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Tiffany M. Guarnaccia, Searchfeed.com Corporate Communications
Tiffany heads the Corporate Communications Department for Searchfeed.com, a leader in Pay Per Click (PPC) search advertising. In this position, she provides advertisers, web publishers and Internet users with information on PPC advertising and content integration technology, mainly relating to small-to-medium-sized, industry-specific websites and portals. Tiffany has written many byline articles and spoke at educational online seminars covering advanced online advertising methods, while highlighting Searchfeed.com's goal of educating the Internet community on topics related to search.

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From PPC to Prosperity: How the SEM Tool Can Be Used to Build Brand Value

Written on
December 4th 2006
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by Tiffany Guarnaccia  |
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Can Pay-Per-Click advertising (PPC) be used to build brands? The answer is a resounding ‘yes.’ A Pay-Per-Click campaign has the power to improve the visibility and perception of a brand. It reassures potential customers, engenders trust, and most importantly, can keep a brand front of mind at a critical stage in the buying process.

PPC Branding Strategies
There are several online branding strategies that advertisers can employ to leverage PPC as a branding tool. Here are three key areas.

1. Reinforce Integrated Campaigns
Keep in mind that integration goes beyond creative and into planning. In order to reinforce integrated campaigns, advertisers need to amplify existing straplines and maximize available budgets to prevent channels working in isolation. For example, if using a specific brand tagline within a print campaign, incorporate that tagline in your PPC listing as well.

2. Position The Brand Alongside Competition
Marketers must ask “What’s the risk of my brand of not being listed?” Market leaders should use search to ‘own’ categories and non-marker leaders should use search to punch above their weight in branding terms. After all, it is one of the most cost-effective advertising mediums. Brand loyalties can be severed easily via this online medium. Therefore, be aware of the web’s immediacy. Competitors are just ‘one click away.’

3. Protect The Brand’s Equity Online
To protect brand equity online ‘own’ the brand across every touch point. Protect the equity established through offline media and control how the brand is interpreted online. For example, what is the message to take-away from the user experience? Work hard to achieve its consistency across all ad channels.

Put yourself in your customer’s shoes
AIDA — the classic marketing model of Awareness, Interest, Decision, Action. PPC Ads can help across all the stages of the buying cycle. In a PPC campaign strategy, awareness represents the general branding aspect of the campaign and the action component represents the ultimate acquisition of the product by a customer.

Based on these various buying cycle points, campaigns can be tailored to the needs of the customer. In order for PPC to be used effectively as a branding tool, take the various stages of the buying cycle into account and craft the campaign accordingly.

Putting it all Together
When looking to PPC as a branding tool, don’t forget the basics. All the core elements of a PPC campaign must still be taken into consideration. Starting with keyword selection, use generic terms for ‘category’ ownership and specific terms at the point of acquisition. For example, a generic term being ‘woman’s sneakers’ and a specific term being ‘woman’s Nike cross training sneakers.’ Effective bidding and positioning strategies are critical to increased brand visibility.

To use PPC Ads as more of a branding tool, its important to ensure you are within the top 3 Ads to gain maximum exposure. Also remember to consider the landing page that a customer clicks through to. Focus on the idea of consistency; does your PPC Ad support the central branding message and is that message reiterated on the page they click-through to in a structured, cohesive manner?

Pay-Per-Click has altered the conversation regarding branding and direct response. The conversation is now with an ‘and’ whereas with other advertising mediums, it used to be with an ‘or’.



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