Benefits of Google AdWords

• No minimum buy
• Easy and fast creation
• Almost immediate implementation
• Pay only for clicks
• Bid for placement
• Set maximum cost per day
• Stop or pause campaign at any time

No minimum buy - Before options like AdWords and Overture existed, buying a highly targeted ad or a keyword buy could cost thousands of dollars. AdWords allows you spend whatever amount you want--no minimum. You can run or test a campaign for $10 a day or less.

Easy and fast creation - Once you set up an account at Google, you can begin to create ads whenever you want. Simply log in, name your campaign, and enter the headline, short body copy, and destination link. Finally, you can pick your keywords and phrases. Google's keyword selection tools help you to identify alternate words and phrases and provide you with some data on how frequently certain phases are searched. TIP: This can also be a useful tool for researching your website's title tag's potential effectiveness--see April's newsletter "Search Engine Optimization Strategy.."

Almost immediate implementation - To give you a sense of how fast and easy this can be done, I just paused in writing this newsletter and set up a key phrase ad using the phrase "agency alliance." It took me less than 10 minutes to set up. If you go to Google and search for "agency alliance" you will see our ad in the right hand column. It began appearing within 20 minutes of having set it up.

Pay only for clicks - When you view our ad, we pay nothing. If you click our ad we pay for the click. Now don't get any crazy ideas like going there and depleting our checking account by clicking all day. Google's system protects against multiple clicks from the same user. It also sets a maximum amount of cost per day.

Bid for placement - How much does a click cost? That depends on what you're willing to bid and on how much you might have to bid based on the key phrase popularity. If you list an obscure phrase such as "agency alliance," you don't have to bid very much. A popular keyword like "travel" can cost as much as $55 per click to bid for top placement! When you bid on a term or phrase, you are telling Google the maximum you're willing to pay for the click against others who have bid on that term. If the next highest bidder is much less than your maximum bid, you will only pay slightly more than the lower bid for top placement.

Set maximum cost per day - Additionally, you can cap your AdWords campaign spending at a predefined amount per day. If you get a lot of activity, you can tell Google not to display your ad after a certain amount has been spent. Once this threshold has been reached, your ad will not display until the following day.

Stop or pause campaign at any time - If you want to make adjustments, you can edit your ad at any time. You can also pause or stop a campaign at any time.