Contributor: Angelo Zammit Angelo Zammit & Ami Pancholi are regulars on the Radio Talk Show Price of Business & Co-Founders of the multi award winning marketing agency East Coast Loyalty  In this article I will break down the pros and cons of Pay Per Click aka PPC as most call it. By the end of reading this article you should have a better understanding of what it is PPC is intended to do as well as if it is a right fit for your marketing strategy or better yet, in your budget. Sometimes it doesn't always make sense to us on why we feed into a certain trend. Rather we just follow it with high hopes of a great return. Sometimes or should I say most times, digging in deeper we find much things can be done on a lesser scale or often a cheaper solution. Yet and still we all have different needs and PPC could be one for you. In case you still do not know what PPC is completely, I have referenced the definition from wordstream: - PPC stands for pay-per-click, a model of internet marketing in which advertisers pay a fee each time one of their ads is clicked. Essentially, it’s a way of buying visits to your site, rather than attempting to “earn” those visits organically. It seems as though PPC has become a major player in the advertising industry in the past half-decade or better. With companies like Google AdWords, Yelp and Bing promoting it heavily puts business owners in a trustworthy positioning seeing its coming from reputable sources so to speak. These corporations whom seek to gain the highest profits sell you on the hopes of gaining better SEO ranking, cutting out competition and gaining you more business simply by placing your little add to appear alongside the results in a search engine in a predominantly dominant spot, thus allowing your services, products or goods to appear ahead of the competition and drawing potential customers to your business via some sort of call to action placed within the ad. This all comes at a price, all which depends on particular keywords that determine the demand of what it is you are providing. Meaning how many potential customers are searching for what it is you provide as a business. So when determining how much PPC will inevitably cost, you must take into consideration many factors. The biggest being your budget. PPC could cost one dollar per click or let’s say twenty dollars per click. It’s a fluctuating scale that changes by the minute as if it were the stock market. Let’s determine and break down the pros and cons of PPC to see if A; this is a good fit for your business or B; it’s just not worth the ROI. I mean after all. PROS & CONS OF PPC: Ok, let's begin with some cons if you don’t mind. I prefer saving good impressions last. I myself do not like to leave my readers with a sour taste in their mouth. After all, I do want you all coming back for more, lol. CONS OF PPC:

1. Bidding wars- This happens when two plus advertisers are fighting, or shall I say competing for a top spot ad position, which can eventually turn into a pricy "bidding war" where no one truly wins. It's important to remain focused on the issue at hand which is the numbers. Being sidetracked can take your eyes of the prize.
2. Charge for each click - It's pretty hard to run a successful PPC campaign without having a relatively heavy budget, seeing that the price per click varies depending on the keyword and position. PPC is very expensive for most small business owners. Take keyword "Insurance" for instance. "Insurance" still remains one of the most costly keywords. So much so that advertisers are often paying an upscale of over $50 per click, crazy huh?
3. People often tend to ignore sponsored ads- Recently a Google survey revealed that 85-percent of people claim to ignore sponsored listings when searching via Google. It’s true; Most of us are too caught up in our own worlds or too busy reading our ex-girlfriend or boyfriend Facebook post to even notice it. I have to admit to tuning out advertising when I search or post my status update on Facebook, which is unfortunately a bad look for the PPC advertisements trying to get me to click.
4. Choosing the wrong PPC marketing company- Most of us are much too busy to really dig in and do the research on what’s truly best for us, both financially and sensibly. Although a lot of marketers seem to think they’re the number one marketers on the planet, that spike in confidence couldn’t be more deceiving to one’s self. The fact is; it takes an enormous amount of knowledge and knowhow to truly capitalize on a ppc campaign. Placement multiplied by timing equals success. A true marketer knows both these things. In my own experience 90% of a sale comes from someone whom is waiting for the answer. They already want what you’re pitching, or have been thinking about it for quite some time now. Try to stay away from marketers whom are not willing to answer every question you have and expect you to leave it all in their hands without any understanding of how they plan to implement a successful campaign strategy. The biggest red flag is when a marketer tells you that’s what you’re paying them for. Let us do all the work and you just focus on running your business, LOLOLOLOLOLOL….. To just sit back and have no input on where your putting your money is foolish and with respect a very stupid thing to do. Even more so stupid for a so called professional marketer to assume that would even one; be beneficial, or two; unfold into a success story of a campaign.  Only the business owner can truly know his or her own business. There is a lot more than a simple promotion that goes into a great ppc campaign. Most importantly, we need you! Markets have a tendency to just want money and not become familiar with each business owner’s needs. No two businesses are the same, that’s something that cost me a lot of money to learn. An expensive investment that was well worth the lesson.
5. Every Single Visit Costs - Yes you heard that correctly, every single little click you get from a potential customer is costing you dollars. And let’s say for giggles that you are able to convert even half of those searchers clicks into leads or customers, — since every little click costs, the ones who are just browsing around for fun whom you will never convert just made this already pricy campaign of yours a lot more expensive. That reality is why PPC success requires a combination of keyword management, compelling ads and optimized landing pages that persuade visitors to submit their contact information or make a purchase.
6. Visibility Doesn’t Mean Conversions - Many businesses get super excited when setting up their first AdWords, Bing Ads or Yelp Ads campaign, only to discourage themselves when realizing their ads aren’t generating any traffic. In order for a PPC campaign to drive results, every piece of the campaign has to work together. The campaign must target a set of keywords that people actually search for and that are a good match with your business. Then the ads have to be optimized to grab searchers’ attention and compel them to click.

  PROS OF PPC:

1. Get Seen Immediately - SEO is a strategy that requires a lot of time as well as patience. It takes between six to twelve months or sometimes more, reaching the first page of google results for competitive keywords and phrases. Now, SEO is super important and draws organic traffic to your website so no, I’m not telling you to put it on the back burner, rather combine the two SEO and PPC together. Pay-per-click marketing is a great complement to SEO. With PPC, you can set up a campaign and start bringing in targeted traffic in less than 48 hours.
2. Track your ads in real time - This is extremely important in respect to in a way it's putting a face to your viewers. It will show actual demographics and profiling data, turning them from just a number to actual people!
3. Retargeting - which is a great way to draw those potential customers that slipped away back in; It hurts when you spend thousands of dollars on a campaign and end up losing business because someone forgot to follow up on their thoughts or just weren’t ready at the moment. Reaching back out to the same person over and over allows you to plant a seed in their heads. It’s a process but what you’re doing is training them to become exceptive of what you’re selling and persuading them into biting the hook. When a person sees something over and over they remember it, they store it, think about it and make a decision. Not everyone is easily convinced so being repetitive is a good method to helping them decide.
4. Exposes your business both locally and globally- which is huge as far as branding goes. I am a big fan on brand development. This brings me back to PRO 3 where when someone sees an image or ad over and over they begin to gain a sense of trust. Not to mention, how can a potential customer buy of you when they don’t know you exist. It’s simple mathematics really. The more your business is out there the better odds you have of getting more customers and repeat business.
5. Quick results -I don’t think you need me to state the obvious on this one do you. But just in case, let’s give an example. You are a new business and you just opened the doors. Your offering a grand opining promotion and want to get the word out there asap, so you log on to Facebook a create a post. Ok, so now what? You sit back and watch the floodgates open up, not happening. You might get a few customers if that, but for one you potential audience is most likely peanuts compared to a PPC ad. Depending on your marketing budget you could reach hundreds of thousands of potential customers that are specifically looking for what it is you’re selling via PPC.
6. You can reach your target consumer at the right time with the right ad - With PPC’s location targeting and delivery options combined with device-specific preferences (like mobile), you can deliver very specific messages to your target consumer at prime time when they are close by.
7. Full Control- The great advantage about PPC is that it allows you full control of all aspects of your Pay-Per-Click management campaign such as how much you bid, how long the campaigns run for, what keywords to target and the overall cost of the campaign.

Now that we have gone through several PROS & CONS about PPC which I can assure you there are plenty more of both, i would like you to make your own assumption on whether or not this is a tool you see your business benefiting from. Either way I suggest to always giving something a try at least once. How else can you really determine the outcome? My word means nothing in the end, because what does or does not work for me may or may not work for you. I hope this article has helped you better prepare yourself if you have plans to do PPC or is actively doing it. If you are not currently utilizing PPC as a marketing/advertising strategy and are interested in doing so I will provide a few companies whom specialize in such services. Again, thank you for reading and please like, love, share, follow and comment below. PPC PROFESIONALS: 1.) East Coast Loyalty 2.) Get Xperts 3.) Consistent Conversion 4.) Click Path 5.) WordStream 6.) JumpFly To learn more about other marketing services that offer great benefits to your business, check us out at East Coast Loyalty! [caption id="attachment_11265" align="aligncenter" width="150"] Logo Trademark: EastCoastLoyalty.com[/caption]

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