Is pay-per-click (PPC) advertising really worth it? If you’ve got the funds, PPC advertising may be something that a marketing company is encouraging you to make an investment in.  However, is paying for users to click on your banner ad really worth it in the long run?

First consider how much the advertising will cost you per click. This all comes down to how popular the search terms are and how many visitors a website receives. Search engines typically require bids for particular places in the ad spots on particular pages. If you bid too low, you’re outta luck. If you bid too high, then you’ve got the spot but you’ve out-priced yourself. You’ve got to find a happy median, which takes time and careful analysis.

Also consider the fact that with PPC advertising, you could be charged for multiple clicks by the same users. Software like Google Analytics will typically alert you if this happens and you will need to contact the search engine to get your money back. Make sure your marketing company monitors this so you won’t end up spending extra dollars for the same person over and over again.

Keep in mind that search engine optimization (SEO), which is cheaper to implement, also works just as well as PPC advertising. Many times simple SEO may generate the same, if not more, people to your website than a banner ad. It may be beneficial to implement SEO marketing first before starting a PPC campaign to see just how well you may be from keyword searches alone.

As with any traffic driving tool, PPC advertising just drives traffic to your website. It can be rather chaotic determining how much of the traffic is actually useful traffic (that is people who are consuming your product or service). If only a few of the ten thousand clicks you paid for actually bought into your product, then you may need to re-evaluate your SEM campaign.

Using analytic software such as Google Analytics is the best way to monitor how effective your SEM campaign is working. While some companies may have great success with PPC advertising, be sure to evaluate the real cost of the investment to determine if it is a necessary endeavor.