitoring it constantly to ensure you're not over-spending.
The Trade-off
Obviously all this wonderful technology comes at a price. The trade-off for PPC is you don't get a lot of space for or control over the presentation your ad. Typically your ad gets 1 short headline and then 2 lines of text. You're also competing with about 7 other ads on the same page so getting noticed is very difficult. It takes skill and know-how to understand what sort of ad copy to works effectively. Results vary with locale and demographic and it takes a lot of hard work and experience to get it right.
The MetroGuild Advantage
The Internet Age means we scan more and read less until we find something worthy of our attention. As mentioned above you don't have a lot of space to convince your audience to spend more time with you. Making your message resonate within a small space is paramount. With targeted internet advertising, not only is your ad copy message vital, but where you place your ads is just as important. Which search engines, what cities, which related websites, what social networks, etc. The answers to these questions determine your campaign's success.
MetroGuild takes all these often conflicting factors into account and adds one more key component: budgeting. Using our tried and tested systems and our ad experts we can provide you the absolute maximum exposure for the least possible ad spend. It's a constant balancing act between delivering many ads and spending as little as possible, which is why our account managers pro-actively tweak and monitor all your campaigns delivering steady and solid results.
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