Branding With A Pay Per Click Twist

By Neal Lebar
Posted Tuesday, February 10, 2004

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is an outstanding media to use to Brand your mark (company or products). Through search engine browsing, your target prospect comes directly to you, searching for what you’re offering. If you’re in the top few positions the prospect will see your mark over and over again – even if they don’t click on your link. Since you are only charged when someone actually clicks on your link, you may actually pay a very small amount for advertising but have tremendous frequency and reach for your campaign.

When I began marketing for one of my clients about 15 months ago using PPC, I never expected or intended to "Brand" their company. It was thrilling enough that our acquisition cost and volume was considerably better than with traditional advertising. The impact of the branding that we have inadvertently accomplished is paying dividends big time, less than one year later.

The Great Equalizer

One day about 9 months into the PPC campaign, four people in suits – white shirts and dressed to kill, show up at my client’s office. They represented the sales manager down to the area rep. for a new product. They found us on the Internet and were cold calling in the area - as they said, "you’re ads are everywhere on the Net." They assumed from our Internet presence that our client was a large company with hundreds of employees. The expression on their faces was priceless as they were told, "what you see is what we’ve got", as they looked at the five full time employees in the 1,500 sq foot office. I like to refer to the Internet as "The Great Equalizer", since you have the power to look and act like a major corporation, until, they come for a visit :)

Frequency and Reach

The basics behind Branding lie in the frequency of the ad and the percent of your target market reached. Conceptually, the prospect needs to see the ad over and over again (15 to 20 times) before they act. This has been true with traditional media such as TV, Radio, Direct Mail and Print. Initially, I thought that PPC didn’t fit into this model as people are searching specifically for your products, however the results have proven different. I had never considered the exposure we were getting from the 99% that did NOT click on our ad (link).

PPC campaigns that I have run for an extended period of time are now proving that Branding is paying off. Using the same budget as a year ago and maintaining the top 3 positions for most of the keywords over that time are delivering increases in acquisitions by more than 50%. Certainly, there are many factors to consider such as market growth, competition and the cost per acquisition. I’ve spent a considerable amount of time analyzing these factors to conclude that the factors have remained relatively constant and the only logical explanation is the strength of our Branding. Maintaining the top positions for more than 150 keywords, everyday for over a year has made this brand recognizable to our target market. People will search for a product and then come back again and again to do further research before they buy. If your brand is constantly in front of them, when they’re ready, they will act. On the other hand, if your ad disappears and is no longer listed, you will lose the opportunity and continuity.

50,000 Viewers Daily

Millions of searches are performed everyday by millions of people using millions of keywords. In addition, less than 1% of these searches results in a click to a top listed site. This means that for every time a top link is clicked, there are 99 other times that the ad is viewed for free. If the ad is in one of the top positions, it’s guaranteed to be seen every time. Here lies the great value of PPC in regard to Branding – 99% of the time it’s FREE! The 1% of the time that the link is clicked on, a relevant prospect visits your website. It turns out that a successful PPC sales campaign can also result in a successful Branding campaign. In addition, if your main goal is to Brand your mark, it’s free 99% of the time – sounds like a win – win here.

Consider these numbers: If you receive 500 clicks a day, approximately 50,000 people will view your Brand mark every day (this assumes a 1% click through rate). In one year, about 4,000,000 people will have viewed your Brand mark.

What sets PPC apart from most other advertising is that the prospective customers are looking (searching) for your products. With TV, Radio, Direct Mail, Print and other traditional media, very few of the people are actually looking for the products being advertised. In addition, you're only charged when someone clicks on your link and visits your website.

One factor that is very important when Branding your mark is, frequency. It’s essential that you maintain consistency of exposure for an extended period of time. It takes several months to Brand a mark and when you have, the numbers will tell the story and the suits will start showing up at your door.

About The Author
Neal Lebar has helped launch several Internet based companies since 1996. He has proven that Internet marketing absolutely works and can generate returns far greater than traditional media. Visit - innovate-inc.com, extenderware.com or write nlebar@innovate-inc.com.