Measureable Results in Weeks not Years.
In their book The Ultimate Guide to Google Adwords authors Marshall and Todd propose the following pecking order of ads which clearly go from most to least measurable.
1. Google Paid Search
2. Search Engine Optimization (targeted only to terms which are proven money makers though Paid Search.
3. Other PPC Yahoo, MSN, etc..
4. E-mail Marketing
5. Affiliates
6. Banner Ads
7. Press releases (a guerilla SEO tactic)
8. Direct Mail
9. Print
I’d add TV and Radio to the lower end of this spectrum. This is from a blog post originally created in 2009, which is why social media is omitted, but I’d put things like Facebook PPC higher up the chart, maybe around position 3 or 4 and other social efforts like maintaining brand profiles and doing influencer marketing in the 5/6/7 area.
One thing that this list clearly demonstrates is that paid search will tell us how well customers are responding to our message immediately. Changes can be made quickly with Pay Per Click marketing, so we aren’t stuck with the same terrible looking magazine ad that our customers hate because that’s the one we decided to print weeks ago. It’s important to allocate resources based on return on investment. Starting with lower funnel efforts like earning high impression share for you core, top performing keywords and making sure that you’re ranking #1 for your branded SEO queries, and working up to higher funnel, awareness generating efforts with only budget that’s left over after maximizing these highly responsive channels, is the best way to maximize your return on ad spend.
Like to get some help analyzing how well your current efforts line up with this strategy? Schedule a complementary initial call today!
