This wiki is managed by Dave Chaffey of Smart Insights to help keep marketers up-to-date with developments in digital marketing

From Marketing Online

I present these advantages and disadvantages of paid search marketing since they should be part of a review of PPC strategy to assess when best to deploy PPC marketing in comparison with other digital media.

The advantages of paid search marketing listed are intended to prompt you to ask to what extent your company is taking advantage of these benefits or to help justify investment in pay per click compared to other media.

Advantages of paid search marketing

In my experience, the main advantages of paid search marketing in comparison with other digital media channels are:

• 1. Highly targeted. Can reach target audience when they are looking for products, i.e. high purchase intent.

• 2. Low wastage. With the right match types, i.e. in Google Adwords, use of phrase match, exact match or broad match in combination with negative keywords, you can ensure that your ads are only shown when searchers are searching for relevant products.

• 3. Predictability. Traffic volumes, ranking, returns and costs tend to more stable and more predictable than SEO.

• 4. Speed. PPC listings appear much faster, usually in a few hours (or days if editor review is required). SEO has a much longer lead time, particularly important when new sites are created (the Google sandbox effect) or when ads need to be switched on and off for a campaign, promotion or stock changes.

• 5. Control. Unlike SEO (with sufficient budget and staff or agency with good PPC skills) it is more straightforward to achieve high ranking and direct visitors to the relevant page on your site. With the right technology, and that means a [bid management system"], creative / copy and budgeting can be tightly controlled.

• 6. High conversion rates. Following on from 1, PPC tends to have the higher conversion rates than SEO and much higher than display ads where viewers of the ads may click more on impulse.

• 7. Branding effect. Tests by the IAB have shown that there is a branding effect with Pay Per Click, even if users do not click on the ad. This can be useful for generating brand awareness during the launch of products or major campaigns.