10 reasons why PPC is not always a good idea

PPC gets a good press.  If you were thinking of trying a Pay per Click based campaign, either using banner ads, Adwords or sponsored search, and did a bit of research the impression you would receive would be overwhelmingly positive.  Instant results, targeted traffic and best of all you only pay for the response you get - no waste.  But is there another side to PPC?  It wouldn't be such a big and growing industry if it didn't deliver to an extent but always the best policy, not necessarily.  Here are some reasons to at least pause for thought:

1. Who clicks anyway?

Estimates vary but it seems that 70-85% rarely if ever respond to internet advertising so the traffic you do receive from PPC is obviously skewed to a certain segment of the population.  This may not matter if you are getting profitable sales from acceptably priced traffic but it is at least worth considering if you find that you are paying for customers that are not right for your site or who never buy anything.  It is also suggests that concentrating on PPC leaves the bulk of your potential market untouched.

2. How does PPC look to the public?

Paying to put your name, brand or site on banners or search results pages can lead to credibility issues.  The very ubiquity of Adwords adverts around the internet is making them look a bit spammy and untrustworthy at least among some internet users.  Do you really want to be seen as a modern day snake oil salesman?

3. Not everyone is online

If you spend a large amount of your marketing budget on PPC you may be ignoring a large portion of your potential customer base ie. those that don't use the internet either at all or at least not for your product or service.  At least if your internet marketing strategy is mainly “organic” (non-paid) then you may have money left over for offline marketing.

4. Paying for pointless, profitless traffic

Anyone in the industry will tell you that attracting traffic is only part of the story; you may as well not bother if you are paying for clicks through to bad internet sites or “landing pages” which do not convert clicks to profits.  Often paid ads lead to boring, low impact homepages with no sales pitch or “call to action” (in marketing speak), or pages with limited relevance to your search term or even to broken links.  If you spend money on PPC you still have to invest time and thought in developing effective landing pages and arresting site content.  This is a good landing page which delivers on the ad promise and clearly spells out a sales message to the visitor but also provides useful information on the topic, providing a reason for them to stay around:

http://www.advoco.es/home/22-latest/28-get-a-spanish-driving-licence-for-45.html

5. Is this traffic for real?

One of the great advantages of PPC is that everyone clicking through has had their interest piqued by your ad and therefore is a potential customer.  But what if you are paying for clicks made by competitors trying to undermine your campaign or online marketers generating phony clicks to make money?  This is a growing problem and even though there are controls and protective measures that Google and others take, this can be an expensive pitfall for the unfortunate or unwary.

6. Spikes in PPC costs

See this article about US car dealers getting hit with big online ad cost hikes in 2008 just when their businesses were starting to struggle:

Google Adwords Costs Increasing for Car Dealers as Competition Mounts

If you build your business around paying for clicks it can be very painful when those clicks suddenly double or treble in price.  If the cost becomes prohibitive what do you have to fall back on?

7. PPC is not an easy option

An organic alternative to PPC – achieving high search engine rankings by link building, article marketing or other techniques – sounds like hard work but the alternative of PPC is also demanding because campaigns also require a lot of skill and knowledge, particularly in terms of researching keywords that are not only going to attract the right traffic but also be affordable enough to be profitable.  Campaigns also require constant monitoring and adjustment to achieve goals efficiently.  There are experts for hire who will help you but be sure to pick an industry leader, preferably accredited by Google, because there are some sharks in these waters.  Quality Clicks are one of the best known and most reliable in the Adwords field.

8. PPC mistakes can prove expensive

Getting PPC wrong can cost you dear if you are not monitoring the results and do no properly cap your costs so that you get a sudden surge in traffic (and bills).  You also run technical risks like getting "Google Slapped" or even slipping down the organic Google rankings. Read here about the google slap:

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-google-slap.htm

9. Quick hits wear off after a time

An Adwords consultant once described PPC to me as like a “sugar rush”.  He meant that the effects were indeed gratifyingly instantaneous and effective but not automatically lasting.  There are ways of using PPC campaigns to build lasting results but most often PPC buyers just keeping paying whatever it costs to keep traffic flowing.  Organic traffic is an investment in long-lasting and self-reinforcing gains over time.

How does PPC cost?  Who knows.

In theory PPC should be easy to budget for because you work out what sort of traffic volume you are looking for and have an idea of the cost per click but it isn't.  For one thing until you have launched a campaign and had some experience of it you do not actually know the cost per click.  Google's Traffic Estimator gives you a range of cost estimates for each keyword combination but nternet marketing gurus doubt its reliability.  Also as we have seen the cost of PPC can rise and fall very suddenly making hard and fast budgets hard to keep to.

Other marketing articles by this author:

30+ ways to market a small business

Pricing strategies for hard times