Advertising has come a long way from its historical roots. With Internet customers relying more on search engines than newspaper ads or yellow pages, to find the products and services they want, it becomes necessary to be ‘visible’ on search engine results.
Since search engines contribute to website traffic immensely more and more B2B companies are aggressively pursuing Search Engine Marketing (SEM) activities. Touted to be the top ranked online marketing automation technique in recent times, SEM activities play a primary role in driving website traffic and contributing highly for lead generation as well. Today, B2B companies have also increased their spending for SEM as well, thereby making SEM a high priority activity for lead generation.
Google is the most powerful search engine. It gathers sorts and showcases search results which match very accurately to the search terms. But Google also offers a very powerful Intent based advertising platform for businesses. Google advertising can be placed on search networks or on content networks.
Search Network
A search engine displays the ads in response to the initial search query sent by the user. You can see some search results displayed on top of search results or on the sides – these are PPC ads where the advertiser only pays once the ads are clicked on. Google search networks provide added benefits of:
- Targeted advertising
- Better advertiser ROI than untargeted ads
- Improved user experience
Content Network
Google search technology places advertisements on the most relevant content page, thereby enhancing the chances of getting clicked. Ads are also placed in content publishing sites such as About.com, iVillage, etc.; so that the user search experience is highly gratifying. Some of the other places where a marketer’s ads are put up include Google search partner sites like AOL.com, Amazon.com, YouTube, Gmail, etc.
Benefits of Google Advertising
- Brand Awareness – Google has access to over 60% of Internet users and hence, B2B marketers can make targeted impressions on buyer groups.
- High Lead Quality – By making the marketer and his product visible to prospective buyers, Google advertising indirectly contributes to generating high qualified leads and reducing cost per lead expenditure.
- Timing – Google advertising helps marketers reach audience at the right time, with the right message.
- Flexibility – Marketers can view their ads on Google within minutes of creating them, can make unlimited changes to it and, target ads to the specific location and day of the week or particular time every day.
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