Pay per Click Targeting Makes Advertising More Attractive

I've been researching pay per click advertising models in more depth recently as I help some of my clients to understand how it works and when to use it. Up until a few months ago, Google Adwords was becoming widely adopted by marketers for pay per click advertising (the sponsored results you see on the right hand page of Google's search results). Many of us thought this was enough as in The UK Google has around 80% share of the search market.

Other search engines have always offered it but suddenly their targeting has improved and with the advent of pay per click advertising in social networks such as Facebook we're getting more switched onto a more strategic "mix" of online advertising spend rather than giving it all to Google.

• Yahoo not so long ago added improved targeting options for advertisers which meant that instead of just search terms we could narrow by location and other demographic criteria. You can read more in this practical e-commerce blogpost about Yahoo advertising.
• Facebook pay per click uses incredibly powerful profiling (using information provided by Facebook members when they sign up) which means that your advert will appear to members grouped by not only location but age and other preferences.
• LinkedIn pay per click advertising also uses demographic profiles and now a range of options for LinkedIn advertising payment methods

It's only a matter of time before the likes of Twitter do the same, we're sure. The point is, I used to spend a lot of time talking clients out of spending - no sorry - wasting money on advertising. Today for many businesses it is a highly effective marketing medium and with statistical tracking as standard the results speak for themselves. I'm now in favour of more targeted online advertising, it certainly makes us more accountable as we can't argue with the stats.

Karen McNulty
www.MarketingPlanWiz.co.uk