When any ad spend goes up by 27% at a six month value of 7.28 B $ marketers , supply chain and innovation folks need to take notice. Is it because everyone has stopped watching TV? No it is because on-line search is perhaps the only advertising method where you pay when someone sees (clicks) on your ad. Not so for all other media, you pay for putting out a30 second spot on TV during the Superbowl, pay for a billboard or a magazine ad. No guarantees that anyone in the target market actually saw your ad. In fact, come February and you'll see a whole bunch of discussion about which Superbowl ad was remembered and where the product was actually forgotten!
Here are the top three things driving search advertising growth:
- Advertising expenses and results can be tracked: In the current slow economy this is absolutely huge as every dollar spent must be accounted for results. As John Wanamaker said about a hundred years ago "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half." Not so in search advertising, you do not pay for views or impressions but you pay for clicks and if you have good landing pages that take the searcher to conversion – you have a tangible result to show for the click that you paid for.
- When you search – well you are searching! When you search the Internet you are serious about whatever you are searching for. All other media advertising operates on the principle of "which kind of people" might be seeing this TV show, pass by that billboard or read that magazine with a whole lot of uncertainty as to who really sees your ad. On the other hand when you search on Google,Yahoo or Bing you see ads on the side panel or top panel that are paid search ads. Sometimes you'll click on the ads and the advertiser pays only when you click.
- What happens after you click? After you click you land on a "landing page" and that page must convince your prospect or Internet searcher that you will be able to provide what he/she is looking for.The better your "post-click" management of the lead the better your quality score on for eg. Google and cheaper your ad. A sort-of virtual sales force automation.
So search advertising can get a prospect to your door – what sales folks like to call a "hot" lead. But converting the customer needs a deep understanding of your customer,industry and competition. Contact StratoServe.