If you are selling products online or provide services to both Consumers or Businesses, Pay-Per-Click Advertising can be a rewarding marketing tool for your organization. But to ensure success, there are things you must consider before you embark on a pay-per-click advertising campaign.

Goals and Objectives

First and foremost, what are you goals and objectives? What do you plan to accomplish?  Whether you sell products or services, there is got to be some success criteria that you are aiming for.  Don’t wait until after you have launched a campaign to set your goals or significantly alter your plans.  It would be very beneficial to identify a clear set of goals and objectives before launch, not only to determine if pay-per-click advertising is right for you but to keep your campaign on track throughout.

Updated Website

Is your website updated?  Does it meet today’s standards?  The worst thing an advertiser can do is to send new visitor traffic to a website that has navigation problems, is not appealing or darn ugly, or has other design or coding issues.  Making sure that your website is updated and meets current standards will help you convert visitors into potential customers.

Competition

Any opportunity to grab potential traffic and visitors away from your competition is a sure sign that pay-per-click advertising is definitely worth pursuing.  If your competition is running pay-per-click ads, it is an opportunity to show potential visitors that you offer better services or products and if they are not running any ads, it is an opportunity for you to be a step ahead.  A complete competitive review before launch will help you determine what to expect and help you prepare what kind of ads or promotional copy to run in response to the competition.

Keyword Analysis

You don’t have to spend countless hours, but conducting a pre-Launch keyword analysis is an essential step that will help you to determine what keywords and search queries related to your business are receiving traffic, which ones are not, and what is the average cost per click for running an ad triggered by that keyword phrase.  This will help eliminate any surprises, when it comes time for setting a monthly budget.

Budget

How much are you willing to spend on a monthly basis? After conducting a keyword analysis, you might find that the average cost per click for some keyword phrases are quite expensive and others are not.  So, you need to be prepared to develop a budget that will provide maximum exposure and conversion rates for the ads you choose to run and the keywords you select to trigger those ads.  A low monthly budget could mean not receiving much visitor traffic due to high average cost per click rates or a flexible monthly budget could mean getting the most benefit. 

Conclusion:
In determining if pay-per-click advertising is right for you, you need to make sure you have the right goals and objectives in place, ensure that you have a website that you are proud of, conduct a pre-launch competitive review and keyword analysis for determining what to expect, and know how much you are willing to spend on monthly basis.

After you have determined that pay-per-click advertising is right for you, you will need to dedicate the time and resources to launch your new campaign or if you do not have the resources available you can always contact MarketNet, a full-service interactive marketing, design and development company who has successfully launched many Pay-Per-Click campaigns.

Ankush Agarwal
Senior Search Marketing Analyst
MarketNet, Inc.

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