We are caught up in a world where we see lots of ways to promote our business as “free”! If we are honest with ourselves we know that nothing is truly free, even if there is no monetary cost there is a resource one.

We have seen the organic reach of Facebook take a nose dive, the conversation on Twitter getting noisier and natural search flooded with direct and indirect competition.

These so called “free” channels are over crowded and deafening, whilst all the time our audience are ever more educated about what is marketing and what is “real” content. With so much content vying for their attention, the average consumer is now choosy over who she aligns herself with and who she gives her valuable attention to.

Quite frankly if you haven’t earned it, you won’t get it!

So how does new business, and old business, break through this monstrosity of complex algorithms and oceans of brand output to reach their time deficient audience?

By paying for it of course!

I know this may be a foreign concept to many “new”, and some not so “new”, businesses, but when planned well paid advertising can deliver an excellent return on investment.

Over the coming weeks our podcast will introduce you a the world of Google AdWords. Even if you have no intention of running a campaign internally it will at the least make you an educated buyer.

Google AdWords is a form of Pay Per Click (PPC), and with a 90% market share in Europe and 60% share in the US for search traffic, Google is usually the best place to start for a new advertiser.

The great thing about PPC in search is that you can align your ads against the end users intent i.e. the search phrase they have used. In this way you can ensure that your ads appear against the most relevant searches related to the product or service you offer.

The Rise of PPC

The paid search industry is already worth $34 billion and estimated to grow 75% in the next 5 years. As more companies discover PPC, investment in it is rising, but so also are the individual Costs Per Click (CPC) in some sectors. With a 26% rise in CPC on AdWords over the last 2 years.

Although the fact that conversion rates can be absolutely measured and adjustments made almost instantly to improve ad copy, keyword targeting and landing page copy (the destination and ad send a visitor to) optimisation and testing can drastically reduce costs.

ROI is Everything

Actual conversion rates can be as individual as the businesses themselves but typically you would expect a 2% conversion rate from a well structured campaign. With a level of optimisation and professional management this could go a lot higher.

So if you are interested in giving Google AdWords a go for yourself then subscribe to our podcast on iTunes or subscribe by email to get notified of the release of each episode. In the meantime here is an infographic with some interesting stats on PPC from AmeriCommerce.

Hitchhiker’s Guide To PPC Stats – Infographic [Infographic] by the team at AmeriCommerce