While perusing the ‘Ask the PPC Expert’ section of Search Engine Watch, I ran across a question that we often get asked as a PPC consulting company in Colorado:

Besides Google Adwords and Microsoft Adcenter, what other viable pay-per-click services are available?

The answers advocated using Facebook as another option for advertising and lead generation. While these are the three major sources of PPC advertising (Microsoft incorporating Yahoo advertising at this point), there are a few other ways in which we have found success in advertising, albeit more of a long-term approach. Let’s discuss.

LinkedIn® Advertising

In our lovely intern’s last post, "6 Reasons Your Business Should Love LinkedIn," one of the reasons was LinkedIn’s Direct Ads. We’d like to drill down into more of the particulars about why this is a great option for some businesses.

Let’s talk active versus passive advertising, because this is a key point in whether to advertise with LinkedIn or not. Because traditional pay-per-click is active advertising, (users actively searching for the information they need rather than the information finding them) it lends itself well to immediate lead results. But much like event sponsoring etc., passive advertising with LinkedIn can be a valuable tool as well.

Some people use Google Adwords and the content network as a form of passive advertising; bidding on general, non-action oriented keywords on the CPM model. While this is also a legitimate way to advertise, we believe that LinkedIn is more subtle and targeted. Because it is in a professional setting and given the amount that you advertise, people will associate your brand with professionalism.

Though it is not as large as Facebook, LinkedIn has an estimated 98 million members. This is valuable for two reasons. One, it is an extremely large audience. Two, that large audience is also more qualified to make decisions and actively looks for new vendors, new employees etc. LinkedIn advertising allows you to filter the audience (the size drops significantly), and improve your relevancy to a specific audience. And as we all know, relevance is the key to successful search.

One of the best things about LinkedIn advertising is the ability to create brand awareness. I’m sure this is difficult to quantify, but how many times have you needed a business and you immediately recall one you have seen in passing? This is what LinkedIn advertising offers, and it does it in a very professional setting. Brand awareness is the key to acquiring long-term customers.

Given that it is largely professionally-driven, LinkedIn advertising is something that as a PPC consulting company we would recommend for our B2B clients, rather than B2C customers.

Facebook

Though it has been extremely controversial for them, the contextually-based advertising that Facebook offers is quite powerful. Controversy aside, you have to see its potential for success. It can take the nuances of each individual profile (Interests, School Attended, etc.) and serve ads based on those words. I have even been known to click and partake in a Simple Shoe sale based on an advertisement I was served on Facebook.

Like LinkedIn, Facebook is another form of passive advertising, though it tends to get better click-through-rates. This is due partly to the target audience demographics (more intent on impulse-purchase) and the sheer size (500,000,000 users and counting).

Facebook advertising is a tactic that we would recommend to our B2C clients, because it lends itself well to retail and consumer-oriented companies. This tactic would help drive website conversion optimization.