Manage Subscriptions · Subscribe Now · F.A.Q.'s
HOME · Thursday, May 22, 2008
Marketing & Revenue Growth
With Limited Ad Dollars, What's The Answer
PPC campaigns a logical part of media mix
Each small ecommerce business tries to squeeze every drop of value out of his limited advertising dollars. Online advertising options have grown very congested in the last few years, saturating the marketplace and making it more difficult for a business to get noticed — unless it is doling out some serious cash.
New search engines are popping up regularly and each one is trying to capture a share of the $13 billion online advertisers are expected to spend in 2006. Ecommerce businesses often feel pressure to initiate pay-per-click campaigns (“Everybody's doing it.”) and can find themselves spending a lot of money and getting few sales. So, with limited advertising resources, what's the answer for small ecommerce businesses?
The pay-per-click approach may not be the advertising answer for your business. You may be better off investing money in optimizing your search engine to raise your location on organic searches. You may also be better off blogging, creating opt-in newsletters, conducting email campaigns or writing stories for print publications, online news sites and trade publications within your market expertise — all of which cost very little.
Pay-per-click advertising is likely a logical component for many online retail and service businesses. However, because the search engines are so crowded these days, pay-per-click advertising should probably be only a portion of your media mix.
Practical Ecommerce recently conducted a pay-per-click test with four search engines — Google, Yahoo!, Ask and MSN. On behalf of two online businesses, we purchased $50 of ads for each of them on each search engine. The ads ran for a 24-hour period. Granted, spending $200 every day across four sites isn't something most ecommerce owners can do as most don't have a $73,000 annual advertising budget. However, our test allowed us to sample the results from each search engine and create an analysis that we believe will be helpful to ecommerce owners who are considering a pay-per-click campaign as part of their promotion mix. If you're wondering if there is a difference between the four major search engines, our project may help you answer that question.
Blinklist | Del.icio.us | Furl | Ma.gnolia | Newsvine | Spurl | Reddit | Technorati
Published on Monday, July 31, 2006
Comments:
And.........is that all there is?
Posted by: Ed
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Ecommerce Articles
- Browse All Articles
- Browse our complete archive of ecommerce articles.
- Accounting, Management & Legal
- Ecommerce articles related to managing a small business including ecommerce accounting, business strategy and legal considerations.
- Conversion & Usability
- Online business articles about converting web site visitors into customers and how to gauge and improve your business website's usability.
- Development & Programming
- Articles to help designers, developers and programmers create successful, search engine friendly ecommerce websites and improve existing ones.
- Hosting, Infrastructure & Software
- Articles for ecommerce businesses about ecommerce web hosting, business infrastructure, business strategy and helpful ecommerce & small business software.
- Interviews & Profiles
- Interviews with prominent ecommerce business personalities and profiles of successful online businesses.
- Inventory & Shipping
- Ecommerce articles about inventory management, ecommerce order fulfillment and product shipping considerations.
- Marketing & Revenue Growth
- Articles relating to online marketing, email marketing and using the Internet to growing your business.
- Search Engine Optimization
- Search engine optimization articles for ecommerce business owners, strategists, marketers and developers.
- Shopping Carts & Online Payments
- Articles covering ecommerce shopping cart platforms and options for choosing an online payment gateway.
- Training & Education
- Tutorials and articles providing training and education for ecommerce business owners and developers of ecommerce websites.
Search Articles
Ecommerce Community
- Ecommerce Blogs
- Read our blogs about ecommerce topics written by industry professionals.
- Community Forum
- Connect with other ecommerce professionals to trade advice and answers in our community forum.
- Podcasts
- Check out our ecommerce podcasts covering topics ranging from interviews to tutorials.
- RSS Content Feeds
- Subscribe to our RSS feeds and have fresh ecommerce content delivered to you.
Ecommerce Resources
- Free Email Newsletter
- Sign up for Ecommerce Notes, our free email newsletter for ecommerce business owners and developers.
- Ecommerce Directory
- Browse our directory of ecommerce products and services, or submit your own listing in our directory.
- Ecommerce Glossary
- Familiarize yourself with terminology or submit terms to help others with our Ecommerce Glossary.
- Events Calendar
- Find out about upcoming ecommerce events or invite other ecommerce professionals by posting your own event.
- Press Releases
- Browse ecommerce related press releases and post your own press release for distribution.
- Ecommerce Store & Back Issues
- Pick up back issues of Practical eCommerce magazine along with other merchandise from Practical Ecommerce
About Practical eCommerce
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Look at frequently asked questions regarded using our website, subscribing to our magazine and more.
- Advertising Information
- Information about advertising in Practical eCommerce magazine, on our website, or in our email newsletters.
- Editorial Sharing
- Learn about options for sharing our content with your visitors, customers or employees.
- About Us
- Learn more about Practical Ecommerce magazine and meet our staff.
- Contact Us
- Contact Practical Ecommerce at any time for more information. We'd love to hear from you.
Copyright 2007 Confluence Distribution, Inc. and Practical eCommerce.
All Rights Reserved.
Ok, so what are the results?!! ;)
Posted by: Brian
Wednesday, November 21, 2007