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First the good news. Pay per click, as it has been perfected by Google, is unarguably the Web's highest business achievement to date. Google has become an international corporate icon worth more than some of the most famous name brands of our generation like Disney, McDonalds and Hertz.
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| Pay Per Click Party Over? |
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Even more impressive is that pay per click has empowered literally hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs in their web businesses. Quite a few sites, which prior to pay per click would have trouble making money, are earning more than $10,000 per month. Large sites such as NY Times, CNN, BusinessWeek and ESPN are also using pay per click to supplement their ad revenue.
Pay per click seems to be booming ... but is the party soon to be over?
Blogger Steve Rubel came up with five reasons (in bold) on why pay per click is in trouble. I'll take a look at each one of his points below.
1) Clutter
Google didn't invent text ads, it just popularized them. Their Adsense program has made it simple for sites to add which has caused a glut of text ads everywhere you click. I see the "clutter" problem as an Adsense clutter problem that leads to a phenomenon all web publishers have dealt with ... ad blindness.
When people get used to seeing a certain style of ad across the web, click rates go down.... and down and down! That's why banners originally got up to 8 percent click rates when they were first introduced by Wired.com. Good click rates now are .25 - .75% for top banners. Clutter contributes to ad blindness which causes lower click rates which could mean the glory days are over for pay per click.
As for clutter in search results, I see this as a problem of an educated user base. When text ads first appeared in search results the average user didn't identify them as ads, thus they had a great click rate. Now only the most casual users still doesn't realize what is and isn't an ad in search results, resulting in much lower click rates. This problem will only get worse over time.
What can search engines do to combat this "clutter effect"? The answer is to make the ads look less like ads. If 3 line text ads are obvious ads, how about 1 line ads integrated within the search results that might look like this:
>>> Read a review of all BMW's and click for best prices here.
Google and the other engines need to find a way to make the ads blend better with search results and content. How far they can go with this strategy without alienating the searcher or site visitor is the question.
2) Declining Relevance of Traffic/Transition to Cost Per Action
People are still clicking in big numbers but evidence suggests they are not converting as much. My guess is that conversions of ads in search results are not as much of an issue as conversions from Adsense partner clicks. This has become a bigger problem as the Adsense program has grown.
3) Rising Costs
Click costs have gone up substantially since the good old days of GoTo.com where you could buy clicks for as little as one cent. Marketers must justify their expenditures on advertising based on its impact on sales. Will the increasing cost of text ads for most key words cause cuts in search marketing budgets?
I actually don't see prices falling any time soon. The world is competing for keywords and bidding them up as necessary. Some may look for other Internet marketing options but the world is a big marketplace and so far there is no shortage of bidders.
The rising cost has its biggest impact on small business where price matters more. When small businesses are cut out of buying popular key words they may eventually just give up on search marketing - not good in the long run for the search engines.
4) Marketers Spread the Ball Around
The Internet has changed since search engines began selling text ads. You now have social media like MySpace, Facebook and Twitter. We have seen the rise of widgets where call to action ads will likely be integrated. Video is now mainstream with sites (like WebProNews) making video part of everyday content. The Internet is becoming accessible via many devices making it an accessory of life!
Marketers now have the ability to market products and services that are integrated into the user experience. Content can be ads and ads can be content. Marketers are becoming smarter in how they use the Internet. It is just a matter of time before a critical mass of advertisers see pay per click text ads as a tool past its prime.
5) Search Ads Are Viewed as Untrustworthy
As with anything that gets a lot of bad press (think click fraud) people start to wonder about its trustworthiness. I don't think this is critical yet, but Google and the others must find a better way to detect, deter and prevent click fraud.
Additionally, the engines must be more selective about their pay per click partner sites. There are many sites that exist solely to get "pay per click" clicks. This is bad for Google, Yahoo and Microsoft because it leads to a general uneasiness among ad buyers.
We would love to hear what you think. Is the pay per click party over or is it just getting started? Comment here...
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Comments
PPC is needed
PPC should not be viewed as an enemy of SEO more an Allie. It can be very difficult to gain good exposure for multiple keywords especially in competitive sectors. Running PPC alongside a good quality SEO campaign will bring rewards.
No
There will always be a market for PPC, with only 10 listings available in the organic listings, balanced against the amount of new websites produced daily, it makes perfect sense to assume PPC is here to stay.
Question
The site http://www.googlegivesfreeads.com claims that you can get free adwords vouchers.
Do you have any feed back from anyone who has used it? I cant afford it right now and when I can afford it, it would be nice to read someones reveiw besides the guy selling the product.
Job Search Company Pay Per Click
Pay Per Click
I've never intentially clicked on an ad. I hate them.
Adsense
It is correct your observations regarding "Adsense Blindness" and the "Diminishing Returns" aspect of web site advertising, and personally I blame the websites themselves for designing their websites around Adsense - rather than incorporating Adsense into their websites.... hard to explain by words so here is an example:
http://www.coolestpicture.com/
that is a website designed for Adsense (there are worse examples but this will do for the moment)
Now look at the links at the bottom of the page - the owner or publisher is not actually someone interested in photography - she is a dancer:
http://www.lynseybilling.official.ws/
The website "coolestpicture" is simply an Adsense revenue based website that is created to earn clicks and $$$ but is never updated or maintained - and there are 10,000's of websites like this one that look fresh, but are false - and the general public is getting wise to this.
Google needs to remove these types of websites from their Adsense programs - difficult but not impossible...
I have been in contact with Google several times about this very subject, but either they are not interested (it is income to them all the same) or their system is a huge mess and no one really knows what is going on.
Websites like the one mentioned above will continue for at least "years" (not months) until someone actually gets around to reviewing it.
The same goes for Adsense designed websites that use soft-porn to attract traffic - Google will not do anything at all about it - even if you complain with the loudest voice possible - simply because Google is earning from them also, even if it is against the Adsense TOS.
Website designers have learned how to milk Adsense, and Adsense has learned how to milk those websites... so they seem to be in "unofficial agreement" and the web surfer is becoming "aware" of this and is less likely to click... website advertising is losing it's "face"
PPC is the Foundation of Online Marketing
If my websites are on top, with a great name and great content and you want your business to be on top than you will have to pay for the click or your competitors will. It really is that simple. If folks read this article and pull ad dollars offline than the competition will easily fill the spot. Yes some websites are nonsense, but that will be whether PPC is here to stay or not. It is relevant advertising with not much wasted ad dollars as compared to newspapers, TV and billboards where you have no idea where any of your money really goes.
Google's Poor Service
In my opinion, the worst thing about Google is the absolutely terrible customer service.
As a user of both AdSense and AdWords I have tried to communicate with Google's laughably named Support or Customer Services and have almost never received an answer that was even relevant to my issues, let alone actually helpful. Typically, their responses are ignorant, arrogant and verging on rude.
There is no excuse whatsoever for this kind of incompetence, particularly from a company that is so profitable, has such a dominant market share and likes to think of itself as a company that "does no evil".
I am sure this will eventually work against them as people will be spurred on to find more acceptable alternatives...
The Party May be over - but not for search engines...
I am pretty surprised that someone like Rich would think the party is over. As far as I am aware PPC has some powerful pitches in favor of it, that has traditional media killed - relevance, accountability, and the fact that it's a "pull media".
Maybe it's time for your
Maybe it's time for your businesses R&D to devise methods of figuring out ways to get top positions on Google, or Yahoo search engines cost free. It can be done if you are willing to take the time to figure out the process.
Pay per click
EVOLUTION... nothing stays the same. Change is the only constant and I believe the "pay per click" will have to change because the Internet and the Visitors are in a constant change process.
I like your suggestion of improving the pay per click advertising into simple educational statements as I believe that the power behind the Internet is educational benefits. Someone can learn more online in one hour than a full quarter of college education.
Will pay per click no longer be existent in the near future? I don't think so. It will simply continue to evolve through time and personally I think that the advertising on Google will eventually be changed to small videos that can be activated by the visitor with the video acting as a link to the advertiser.
By the way, I believe my product on http://www.miracleenema.com is as a result of evolution also. Please go to this website and you will discover a possibility of reducing healthcare costs across the world. Thank you. Roy
Pay Per Click Party Over... Soon
Pay per click will soon over...
Unless Google will lower the CPC
in general.
I predict in the near future Google
stock will GO DOWN in relation to
advertisers' bad experience with
Google CPC hype.
Sooner or later ppc party over in
general.
PPC Advertising
Search advertising has a real problem. The top items in most searches are link farms with no significant contents, only ads. No wonder searches are losing relevance.
Oh well, stop
Well as PPC is raise the market, also MFA is raised. So we always have our caviar.
And ofcourse we learn how to make ad looks like content. ;-)
Pay per click party continues
Although Rich has produced a considered article I believe many of his remarks are not borne out in fact.
I run a number of integrated search campaigns that combine both organic and paid elements. I have seen little evidence of:
1. Bid values becoming uneconomic
2. Conversions falling
3. A lack of trust in PPC ads
To the contrary I believe that the range of analytics tools available will make it more likely that pay per click will be able to demonstrate its true marketing contribution.
The party will continue for some time.
Parasitic PPC
Back at the beginning of this century, PPC was a real energizer for creating profits. My company, www.parknpool.com doubled its sales every year in 2000, 2001, 2002, and 2003. The problem was that Google PPC increase even more rapidly. We are at the point now that the smaller and less profitable companies that are vying for the more general key terms are going to get killed off. Google will become the tool for natural selection. At the same time, Google just gets richer and richer. We have found that we have become much more discerning about when and what we spend our PPC marketing dollars on. Our ads are written to only attract B2B customers (in our case). Gone are the days of turning on Google, Yahoo, and MSN and just letting them run.
PPC Demise
Thanks alot for all of the right on time insight. Do you think that the aff banner markets will pickup since the ad blindness is spreading like wildfire?
My opinion on the click party
I completely agree with everything you have said about the pay per click party being over. In my opinion it has been over since it began. By giving companies the ability to out bid the smaller companies, you have created a situation where the smaller companies must rely on good SEO and practical SEM, but if a company is small and un-wise, it sees the solution being competition with the larger companies in the click race. But unfortunately, these small companies will just burn through a relatively high adWords campaign in little to no time at all, and since Google allows about 8 clicks within a 30 second session before throwing an exception saying that it seems as though the user is spamming the adWords system, a lot of competitors just click until they have no more competition, and the process for gaining clicks back is tough, since Google will allow you to make a claim and they will credit your account, just allowing this to happen all over again.
I am in the business of website design and development and offer search engine strategies and usually I will have my customers use adWords not to gain more clients but for the benefits of having direct categorized links from Google, it actually boosts the organic listings of my clients. So your paying for your orgainic listing unless you can create a non-tacky link network, and since PR5+ is almost unattainable without a dedicated link building strategy, most companies just go for the $800 a month option with adWords and hope for that one transaction that will make up for the hole in the pocket.
Life goes on, Google is a $198 billion dollar genius and they will change their algorithms to ensure that the future of their ads will be ensured.
If you watch the adWords refresh, the ads Change on the top of the page, from 3 - 2 - 1 - none, at random, with the ads on the side of the search results changing as well. This takes care of partial ad blindness.
- Scott
pay-per-click dead?
I wouldn't say pay-per-click is dead. As long as more and more people are getting online, there will always be ads to attract them. Since there is an ever increasing number of businesses online, the smart ones will find ways to be more targeted and spend less money.
People are receptive to ads as long as those ads are driven to the users' purposes.
For merchants paying to be on the 86th results page for "gemstone jewelry", pay-per-click is dead. For those willing to get more creative to reach the ever expansive number of consumers online, it certainly is not.
One More Point
Rising Click Cost? Rich cites rising click cost as a sign PPC ads are past their prime, but, in fact, they prove just the opposite. The price increases are bids, reflecting the increased value advertisers place on these types of ads, and the effectiveness of the ads, themselves. If PPC were as old and ineffective as his article suggests, the prices would be trending down. Rich, Pull that Econ 1a book off the shelf and look up the law of supply and demand.
Hi Glen, Â Well, would you
Hi Glen,
Well, would you accept that PPC ads may be past their prime for small business?
Small businesses were the original buyers of Google's PPC ads and are what made Google a successful company. Corporations via SEO's and Agencies have driven up the price making PPC ads no longer economically viable for small business.
True ... Google is not past its prime, but PPC as an advertising vehicle for small business just might be.
Rich Ord CEO, iEntry, Inc. Publisher of WebProNews
What I find annoying from
What I find annoying from both an employer and a searcher is the relevancy of the ads --that is to say the NON-relevancy... the campaigns act as if there is relevant content to my search query but when I click on the PPC ads, I find little relevancy to my topic. Hence, I think the words associated with the search for many corporations are not relevant to what is being marketed -- certainly true for me from an employment perspective.
Publisher Perspective
Being a publisher and not an advertiser, I'm obviously biased, But PPC (pay per click)or PPI (impression) are far superior to PPA (action)advertising formats for the following reasons:
1. Easily tracked so advertisers and publishers can see what the money is going for.
2. More like traditional advertising, where advertisers are buying visibility, but superior because they can see where the business is coming from.
3. Publishers are paid based on their own performance, rather than the effectiveness (or lack) of the advertisers. I've published all types, but you won't see PPA on my sites. I'd rather personally sell ad space on a monthly fee basis. The income is more reliable. btw advertisers, how well does PPA work if most of us won't publish your ads?
4. The click-fraud issue: Obviously, these folks shoud be investigated and punished, but the advertiser's main concern shouldn't be the 2-15% (depending on who is estimating) fraudulent clicks. The valid clicks should show PPC is the most effective advertising model ever developed, for both the advertiser and the publisher. If not, why is PPC still the fastest-growing method, even beginning to take market share from tried and true traditional methods?
The Party's Over
I have an up-start business and am finding PPC advertising to be way to costly. Instead I am finding blogs to comment on and redirecting trafic from my own blogs. This seems to get me some front page google listings. Thank goodness this is only a part time job. I sure would be open to ideas on how to grow this business without throwing out $1000's a month on google ads. Ken
I do not use any ads in fear people will think less of my site.
Hi,
I wanted to comment on your article on Pay Per Click. I run a couple of web sites to spread God's Message (Podcasts on Christianity). I don't think you could take a site like mine seriously with ads splattered all over it. And I want people to stay on the site and read, download, listen, whatever. Pay per clicks in what I am doing might send people to links where the Message being sent is different and not consistent with my beliefs.
Just my opinion. But I am not looking to make Money.
Trustworthiness
I would like to take up on your point about trustworthiness with regards to click fraud.
The search engines are not transparent enough on individual click fraud attempts, they either mark the click as invalid and don't charge the advertiser or an invalid click report is lodged and a credit is issued. The engines never tell us which click was fraudulent or why.
I have been advocating opening up the invalid click process to annual auditing where third parties can confirm that the measures in place are valid or not. Only then can we regain our trust in these companies.
Clicks Versus Pageviews
I have Google AdSense on 24 of my 27 blogs and on 6 of my 7 websites, because I feel indebted to Google for giving me free subdomains and free hosting on Blogger, therefore I want to let Google earn some income from my sites as my appreciation. Otherwise, I do not like Pay Per Click adverts.
I have received prepaid adverts from private companies. They paid more than Google AdSense.
I prefer to charge for pageviews, because like in newspapers and on television, advertisers pay for viewers.
So, advertisers online should pay for pageviews.
I have seen hundreds of adverts online for setting up Google AdSense websites and to me that is sheer fraud.
Why should someone set up a Google AdSense website to generate more income from Pay Per Click?
How would they feel if people set up schemes to scam them by making them pay more for useless clicks on their Adword text links?
I have seen people sending mails to ask their hundreds of online buddies to click on the Google AdSense adverts on their blogs and websites.
The more you look, the less you see on PPC adverts.
Amazon pays for profitable clicks.
And that is quite reasonable.
Once my site is reaching millions of people monthly, I would be charging like mainstream news media and TV channels.
By pageviews and not by clicks.
It is time re-evaluate PPC and let advertisers pay for pageviews.
Any site with less than 500 pageviews monthly does not derserve the patronage of advertisers.
Cheers and God bless.
What about CPC relevancy
In regards to the first comment about clutter and trying to "fool" the search user into clicking a pay per click ad unknowingly. I believe google and society as a whole will benefit more from a relevant cpc ad.
Your site may be more relevant than the higher ranked listings which are showing organically. For one reason or another, your site is just not getting the page rank that it needs to be number one. But it is still a relevant site for the search term and you have the ability to find it with CPC.
I think this is much more important than trying to fool the user.
Make the ad obvious and relevant and it will benefit the user to use CPC ads knowingly.
Vertical Search
I agree about the PPC. I just cut my PPC program because they are looking for over $5 a click! I'd rather spend my money on a vertical search engine like ThomasNet.com where I can get some info about who is searching before I invest. B2B has good vertical options and B2C has social marketing. Of course the ideal situation is SEO but the situation is always that same there too. There are thousands of sites looking to be ranked in the top listings in Google so how realistic is it that you'll be picked to be in the top even if you do perfect SEO!
Mary Dykas
http://www.mvpvisuals.com
Adsense
I have been banned from Adsense for one of my video sites which Google stated (after many loud emails) was "inappropriate for minors" (my website was not designed for minors) - what is strange and funny about this is that all my videos were from YouTube - and YouTube continues to serve those same videos for which I was banned, and several other BIG NAME websites show the same videos but Google has done nothing against them - Google and Adsense are so addicted to $$$ that they do not play fair at all - while Google is earning $$$ even from sites that break their TOS they will not do anything - but if you are a small itty bitty website and you put one word wrong you get dismissed from Adsense...
The general public are not dumb - they get to read all these forums and comments and the general public knows what Google and Adsense represents - Adsense can work but it must stop being so two faced.... and as someone correctly pointed out in this forum, a good hefty class action law suit against Google Adsense should wake them up from their "grab it $$$ while you can" attitude...
PPC use is only going to
PPC use is only going to grow, and why shouldn't it, it's cost effective and easily measurable.
Eventually it will be the same as advertising in a magazine, just not an option for small businesses.
Problem is, will Google et al care? As long as they get money, why should they care about the small businesses?
The only work around i see off the top of my head is the application of a better algorithm and stricter acceptance rules for individual keyword phrases. There is a lot of clutter within PPC results where sites aren't always related to the search term. Google should do more to promote ads which have the most relevant content within the website related to the keyword phrase entered.
pay-per-click
It's true that small businesses just can't keep up with spiralling PPC prices. I run a small travel agency in France and used to run a very successful PPC campaign on Google for 100 dollars a month, paying between 5 and 10 cents a keyword. Two years later, those same keywords cost between 40 and 50 cents to get the same position ... and click-through rates are down. I'm sticking to my 100 dollar ceiling but looking for other less onerous methods of marketing my products.
PPC Party is over for blogger
PPC party is over for blogger that is for sure. Most ppl I know who runs a blog are complaining getting no click or have very very low CTR from visitors.
But for real webmaster PPC is doing very well! Website with well research contents. Website for photo, art and images related site, and site that provides software download are doing very very well with PPC.
Why? I don't know but that is happening. So you either junk your blog or PPC.
The PPC party is over for blogger either remove the ads from your blog or try something else.
PPC Just Beginning
I personally believe the PPC game is just beginning. The number of businesses that would kill to create an online presence is rising every day, and the ones that are already here are starting to utilize the video ads more and more each day, and as social networking becomes commonplace, we're probably witnessing the dawn of a whole new era in advertising to the masses. Everything and everyone is moving online, so why would PPC be dead?
There has to be a better
There has to be a better way?And a more cost effective means to locate potential customers for web retaileers. For my small retail spot on the web Google Adwords is my single BIGGEST EXPENSES, after purchasing product. Eating up 10% to 15% of my TOTAL revenue. That is before I even turn on a light bulb. The whole racket of CPC is like Las Vegas "the House always WINS" and Google is the House. But Yahoo and MSN are also in the game. Then to add insult to injuiry, if you add Google Anayltics and see how many surfers have landed on your site. The number of visitors never add up to the number of clicks you have been charged for. What is up with that?????
work at home
While trying ways to optimise my web site I came accross this website advertised in click bank (#1 on the list for things to buy). http://www.getgoogleadsfree.com I read the article you wrote about google ads are becoming the old tricks of yesterday and are doomed. What do you think this marketing secret will do for it?
Do you have any feed back from anyone who has used it? I cant afford it right now and when I can afford it, it would be nice to read someones reveiw besides the guy selling the product.
Thank You
Tom Collier
Pay per click party over
I run a number of web sites, they all use to carry pay per click ads which were originally used to cover web site costs.
The one on Down Syndrome still carries one ad per page, but only because I cant figure out what to market.
One of the biggest killers to pay per click, are the websites that exist solely to make low bids on keywords, like "the Down Syndrome", then have visitors click through to their site, which often only have a few words or links about Down Syndrome and masses of pay per click ads on Down Syndrome, which they get paid more for when most click on them out of frustration.
What the pay per click groups like Google need to realise, is that:
1.. Allowing these scavengers to function through their networks means that genuine content web sites like mine, have owners who get really frustrated with very low payouts, like 1 or 2 or 9 cents a click and look for alternatives to pay per click as a source of revenue. This in turn means these rich content sites, that tend to do well in search engines rankings, stop running ads - no ads, no clicks, profits aren't as good as they could be.
2... Visitors get fed up with clicking adds that promise solutions and don't deliver - probably a component in ad blindness; why click on an ad if mostly they don't have what you want?
Is Pay per action better? Don't think so from a content web site perspective - although it gets rid of the low kew-word bidder problem, it appears way less profitable for a content website owner, as generally speaking, you are lucky to achieve a 4% action result from those that do click through - and that's from people that are motivated to buy!
Yes, that could yield a nice bit of money, but I have been surprised over and over again by the difficulty in finding the products that people want to find and buy online.
Even though the ad may seem a perfect fit between the web site content and the product for sale, there are so many unknown factors for a content web site owner to deal with, that the actual action result may be part of a single percent! Completely unprofitable for the content website owner and normally too time consuming to try and deal with.
What's good for the seller, not completely sure. Things to consider though:
a.. Obviously if they only payout when someone buys, then that looks good.
b.. If their ads are no longer carried on the content rich web sites, then the number of people seeing their ads declines substantially, which means far less sales.
c.. Advertisers need to seriously look at what they advertise in the ads and how much they want for their product. The more expensive a product is in comparison to the supermarket down the road, the lower the sales are going to be.
Personally, if pay per click could get its act together, it would be still on my sites.
Disguising ads to look more and more like page content is a sure way to erode confidence in web sites, build an atmosphere of untrustworthiness. Ads need to be seen as ads.
Any way, that's been my experience from being a web master for over 7 or 8 years.
Click Ads
There is too much fraud out there in the form of competitors clicking on a competitor's Google Ads. This I know from experience. Did a test of my own. Ran Google Ads for a full week. 124 clicks, not a single phone call. No more Google Ads for me.
Pay per click
Until search results become more relevant people will be clicking on SensibleWeddings.com for great prices on wedding accessories, bridesmaid jewelry and garters.
Is the pay per click party over or is it just getting started?
Unfortunately, cut-your-own-throat PPC will never die. Google, Yahoo, etc., rank-place-and-discount ads that favor big-box spenders only. There is no reason to think that symbiotic relationship will not endure for the life of Internet marketing; at the detrament of small business and disadvantaged buyers everywhere.
Web clutter
When it comes to all the clutter over the internet, I completely agree with you. There's got to be an alternate way of balancing both information and advertising without trying to combine them all at one time. There have been so many sites that I've visited due to the description of the site, only to find that it was riddled with banners and google ads. It's hard to find the true essence of websites anymore. I'm starting to feel swindled by this bombardment of advertising!
For about 2 years now, I've been doing everything I can, without giving myself out financially, to promote my site www.starlingbooks.net, but it seems that these large advertising gurus, who really don't have that much to offer a prospective customer anyway, are diverting my clientele before I even get a chance to guide them into my site. The only way, it seems, for me to market is to pay a substantial amount to a marketing corporation or to "clutter" my site with alternate advertising... Too bad.
I'm still tempted to travel the narrow road and see if I could guide more people to my site. I feel that it is unique, and still has alot to offer in terms of self-discovery and visual appeal without those flashing banners.
L.L.
www.starlingbooks.net
Google Ads
I beleive that google ads are heading for a downturn because I see so many affiliate marketers all selling the same thing and the market is getting saturated. Personally, I hate getting emails from various folks all copying each other.
click ads
I have a small online business and spend 10% of my gross receipts on pay per click advertising- 75% google, 25% yahoo. Yahoo is essentially worthless, I just figure that whatever little money I make off them is gravy. Google is profitable, but at least 30% of my clicks come from sites that have never resulted in a sale. They allow you to opt out of receiving clicks from certain websites, but every month I receive 300 to 400 worthless clicks from the websites I have put on the excluded sites list. I emailed them about the problem and received a psyco-babble reply that in no way addressed the issue, but pretty much assured me that my worthless clicks were just a cost of doing business with google. The only problem is that google is the only way for me to get my message out. I just have to accept the 30% screwing because there is nowhere else to go.
Internet Advertizing
Rich Ord is right! CPC costs for small businesses our going to drive them out of the market unless they are selling unique items with 1000's of percent margains.
We are a small business selling products for the food service industry. Our CPC bids requirements have doubled and for some keywords have more tripled in the last two months. I don't know what the search engines(i.e. "G") are doing if anything, but we cannot double and triple our ad budgets every other month.
Google is introducing Cost Per Action. I thought it might offer us some benefit since we could set it up to pay only when we actually made a sale. Trouble with that is we sell some items for $1.00 and some for over $10,000. A fixed CPA bid would be fine if all our sales were for the same amount. What Google needs to offer is a CPA bid process based on a % of the sale amount. Anyone should be able to deal with that, although Google would surely be concerned about "sale amount fraud".
Pay Per Click - Less is More.
As A webmaster of several sites running adds for Google I have a suggestion, to enhance revenue from PPC for all parties concerned.
About a year ago I reduced the amount of add space for PPC on my site's pages by 50%.
The result was a 20% higher click through rate from the same amount of impressions.
I also restricted competing video and image adds from appearing on my pages.
Google wrote to me and advised me that I would increase my revenue from PPC if I lifted the restrictions.
I firmly believe that if Google restricted the amount of advertising going to every page,instead of soliciting webmasters to place more adds on their sites, the adds would get more favourable exposure.
Personally if I have to sift past adds to get to the content on a site, I will leave the site and never return.
I can see changes, not death
I really don't see PPC going away anytime soon. I would assume that changes will continue to be made, but the overall program will not leave. If PPC is done right, it can still be an effective means. I think plenty of people abuse AdSense, so it could be interesting to see what happens there.
PayPer click party over?
I would like to address the issue of click fraud.
I feel that we pay way too much for PPC, in order to get on the first page of any SERP's. Then to have one of your competitor's click away on your site, just out of spite, really ticks me off.
If I want to visit a competitor's site, I have the decency to type in their URL. Not just click on the sponsored add.
If I do find out that any competitor commit's click fraud on me, I will break him. Revengeful? You Betcha! But I will not start it.
Yahoo! Search Marketing has an "Click Protection System that automatically filters out invalid clicks. I don't know much about it now, but plan on looking in to it.
Something must be done.
The people that committ "Click Fraud" are just Grown Up Children, jelious of the product that their competitor's have, that they wish, they did.
If the "CF'rs" had a product "really" worth selling, they would'nt have to be costing other people money.
Thanks for letting me have my say so.
Richard
PPC is going down
I agree with the comment that smaller companies are leaving - but think click fraud is also a major reason - we were #1 on free search - relevant - then we added PPC and found our "free" listing went down almost 10 pages - so we increased our PPC - Did I say relevant by the way? - now click my key words (we no longer go near google) and you get everything but the right product... and to boot - we proved that click fraud buried guys like us ... we used to spend $1000 per month with google - now we spend -0- and we are not the only small business I know who gave up.
Since the beginning we made a customer click for prices - we saw our "request" for pricing go from 98% down to less than 5% - if this is not click fraud - what is?... but our funds were "expended" to the max every day - early!!!!! So then we added prices - same conversion rate - down from 98% (phenomenal) to less than 5% ... enough said????
Goodbye google - etc ... we are back to phones - email campaigns and trade shows.. and we were among the first to go with PPC in our field.
Bob Lieberman, Managing Director
Glass Packaging Solutions LLC
PPC
When it costs $55 in PPC for a $60 product then the party is over.
Yes, party is over
Yes the party is over. It is still sucking up millions of dollars from the victims
of unscrupulous Google advertising prices politix.
It is close to impossible to make money thru PPC even after applying all the rules right.
And its not because of congestion on net. It is because of Google advertising prices politix.
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