Does Google Adwords work? Well, by looking at the amount of money that is being spent by some of the big brands, then one would have to argue that, yes, it does.

The big question asked by many people is, “How much are brands spending on Google Adwords?”. Google, as you would imagine, has not been forthcoming with that information, but recently AdAge claimed to be in possession of a document which outlines how much some of the major brands spent in the month of June 2010.

According to this document, which by the way Google has not yet commented on, some interesting numbers are revealed. AT&T mobile spent… wait for it… $8.08m on Google Adwords in June! And yes, that figure is just for June. Other heavy hitters included, Phoenix-operator Apollo Group, who spent $6.67m, Expedia who forked out $5.85m, Amazon who spent $5.85m and eBay who parted ways with $4.25m. Again, these amounts were spent just in the month of June.

Possibly, one of the more intriguing big spenders is a particular oil company, maybe you have heard of them? BP, who spent $3.59m in the month of June. What makes this so interesting, is that BP usually only spends around the 5 figure mark on their Google Adwords account.

If you need to get a message out and you need it to go out fast, the internet and search engines are a good bet. However, you can’t read too much into it, as I would imagine that BP threw a lot of money into a variety of PR channels.

The question begs to be asked, are there many other companies spending this kind of money? The report would suggest not. Out of the entire list of companies, only 47 spent over $1m in the month of June, whereas 347 companies spent in the region of $100,000 – $500,000. Some of the more familiar brands, Kodak, BMW, and Walt Disney for example spent less than $500,000 in June.

So back to my question: does Google Adwords work? The amount of money being spent on a monthly basis by these companies would suggest that it does, and with more consumers being found on the internet, these budgets are a drop in the ocean for some of these brands. The likelihood is that they will be spending more in time to come.

You have done your research & have decided that running a pay per click campaign may be the next logical step in your marketing strategy.

You will need to have your ducks in a row before you get started, so see the list below, and make sure that you have the following in place before you get going with your campaign:

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To get a pay-per-click campaign off the ground is not as easy as it might sound. Some of my clients have tried their hand at running their own campaigns, only to be overwhelmed by the time it takes to manage their campaigns, as well as the frustration of not really knowing how to make their campaigns work.

They eventually landed up knocking on our door, needing us to take up their campaigns & make it work for them.

So, if you are interested in running your own PPC campaigns, then you need to do some preliminary work, to make sure that you know what you are dealing with. In this article, I’ll introduce the basics of a PPC campaign to you, of which you’ll need a good understanding to get started. For the sake of consistency, I’ll refer to Google Adwords which is Google’s PPC product.

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CPC – Cost-per-click. The maximum amount that you are willing to pay per click.

CPM – Cost-per-impression. The maximum amount you are willing to pay per 1000 impressions.

Impressions – The number of impressions is the number of times an ad is displayed on the Google search and display network.

Keyword – A keyword is a word, which is included in an advertisers “keyword list” within his/her pay per click campaign. It is a word that is relevant to his/her ad campaign, website content, products & services. When a user performs a search query for one of these words, the advertiser’s ad will be displayed within the SERP’s.

SEM – Search engine marketing is a blanket term which covers the many forms of internet or online marketing, including search engine optimisation (SEO) and search engine advertising (SEA). The aim of SEM is to improve a website’s visibility on the web and in the search engine results pages (SERP’s) via the many online marketing methods available to us today.

SEO – search engine optimisation is the ongoing process of improving a website’s organic search engine rankings. This process is ongoing and usually requires professional help. The results are not immediate and SEO should rather be seen as a long-term investment, and not a quick fix.

SEA – search engine advertising is basically the placement of ads on the web, particularly in the search engines. Most of the major search engines offer advertising products to the public, enabling literally anyone to make use of “paid search”.

Organic listings – these are your search results which appear in the left hand side of the page. These results are organic, because they appear there “naturally”. You cannot pay Google to have your website appear on the first page of organic results, and the only way to improve your web rankings, is through the use of SEO.

Paid listings – are the search results that appear in the top left and right hand side of the search engine results pages (SERP’s). These results are placed there by advertisers, who have paid or are paying to have them there.

SERP’s – Search Engine Results Pages

PPC – Pay Per Click advertising. Web advertising whereby an advertiser pays for each click that his/her ads receive.

The web design and development process can be a lengthy one. Between working on the right look, the layout, and functionality of your website, the time it takes to get all this done, not to mention the costs, can put a person off anything else even remotely web related.

Unfortunately, I have to say that merely having a website is not enough these days, most especially if you are counting on using your website to get more customers or clients.

If you are wanting your website to be a major source of business for you, then this article is for you.

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