You've Tried Pay-Per-Click Advertising and Failed...Now What?

Let's face it. Failure is just a part of life. It happens. We have heard on several occasions a few statements like these:

I've already tried AdWords and it just didn't work.

A couple years ago we did PPC and we just wasted our money.

We tried it...but our customers just don't click on ads.

We understand your frustrations. As a small business we know that every dollar counts. But, it is important to understand that everything is not automatically a home run. If you have already tried sponsored advertising and didn't think it worked well for you, it is time to revisit.

5 Things to Think About Before Restarting Your Sponsored Advertising Efforts

1. If you just do the same thing you did the first time, don't expect different results.
2. What is the ultimate outcome you are trying to achieve. Be more specific than "get more business". Layout a few specific goals such as, I want to generate 20% more online leads for _________ or, I want grow my email marketing list by 60%. Once you establish your goals, you can work backwards to build your accounts so you don't waste money on ad spend that doesn't help you achieve those goals.
3. Be honest with yourself. Do you have the knowledge and time to do it yourself? If not, hire an agency to manage your AdWords account or start making yourself more knowledgeable and setting aside time for management. Avoid the set-it-and-forget-it routine. You've already failed at this once, it's time to succeed.
4. How are you measuring success? Some businesses see that money goes out and they just automatically consider it a failure, especially if they are capturing leads instead of actual sales. Learn how to measure ROI if that is how you measure success. Just make sure you have some measurable goals in place to determine whether or not your efforts were actually successful.
5. Make sure your website is in order. We think marketing is great...we live for it! But remember, with cost-per-click (CPC) advertising you are paying for people to see your website. If you send them to something that makes you look bad or makes them leave immediately...you've just wasted some money. If possible, send them to landing pages!

We want you to be successful! We believe that sponsored advertising can be successful for any business in the world if done right. Remember, you have the ability to show an ad only to individuals that are looking for your product/service and only pay when that search clicks on your ad. Do it right, you'll succeed!