You have a great site and it’s getting some web traffic, but you want to increase your market visibility quickly, effectively, and in the most cost-efficient way. It’s time to do some Internet marketing, but where to start? A great first step is utilizing advertising networks. But there are nearly as many advertising networks out there as there are web sites, so whom should you use? While the opportunities are nearly endless, your budget may dictate limits. In this article, I will discuss a few of the primarily ad networks and give you the information you need—before you spend your precious advertising dollars.
In writing these reviews, I gathered data and information both my personal current dealings with each network and an informal focus group of small and medium-sized businesses. Each network was tested by at least two different industries for 60 days or more. While informative, this approach was hardly scientific, so consider this information as a guide and not a rulebook. After all, each industry campaign and ad network will experience different levels of success, so your experience may be different.
For each individual advertising network I will be focusing on the Spending & Competition, Ease of Use, and Customer Service. Additionally, we also created pros and cons for each of the networks we are reviewing. The advertising networks we reviewed are a few of the largest and most well known:
Google AdWords Review
Google is a monster of a company, spanning the globe with numerous tools and resources for any type of business. Not just a search engine, but we are talking email, documents and spreadsheets, maps, and the list continues to grow every year. As Google receives about 85% of the worldwide search market share, most people normally go here first.
This does NOT MEAN that every business or entity will thrive on Google AdWords and that alone. There are many contributing factors that will decide what the best advertising network will be so it is imperative that a test be made to try ALL of the advertising networks.
Spending & Competition
This is where it gets complicated. Because of Google’s extensive reach, competition by keyword in the Google network can be fierce (depending on the type of product or service). Because of this competition, you can spend a big chunk of change for your ad, and only get a handful of click throughs—meaning general searches will potentially cost you as much as $55.00 a click or more. It’s like giving everyone who visits your site a gift certificate for a nice dinner—without them making a purchase or even promising to visit your site again! It is often a more cost-effective approach to research less common and more subject-specific “niche” keywords to describe your product to decrease your competition using Googles extensive keyword search tools.
Ease of Use
Here is where Google really shines—it’s so simple my 4 year old daughter could do it! It is very simple to create an account, and is by far the easiest network with which to coordinate your campaigns. There is a very expansive FAQ section and help guide, and the extensive forums and chat rooms filled with like-minded business owners that are happy to offer you advice and share experiences can’t be beat—and backed with analytics and cross-channel marketing, this networking tool is a top notch service.
Customer Service
Google employs some of the nicest people I have ever chatted with/spoken to. Whether I had a general question, billing concern, or a question on how items operate, my questions were answered perfectly—both by phone, email, or chat. However, they cannot currently help you optimize your marketing goals on the phone. They have optimizer tools to help maximize your campaign potential, and reports they can send you with advice on how to improve, but offering this type of service will probably understandably never happen.
Pros and Cons of Google Adwords
Pros
- Extensive number of tools and resources that can provide a complete and detailed marketing picture
- Easy to set up conversion tracking and multiple campaign testing
- Very smart machine that will rotate the best performing ads and keywords
Cons
- On more than one occasion, the companies polled all noticed the level of customer service changed depending on how much you spent. Those businesses who spent small amounts monthly were offered only email support, while those with large spends had email and IM chat help.
- Can be very expensive, depending on the market.
- With all advertising networks, once the money stops coming in, so does the traffic.
My name is Jay Mcleod, and I have been working in Internet Marketing professionally for almost 10 years. I love the industry as a whole, and would love to train everyone on how to run a successful business online, regardless of the business. Whether you are a "newbie" or a seasoned veteran on Internet Marketing, I hope to give you valuable insight and advice to a successful Internet Marketing program. 
