Pay Per Click Ads can be Wasteful

Yesterday I found myself in a competitive conversation with a friend whom works in the Internet Marketing Industry.  My friend, TC, has an MBA from Harvard and a long track record of high level positions in the Home Improvement Industry.  TC asked me, "Describe the steps about how to develop and manage a pay-per-click ad campaign that has a multi-million dollar budget for a company like ADT Home Security?"

As I began to describe the standard steps of research and consulting with his salesforce and salesforce management team, I stopped dead in my tracks to quote a statistic.  I have seen in several research reports that approximately 80% of Web users prefer organic listings over sponsored listings.  What that means is that 80% of people who search on a major search engine are most likely to click on an unpaid listing.  Essentially, a pay-per-click ad campaign only has the potential to perform at it's absolute highest efficiency rate of 20%.  That 20% possibility is nearly impossible to reach, because there are competitors' ads alongside yours.

It's the 80% that you want.  I know how to get that 80%, or at least close to it.  With a multi-million dollar budget, you can certainly buy organic listings of virtually every keyword and phrase that people use to search a particular subject.  If you can't buy it, then buy a spot on it.  I hope not to hurt my friend's feelings when I pickup the phone to have the second part of our conversation on Tuesday, but I am going to tease him about that saying of having more money than brains.