Why is it so difficult for small local businesses to do an online campaign successfully these days. Google has made fortunes from small businesses as they steered away from the portal model that Yahoo, AOL and Microsoft thought would make them fortunes. However, times have changed and so have user habits. Around 80% of online activity has at least one interaction with a search engine, and most likely its Google. Google figured out a way for businesses to list their offerings where people search, cap their monthly spend, and target certain geographic areas all for whatever budget the business has.
Yahoo was late in the game and still does not have the targeting and feature set that Google has and is struggling in the small business arena. They are also struggling with network buys as there are so many new networks starting up each week, the value of the portal buy is weakening. Yahoo at least offers a second place for a local business to advertise online however.
Once you get past Yahoo and Google, there aren’t really a whole lot of options for small businesses. Most networks and portals have such high monthly minimums, it does make sense to test. Some networks offer tests on smaller budgets, but small businesses so not have the time to talk to several networks and see who will offer a small test. Local media outlets like radio and TV station sites say they have the “best” local reach. That is just a saying from their offline sales strategy. I haev talked to very few who actually understand their own inventory and how most of it is ad networks.
Hopefully there will be another model that evolves where local businesses can be more aggressive in online advertising and make online ads more relevant to the local population. Otherwise, they are going to be tied to Google and Yahoo and try to apply search metrics to every online campaign.
March 6, 2008 at 3:15 am |
As a small (media) business owner that’s spent what I consider to be a fortune on google adwords I’m 100% sure that niche sites that put content and a passion for their sector – instead of just land-grabbing online classified spend – will soon emerge and provide a massive threat to google.
The big selling point for online is accountability. This is a 2-way street though, great to see what works but sickening to see that a lot of your spend is wasted.
And I know about optimising multiple keyword campaigns, and delivering a strong call to action when peole click through etc etc. That aside, the majority of clicks (albeit targeted to search terms) just don’t ring the tills.
Google clicks are down, share price is down, I can’t help feeling that after the initial rush people are pulling back from google. They created NEW advertising budgets within companies that wanted to play with online advertising, budgets that will rapidly be cut when it turns out not to be the magic cure it was billed as…