I think every internet marketer on the planet will agree that pay per click is awesome. The concept is simple: how much are you willing to pay per click (PPC) to take the top of the results for keyword searches in search engines? The more you’re willing to pay, the more likely you’re going to be at the top.
The top spots are actually mathematically proven to generate higher click through rates (CTR) hands down. Don’t get the wrong idea; it doesn’t mean that a high CTR is directly correlated with a high conversion rate. It’s a possibility that can happen if your landing pages are great, but it’s not the rule.
Now the reason why I think PPC is so amazing is because you can create ads, test them in AdWords, and see your conversion rates within hours. With other types of advertising, you have to wait who knows how long before you get a clue as to whether you’re actually making money or not.
Whatever you end up learning from your PPC campaigns can be carried over to your other marketing initiatives as well. You can use the ads you’ve statistically proven to convert high in your website, your print ads, and etcetera. It’s a lot more efficient when you look at numbers instead of guessing.
Personally, I like to start with one PPC service: Google’s AdWords. Their market share for organic search in the United States is over 70% (as of March 2009), so it makes sense to play in their search engine first. Currently it’s without a doubt the largest and most used PPC advertising platform in the US.
AdWords has some pretty cool features. One important thing it lets you do is target your ads down to a specific geographic area anywhere from local, regional, state, national to international location targeting. Once you get AdWords down, we can use a few other PPC services to make you money too.
