Why Pay-Per-Click Search Engine Marketing (SEM) Isn't the Only Place to Spend Your B2B Advertising Budget

Google has played a tremendous role in the evolution of online advertising. With their dominant position in the search engine world, they have effectively changed the ways that people buy and sell. They pioneered and popularized the pay-per-click model. With this model, an advertiser only pays when a reader clicks on the advertisement. 

This model definitely seems like a win-win for advertisers – they only pay when their audience engages, which is why it is so popular. Unfortunately for advertisers, clicking (for any number of reasons) may be the only action that the audience is taking. Google is not responsible for what happens after a user clicks, which means your “click dollars” could be getting wasted on an audience who isn’t going to engage further and/or buy your product or service. There is no additional qualification of the prospect who clicked. As well, the amount that an advertiser pays for their click is dependent on the popularity of the keyword that got the audience there in the first place. There are obvious limitations with this model.

Non-Engaged Clickers

While clicking can be a sign that someone is interested in what you have on offer, it can also mean nothing. People often click links for a number of reasons, not all related to them being remotely interested in your product or service or even ready to buy. This means that advertisers are paying for clicked links that may mean zero.

A Click-Through May Not Be Enough

The goal of advertisers using search engine advertising is that all-encompassing click. But, what is a click if it doesn’t lead anywhere? Engagement before, after and around a click is actually the most important part, because that is what further qualifies a prospect and help lead up to the sale, which is usually the end goal of the entire process. Figuring out what a user does before and after they click is one of the keys to recognizing if you are targeting the right audience.  

The Audience Isn’t Pre-Qualified

Rather than focusing only on a narrow action like a click, a better strategy is to focus on the quality of an action. Many advertisers have been trained to get a measureable action (i.e., a click) and aren’t focusing on how far that audience is going. Traditionally, brand advertising allowed for placement of an advertisement next to the most-appropriate content and against a prequalified/predisposed audience. Unfortunately, many advertisers no longer value this (especially online) as an important part of the marketing and sales process. But, the biggest value that was had by that method was that the audience was (theoretically) prequalified as one that had an interest in that brand, product or solution.

If an advertiser is used to paying for a result online, a focus on result (versus an action) can still be the end goal. Rather than paying per click, advertisers should focus on paying per qualified lead. Companies like TCI are able to deliver qualified leads as a pay-for-performance program within a desired audience, ensuring that each click in the process is valuable and expected. Our program software lets humans and technology check your leads multiple times to make sure they’re really good. We only promote your technology to people who tell us they work with it.  

The most effective B2B online campaigns, therefore, should go beyond the all-revered click of SEM and make sure to include lead-generation programs that are specifically tailored to providing an outcome.