Online Advertising

Advertising online (and particularly using the dominant google adwords system) is traditionally split into 2 primary categories.

1. Search advertising - Displaying an advert within the search results on search engines such as google, at the exact moment when a user has run a search for a query that's relevant to your business.

2. Display Advertising - Advertising that sits on other websites, these can be image, text or video based.  Display advertising allows you to reach users of websites that contain content related to your product or service. See below:

Both can be tremendously effective, and it's important to understand your marketing campaign's goal before you decide on your strategy.  Are you looking for sales volume on your promoted product, or is this campaign about raising awareness and brand-building?

Whatever the strategy, it all ultimately comes down to keyword choices - for search advertising, you'll choose the keywords that will trigger your ad to display when a user taps them into google.

For display advertising, your keyword choice will determine the context that your advert is placed in.

For all of these ads, you can choose the exact geographic area you want your adverts to display in - so if you're targeting Inverness, nobody outside Inverness will see your ad.

Cost per click

Most online advertising is payed for on a cost per click basis.  Every time someone clicks on your ad, you pay a sum for the lead.
This sum varies depending on how competitive your keyword is, here's a recent comparison of maximum cost per click (for the top promoted listing) for plumbers in London vs. plumbers in Fife:

 

Keyword	Competition	Local Monthly Searches (United Kingdom)	Approximate CPC (GBP)
[plumbers london]	0.9	2400	8.97
[plumbers fife]	0.88	46	3.05

It's a competitive area, but you can see the difference quite clearly.  Check out the average number of local monthly searches too.  If you're paying for these leads - you'll be wanting to make sure your website content is well optimised for conversion, as the last thing you want is for a potential customer to head back to the search results and look elsewhere after they've clicked your advert.

Those prices are generally the most you'll pay per click - and you might sometimes pay that, but most of the time it'll be less because every advertiser has different budgets per day/target keywords and so on.  The general rule of thumb is that if you're the top bidder for that phrase on the day, at that moment, you get the top listing.

Segmentation & Targeting

Don't forget that longer, relevant less competitive keywords, can actually result in better qualified traffic on your site, even if the search volume is lower than the most obvious choices.

Have a look at these figures for queries related to gyms in Edinburgh and think about how you'd go about choosing the best keywords, or even how you'd go about segmenting your advertising to target the various distinct queries and markets:

Keyword	Competition	Local Monthly Searches (United Kingdom)	Approximate CPC (GBP)
[gyms in edinburgh]	0.86	590	1.18
[personal trainer edinburgh]	0.84	590	1.39
[gym edinburgh]	0.8	480	1.03
[edinburgh gyms]	0.87	390	1.22
[edinburgh gym]	0.73	390	1.19
[gyms edinburgh]	0.82	260	1.16
[gym in edinburgh]	0.8	110	1.26
[gym membership edinburgh]	0.74	58	1.25
[cheap gym edinburgh]	0.92	36	1.18
[24 hour gym edinburgh]	0.35	28	1.05
[cheapest gym in edinburgh]	0.97	28	1.35
[best gym in edinburgh]	0.74	16	1.6
[boxing gyms in edinburgh]	0.52	12	0.61
[cheap gym in edinburgh]	0.96	12	1.35

 

The best approach is to do your keyword research (read step 3 on the seo page), understand how people search and then determine your advertising strategy based on that.  The best campaigns are well segmented and specifically targeted.  Have a think about how your website is structured - the individual pages and services you offer and do keyword research on them all - then you can start to build a structured portfolio of finely targeted and strategically placed adverts in exactly the best sites or search results that will result in the maximum possible high quality traffic.

Once you're set up and have a few ads running, we'll be able to measure their success - which searches are bringing most traffic, which keywords and websites, which display ads are getting people to click, should we change the wording, do some A/B testing, and so on.  You can refine and segment as much as you'd like, and the data allows you to understand exactly what is and isn't working for you.

We manage a number of google adwords accounts, and usually have some vouchers available that will allow you to try out online advertising for free (usually about £50 worth).  Just get in touch if you'd like a no obligation trial.

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