Ads, Not Fads
By Jim Mroczkowski
March 2005
© R-Design, Inc.


The internet is a wondrous place. As I’ve said before, the web is an amazing innovation where even more amazing innovations are born. Of course, that also means that the web is like some kind of fad assembly line. For every Yahoo there is a Pets.com, and it’s easy to get swept in the latest craze thinking it might be the Next Big Thing.

Nowhere has this been truer than in the field of online advertising. As sites compete for customer eyeballs, people become willing to entertain any notion, especially something new that sounds hot. (After all these years, people are still sending out spam, so obviously some folks will try anything.) Lately, two of the most popular trends in internet marketing have been content advertising and pay-per-click search advertising. Now, I don’t mean to imply in any way that these are flash-in-the-pan fads (after all, selling pay-per-click ads is essentially the lynchpin of Google’s business plan, and that seems to be working out pretty well for them) but, like American Idol, just because they’re popular doesn’t mean they’re for everyone. Every web site has its own target audience and its own marketing needs.

The essence of search ads is fairly straightforward: you place a text-based ad with a search site like Google, the ad is displayed alongside the usual search results whenever someone searches Google for one of your keywords, and you pay only when someone actually clicks on your ad and visits your site. Content advertising is more common with sites like the blogs you’ve been hearing so much about; ads (which are sometimes text and sometimes banner graphics) are interspersed with the content visitors came to the site to see, and you are typically charged per impression, which is to say you are charged for all the times viewers saw it, whether they clicked on it, noticed it, or none of the above.  Two of the most popular content advertising providers are Google’s AdWords and Overture’s Content Match (soon to be Yahoo! marketing services).  These two providers offer the option of integrating content advertising with their search advertising programs.  Both programs charge on a per click basis. 

Which advertising option is right for your business? Well, like most things, it depends on what you really want and how much you’re willing to pay for it. Each has its advantages and drawbacks. When I explain content advertising, for example, prospective advertisers often ask me, “Why would I want to buy content ads per impression when I could be getting search ads for actual clicks? Why would I pay for everyone who looks at my ad when I could be saving my money for people who actually click on it?” This is a very logical question for a small e-commerce site to ask, but it depends on why you’re advertising in the first place. Content ads can be a lot flashier and are often placed more prominently. In addition, they can actually be less expensive for you. Some popular sites sell 1000 impressions for as little as $6; for 1000 clicks in Google, you could be paying tens or hundreds of times that amount.

Content advertising can also be invaluable for a branding campaign. A site like Budweiser.com doesn’t sell beer online, but it does place banner ads all over the place for the same reason Budweiser ads are on TV: to keep the brand in people’s minds for when they are shopping later.

Lately, however, most small businesses are in love with search advertising, and with good reason. For one thing, pay-per-click search ads are run by the most popular sites in the business, namely Google and Yahoo. One would be hard pressed to find a wider audience. At the same time, the traffic that these ads generate is very specific. While a content ad on Defamer.com will run in the middle of the home page no matter what the site is talking about that day, a search ad in Google for designer baseball caps will only be shown to people who searched for “baseball caps,” meaning the audience is precisely pre-qualified as interested.

In addition, search ads are some of the most measurable marketing efforts available. Pay-per-click ads are usually set up to give you the ability to track exactly how many people came to your site from your ads, track which ad brought them in, and track whether they bought anything. This allows you to tweak your marketing message as needed and drop underperforming ads quickly to avoid wasting money.

The biggest disadvantages to search advertising are probably its uniformity and unpredictability. Pay-per-click ads in search engines are textual, and stringent limits have been set for how long that text blurb can be. Often, these limits make writing an intelligible ad that includes your keywords very tricky, and when you’re done the ad often blends in with the rest of the text on the page displaying it. Plus, there is no reliable way to predict how many people are going to search for and click on your ad. If you choose the wrong keywords, no one may ever see it; if your keywords are too broad and popular, curious visitors will click away your monthly ad budget in a week and still not buy anything from you.

In the end, the ads you need will depend on the results you need. Are you looking to increase your exposure, or to just hurry up and sell some ball caps? The best way to decide which ads are right for you is less an assessment of the ads and more an honest assessment of your own goals.