We encourage you to look at your online advertising costs as an investment – you most definitely get a return on your investment when you make informed online advertising expenditures.
Everyone wants us to be able wrap up a cost quote in a neat little package for their online advertising. Estimating online advertising costs is only able to be done on a ballpark basis because it is very dependent upon the micro market of the keywords you are targeting, your overall budget, the advertising platform (Google, Bing, Facebook, etc.) and existing competitors in the market as well as new ones coming in daily. Sometimes we just don’t know the exact cost of a click until we get into the bidding process.
This should not deter you, however! It costs money to make money!
The fact is, you need to be in online advertising, and we simply turn off the terms that are costing more than you want to spend, and focus on the ones that are within your price range. Then, as business picks up from the lower cost ads hitting their mark, we add in the more expensive ones.
You will have these costs:
- Keyword research
- Advertising account setup
- Monthly management
- Monthly click fees when someone clicks your ad
You may have these costs as well, depending on your situation:
- Web site analysis
- Web site optimization
- Web site expansion (ie creating landing pages)
- Ongoing keyword research
- Alternative Placement research for additional platforms
For as little as $100 per month over the course of the first year, you can see if it is for you — and it only gets better over time.
At a minimum, you will have $500 in costs, which includes one hour of keyword research, account setup, and first month management for a small ten-phrase campaign. More likely your small business will have a slightly larger campaign and somewhere between $1,000 and $4,000, plus click fees (which are impossible to say until we know what industry you are in, and what your goals are). Ask us about Google new account discounts.
If your advertising budget is small, I suggest starting with a Bing Advertising account for Bing advertising and Yahoo advertising because the cost per click is generally much less than comparable phrases on Google Adwords.
What Do Clicks Cost?
Click fees are competitive bids, so in depends on what industry you are in, what geographic market you are in, and how well you have done with click-throughs in the past. They can range from about $1 a click to over $100 (most businesses, except for lawyers, don’t pay anywhere near $100). The tighter you stick to an exact descriptive phrase, the less expensive clicks are comparatively in your industry.
What Should My Monthly Ad Budget Be?
Again, this varies by industry and search terms you are after. If you have one term, in a non-competitive environment, you may only need to spend a couple hundred dollars! The more terms you add, the more you will add to your budget. Or you may choose to stay laser focused on a few great terms if you have good return on investment (R.O.I.). The thing to keep in mind is to allocate enough to get a good feel for your market – we suggest at least $600 per month for most industries.
Online Advertising Payment Policies
We set you up with your own PPC accounts, and you “invite” us, through that account, to be your Denver PPC management consultant for the account. Therefore, the actual click through costs are billed to your credit card via the entity you are advertising with (Google, Microsoft, etc.)
Our fees are based on hourly charges and you are invoiced at the end of each month, either a set fee, or variable, depending on our agreement. Payment is due within 20 days of the invoice. Generally, my services pay for themselves in saved click fees (not to mention all the new business you will be getting).
Do It Yourself Option
Although we highly recommend having a PPC expert work with your campaigns because we can save you LOTS of money with our expertise, for those of you who insist upon doing it yourself, you will need at least basic training.
One on One Google Adwords Training
$150 per hour at my office in Denver (Lowry)
Add $50 trip charge for training anywhere in metro Denver, or $50 per hour travel time outside the Denver metro area.
I can also train you on the Microsoft Bing Ads system, which is similar to Google Adwords.
Call 303-750-6114 now to get a better estimate of your costs for Denver online advertising.
