Eric Holter outlines a number of great benefits available through online advertising to business owners using Google Adwords. So let’s see what he has to write about this…

• No minimum buy
• Easy and fast creation
• Almost immediate implementation
• Pay only for clicks
• Bid for placement
• Set maximum cost per day
• Stop or pause campaign at any time

No minimum buy – Before options like AdWords and Overture existed, buying a highly targeted ad or a keyword buy could cost thousands of dollars. AdWords allows you spend whatever amount you want–no minimum. You can run or test a campaign for $10 a day or less.

Easy and fast creation – Once you set up an account at Google, you can begin to create ads whenever you want. Simply log in, name your campaign, and enter the headline, short body copy, and destination link. Finally, you can pick your keywords and phrases. Google’s keyword selection tools help you to identify alternate words and phrases and provide you with some data on how frequently certain phases are searched.

Almost immediate implementation – To give you a sense of how fast and easy this can be done, I just paused in writing this newsletter and set up a key phrase ad using the phrase “agency alliance.” It took me less than 10 minutes to set up and began appearing within 20 minutes of having set it up.

Pay only for clicks – When you view our ad, we pay nothing. If you click our ad we pay for the click. Now don’t get any crazy ideas like going there and depleting our checking account by clicking all day. Google’s system protects against multiple clicks from the same user. It also sets a maximum amount of cost per day.

Bid for placement – How much does a click cost? That depends on what you’re willing to bid and on how much you might have to bid based on the key phrase popularity. If you list an obscure phrase such as “agency alliance,” you don’t have to bid very much. A popular keyword like “travel” can cost as much as $55 per click to bid for top placement! When you bid on a term or phrase, you are telling Google the maximum you’re willing to pay for the click against others who have bid on that term. If the next highest bidder is much less than your maximum bid, you will only pay slightly more than the lower bid for top placement.

Set maximum cost per day – Additionally, you can cap your AdWords campaign spending at a predefined amount per day. If you get a lot of activity, you can tell Google not to display your ad after a certain amount has been spent. Once this threshold has been reached, your ad will not display until the following day.

Stop or pause campaign at any time – If you want to make adjustments, you can edit your ad at any time. You can also pause or stop a campaign at any time.

Other uses for AdWords:

Because Google AdWords are so quick and easy to buy, they allow you to test, change, and adjust them as much as you want. Aside from the primary purpose of driving traffic to a website, Google AdWords can be a fast and inexpensive way of testing messages, offers, and positioning to be used in other advertising mediums. Not sure if people would respond to an offer worded one way or the other? Try using the different phrases in a couple of Google AdWord campaigns to see which one performs better. This a fast and inexpensive way of testing, and it also creates value as you test, since the test will be sending visitors to the client’s website!

Google AdWords have reinvigorated the online advertising world. Learning to use this easy and inexpensive advertising option can add to your agency’s offerings, refine your current services, and multiply your existing efforts. Online advertising is definitely worth a second look!

Source: Eric Holter – http://www.linkedin.com/in/ericholter