If you have made it to this article, congratulations! You are on the last, and final article in our whole Search Advertising chapter. Today, we will discuss some of the best advantages you can achieve using search advertising. We will also tackle some of the challenges you will face along the way and how to resolve them.

Quick Recap of Everything You’ve Learned So Far

Before we get started, let’s do a quick recap on what you have learned so far in this chapter. Check them out below. If you haven’t read the other articles on this chapter yet, we highly recommend you to go back, and read the articles linked below.

In our article, Introduction to Search Advertising, we learned that search advertising or most commonly referred to as pay-per-click advertising or PPC, is an innovative way to advertise your brand or your business.

This is done by advertising your brand on the search engine results page or SERPs. However, you can also use search advertising on different platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, Amazon, and more.  

In the article Advertising in Search, we showed you how to structure an advertising campaign, which search engines are the best to use, and more. We also gave you some incredible tips and tricks on how to write an effective and impactful ad copy. As well as the elements of a search ad in our article titled The Elements of a Search Ad – Writing an Effective Ad Copy.

If you go back and re-read the The Elements of a Search Ad – URLS & Ad Extensions, you will find out more on how to structure a URL and the different types of ad extensions. 

There are a lot more topics we have covered, but for now, let us move on to the advantages and challenges of search advertising. Let’s get started. 

Advantages of Search Advertising

Now, there are a lot of different reasons why a lot of successful brands choose to spend thousands – even millions of money on search advertising. In 2011 alone, Google earned a booming $37.9 billion on revenues, and 96% of those came from advertising. 

In the year 2018, the allocated money spent for search advertising alone added up to 124.1 billion US dollars across the globe. And it continues to grow every year. 

According to Google’s data, Amazon.com, spends roughly $55.2 million dollars on search advertising alone every year. Lowe’s spends 59.1 million dollars annually, and StateFarm spends 43.7 million dollars, approximately, every year.

LOOKING FOR A ONE-STOP SOLUTION TO YOUR GROWTH NEEDS?

Now, if these companies are willing to spend that much money on search advertising and Google Adwords, it is safe to assume that this method of marketing is working pretty well for them.

No Low Cost Barriers

In Search Advertising, there are no low cost barriers. What you pay goes to traffic to your website. There are no setup fees involved, usually. And the best part is, most of the tools you need to start are free and accessible. Be sure to check out our article, Planning and Setting up a Search Advertising Campaign, to see some amazing tools you can use if you’re only starting out. 

Keep Track of Everything

Another major perk is the tracking. You and your team can keep track of every cent you spend on search advertising. This way, you can learn what works, and what doesn’t on a micro scale. It allows you to see which parts of your plan are working so you can regroup and think of another angle. 

Best of all, you have the liberty to target advert placement. This helps make your advertisement relevant to the people who see it, instead of it being a random, annoying ad that suddenly popped up. 

You can do targeted advert placement by using filters. This way, you only reach the people you want to reach, specific people whom you know will convert as customers. You can even target using keywords and match types. 

Using Search Advertising, you are giving your customers what they want. This amazing digital marketing strategy helps you put your ad in front of the right people. People who are actually searching for your product and who are already in the buying process. 

It allows you to give people a solution to what they are looking for instead of creating an interruption to their browsing time. 

Quick and Easy Setup

Another great advantage of search advertising is that these campaigns are easy and relatively quick to set up. It can, and will, if done properly, provide high volumes of traffic to your website. These traffic are trackable, too!

However, while there may be a lot of advantages, there are also some challenges you will face along the way. We have created a list of some of them below so you can be aware.

Challenges of Search Advertising

  • Click Fraud – most of the time, you will face a click fraud when someone who is not a potential customer or someone who is not actually interested in your product clicks on your advertisement. 

And because you are paying for every click (PPC), some competitors will actually click on the advert so you are forced to pay. And with today’s technology, some competitors may actually use bots against their competitors. These bots are automated to click on advertisements which costs a lot of money on the advertiser’s side. 

Fortunately, search engines are ahead of this problem. They have taken measures against click fraud. Advertisers have the right to report a suspected click fraud, and the search engines will do an investigation. If it’s proven that you have experienced a click fraud, search engines will refund the money. 

So, what can you do to resolve this? It’s simple. Keep an eye on your campaign. Watch the patterns for a sudden leap in CTR and a sudden drop on the conversion rate. If you suspect that this is caused by a click fraud, pause your campaign and alert the search engine. 

  • Bidding wars and expensive CPCs – we have discussed this briefly in a previous article. A bidding war can be an expensive process. And sometimes, if you want to stay on that top spot, it means having to spend more on keywords. 

To avoid this, you need to keep your focus on your campaign goals and your return on investment or ROI. It’s also a continuous process of finding more affordable keywords that will work for you.

© Image credits to Free Creative Stuff 

LOOKING FOR A ONE-STOP SOLUTION TO YOUR GROWTH NEEDS?