How to Maximize Paid Search Results

Because of increasing competition that has led to higher advertising costs with pay-per-click marketing, many battle-scarred – “do-it-yourself” – businesses have not realized their desired objectives. Although publicized as a straightforward, self-service marketing tool, pay-per-marketing involves far more knowledge than most businesses are able to invest in developing in-house. Faced with a moderately or less performing pay-per-click marketing program and the pressure to allocate resources elsewhere, many businesses choose to drop their pay-per-click marketing entirely – leaving a vast potential of sales for their competitors to harvest.

If you face pay-per-click marketing challenges, before you decide to drop the program, try these proven strategies to get it producing your desired results.Discover These Proven Strategies to Produce Quick Results.

Twelve Tips When Choosing a Search Marketing Consultant or Agency

Most businesses currently running SEM campaigns could vastly improve their performance with outside help. I can say this with confidence for two reasons: first, having worked with dozens of companies over the last eight years (most of whom have received millions in funding from top-tier Silicon Valley venture capital firms), I can speak from experience that I rarely go to a company that is doing search 100% right. This can range from very basic errors (no tracking and thus no insight into ROI) to more complex but no less important problems (misunderstanding of bidding strategy, insufficient ad text or landing page testing).

Second, most businesses aren’t in the business of search marketing – as such, they never really focus enough attention on their campaigns to really get it right. After meeting the senior executives at all those companies, as well as the marketing departments, I know that the personnel at these firms are incredibly bright and dedicated. But when search marketing is one of 15 things you need to do in a day, inevitably you end up doing a lot of things poorly instead of a few things well.

As a result, a lot of companies these days turn to outside consultants or agencies to help them with their search marketing campaigns. This can be an incredibly smart decision – if you pick the right firm. Picking the wrong firm can be a massive time suck and a financial disaster. Being someone who has been on both sides of the search consultant/agency negotiations (choosing the outsourcer and pitching to be the outsourced consultant), I’ve learned a few things along the way that will help you to make the right choice on your search marketing consultant or agency. Here’s my top 12 tips (not in order):