Paid Search: Basics + More

During the SEM II- Join the Evolution Conference on December 6, 2007, Justin Seibert of Direct Online Marketing delivered a dynamic presentation on paid search marketing, including all essential information, including what it is, how it can be used, benefits and disadvantages, as well as resources for beginning to implement the strategy.

Seibert even discussed situations in which paid search is NOT for everybody. He laid out some general guidelines, pointing out that paid search is NOT for your company if:

• You are a monopoly/ oligopoly: there is not much competition with keyword terms because you are the only one that provides the product or service.
• Are in a search competitive industry with a small budget: keyword terms are at very high bid rates, and companies would use up their monthly budget very quickly, with little results.
• Can only sell to a small geographic area which does not yet use the internet frequently.
  

If an organization decides that they would like to try to implement a paid search strategy, they should decide if they should do it in house, or hire an outside agency to handle it for them. Generally, if the company has a small budget, they should try in-house paid search. When time and resources are lacking, companies should decide to use an outside agency to handle search campaigns for them.

To hear more about what Seibert had to say about paid search marketing, visit my post on the eMarketing SIG Blog, “Discover Paid Search from A to Q,” where I discuss in detail the valuable information that was presented.