And, I would be extremely careful about referring to PPC as “a veritable money machine I can pull the lever on all day long.” If this statement were true you would be retired by now, and probably writing a book titled “How to Turn PPC into a Veritable Money Machine.” If, of course, this book hadn’t already been written a dozen times.

Thanks for writing, and good luck to you–people running unfunded startups don’t get nearly enough credit for what they have accomplished.

I think the more pointed challenge for small businesses is to actually have good on-page conversion and to actually know the LTV of that customer.

I think it depends on the industry sector, competitiveness of that sector, and the target market.

Sure on the most competitive keywords it’s likely to make little commercial sense for a small business to get involved in a bidding war with their bigger competitors. But if there niche, and they can target there ads with sufficient granularity (perhaps using geographic limiters), then the balance tends to shift.

And good link to the Eyetracking stuff

Later

A lot of small businesses are still discovering the internet (even at this late stage), and if there in a competitive sector, stand next to no chance of being high up on the google rankings for their preferred search terms. PPC gives them that lifeline.

Sure, if it’s a low value, widely targeted, non-repeat product their offering – little benefit in PPC as the click might cost more than the margin.

I’m late reading this as I just found your blog after you followed me on Twitter. (thanks for the follow). Your post seems to be oriented to B2C businesses with very quick sales cycles.

We have not done much PPC ourselves, but I do realize that it’s important to set appropriate expectations for the campaign.

For companies that have a sales cycle longer than a few days, PPC should be attracting leads who then come to the website and consume more information. The PPC offer should give you the opportunity to collect their information. Then you can nurture them over time by supporting their research and helping them navigate through the early stages of their buying process. Then, when they’re ready, they convert – but the conversion event may be days or months down the road. If you’re only doing last click attribution, and you assume that the PPC ad is the single point of conversion that takes a visitor from cold lead to closed sale, then you’re probably missing opportunities to convert leads that are at the early stages in their buying cycle.

The trick is to attract the right kind of leads in the first place. That’s the subject of a whole other conversation.

Thanks for the reply, and I can see your point to a degree . . . but the focus of the article was on finding marketing channels that are a good value, and PPC is rarely a good long-term value. If your company is truly ‘ahead money’ on PPC, market forces dictate that eventually your competitors will a) figure it out, b) drive up the price of the ads, and c) ensure that your company does no better than break even in the long-term. It’s the model PPC was built around, and eventually it will catch up with your company as well. Thanks for writing, and I wish you continued success–you guys have a great site!

- Eric -

Thanks for taking the time to write. My biggest concerns about PPC are the same concerns everyone else should have:

1) PPC is not a good marketing “value” for small companies, because by definition with PPC and its keyword bidding process, companies literally pay Market Value for every click. In order to achieve significant growth, small companies need to find marketing opportunities where they are paying significantly LESS than market value.

2) After you factor in the researchers, college students, bored web surfers, competitors and potential employees who click on PPC ads every day and have no intention of buying anything, PPC actually costs several times MORE than the market value referenced in #1 above. I read a study a few months back which conservatively estimated that 85% of all PPC clicks were either fraudulent or unintended. After almost 10 years of sitting on both sides of the PPC fence (as an advertiser and an Affiliate marketer) I have no doubt this number is accurate.

Thanks again for writing. Sorry we don’t agree—but it’s still fun to debate it

- Eric -

Some interesting thoughts here – I feel that your main issue, and a very common one, is spending money without tracking the results!

Once you did manage to put this in place you could easily see where the issues were with your campaigns. In a lot of cases it pays to have a professional company looking after your account – working on making improvements & tracking the results. However, don’t work with anyone that only reports on “hits” or “traffic” – always report on ROI (and how that fits into your business).

This isn’t just a shameless plug but I do feel strongly that your experiences may put other people off trying PPC. This is not to say it works for everyone – you need a good offering & website too!
Cheers
Ben