For us, PPC certainly gives us a feeling that we are controlling our advertising because we can measure results directly.
However the big brands and established businesses didn't get where they are without some brand-building exercises. After all you don't actually sell any widgets through TV directly as you might sell them via a PPC campaign.
Problem is that just measuring conversion is not a measure of advertising effectiveness.
Adwords on search is targeting people who are actively looking and therefore more likely to convert than adsense. So naturally search seems to carry more value than content.
But many of the content sites will be for our niche market, just like a magazine.
So we think we should be adding an unknown value 'x' to the content campaign, because of the exposure we are likely getting to our target audience, despite the fact that the content sites might not convert as well as search.
Google knows this, its got 'Ads by Google' on everything and I believe they have recently said that Adsense is viewed as a marketing cost or something to that effect. So they certainly place value on content advertising.
Some sites don't care about branding, customer loyalty, etc - they just want to make a sale - NOW. These sites run campaigns by strict ROI, and if content targeting can't convert, then its gone for them.
Some sites are new or run low profit margins, and while they can afford to pay for some branding, they still must at least break even on all advertising expenditures. If they have a long term vision, and willing to take a few risks, then they might also take into consideration the value of a lifetime customer, which might allow them to run a short term campaign at a slight loss, but it's not really a loss as the lifetime customer factor will kick in and it will be profitable within the year.
Yet there are other sites who want it all - branding and sales. These sites are looking not only at the past month sales stats, but projecting for the rest of the year as well. These sites should measure ROI, as while they don't mind adding the value of branding to their costs, they should be able to at least control how much they are willing to spend on just branding (i.e. willing to take $x loss on content clicks). Their ppc campaigns should run at a profit/break even - and then watch their total visitor counts, and repeat customers, to measure the effectiveness of long term branding and profits.
Finally, there are purely branding campaigns. These sites may convert traffic into sales depending on how they make money. However, these sites might make their money through affiliate campaigns, selling newsletter advertising, etc. They often measure conversions in newsletter sign ups or some way that is not directly measured by the almightily dollar. They are willing to pay for branding, as they want people to use them for info sources, and then get make their money through these other means. This is the hardest conversion to measure if your PPC campaigns are effective, as often your estimating that you make $x on each newsletter, the average person views x newsletters before unsubscribing/changing email address, and the cost of a sign was $x. They often deal in relative figures, but if they are willing to do the math/tracking, can make some very accurate statements as to the bottom line of PPC campaigns.
The bottom line is to first define the goals of your website. Then to track the effectiveness of what you consider a conversion. Finally, estimate the value of both conversions and branding. Figure out how much you're willing to spend in profits for branding. And then check your visitor hits, especially bookmarks/direct referrals to see if your branding is paying off into people coming directly to your site.
Branding is hard to measure, but it can be measured to some degree.
If you bid lower on adsense it is a pretty good deal. We get about 8k impressions at a *very* reasonable price. We don't get many clicks (but that is ok) and Google seems to have much lower CTR thresholds on adsense (haven't lost any words).
Google seems to have much lower CTR thresholds on adsense
I don't belive G ever disables your content ads. The only way ads are disabled (because of CTR) is by KW status, and those stats come from G's site only.
One caveat, you *do* have to bid your 'content' campaign up enough to get the impressions, but this amount has been falling of late. I suspect more and more advertisters are separating out adsense bids and lowering them accordingly.
Or it could be the new Smart Pricing, either way it is a good deal.
I don't think I agree that the measure of sucess for 'branding' is the click. Unless you mean a later click, or call.
[edited by: nyet at 1:58 pm (utc) on May 4, 2004]
Many search based ads are looking for CTR, so the site name might not even be displayed in the ad except for the URL. While this is not a bad way togo for higher CTRs, it doesn't give you the branding by impression - only by click.
<edited>Nyet beat me to my point<edited>
