[thelist] [Marketing] AdWords, AdSense, Overture, etc

[Ian Anderson]

Joshua Olson wrote:

>I've been researching online advertising and it looks like the two biggest
>players in the market are Google and Overture. 
>...
>Any thoughts on this?  Experiences?
>  
>
Hi Joshua,

I tried Adwords for a while; I believe in it quite strongly as a useful 
method of promoting a business. The main cost is time in the first 
instance, not the per click cost. Busy categories may be quite hard to 
get visibility in, I think.

1. My own experience; didn't do so well in the end. I was promoting my 
own services, and the web design category is so busy that you have to be 
quite lucky to stay in it. It needs a good deal of effort especially at 
first. This is because you have to be clicked on a certain number of 
times, or Google drop you. They make your ad inactive while you tweak 
it. For example, if your ad is shown ten times (or however many) and 
no-one clicks it, you are suspended. You need to worry about the 
proposition and the marketing message you are promoting. I didn't have 
enough time to spend on it for that first couple of weeks, and I think 
my proposition was wrong for the search terms I was targeting.

Under "web design", my ad was coming up about every third time I 
reloaded the page.

2. Marketing consultant I work with - gets half his business through 
adwords. Swears by them. He's in a less competitive market and 
geographically localised. He is a sales guru and knows how to sell 
himself in ten words, though.

I will certainly use Adwords in the future, probably with the paid 
assistance of the guy in #2. :)

HTH

Cheers

Ian