Pay per Click advertising work?

A few weeks ago, I was giving a talk to a business group and against better judgement, got into a bit of an arguement. Basically, someone had asked what the best way to generate online leads for estate agents is, my response was to:
1) Create a free piece of content a lead magnet) like a webinar or eBook helping buyers/sellers solve a problem
2) Create a landing page for people opt in to an email list
3) Drive traffic to the page using Adwords or Facebook
4) Send emails and include a section in your lead magnet selling a free strategy session with you
5) Retarget people who haven’t contacted you yet
6) Have a coffee and quit cold-calling for a while because you’ve found a new lead gen method

What is PPC?
If you’re not familiar with the term, PPC, it stands for pay-per-click, a powerful advertising method used by Google and Facebook.

You set up a specifically targeted ad, and pay a fee when users click on it. The amount you pay per click depends on a number of factors, including your relevance to the target market and the competitiveness of the kind of ads you’re running.

I was suggesting that using a combination of PPC, email marketing and content marketing was the best way that I know of to get leads coming in.This was met with some ire from a defensive guest who thought I was trying to sell something.

There’s two sides to every story, I guess, so I won’t pretend to be the hero here. He might tell you a different story.

His response? What I was saying has been said 100 times, and that he was “generating PPC leads a decade ago when it actually worked.

”So the question is, does PPC work anymore? Yes, but only if you know what you’re doing.Ten years ago, the landscape of the internet was very different. Facebook was just gaining steam, and Google was a dominant force, but not the world-domination level company it is today.

As a result, both were a little more desperate for advertising money. Advertising was a lot less competitive, since the average businessperson hadn’t caught up to the technology and targeting options that Google and Facebook were offering.

If you were putting up ads on Google Adwords, you were paying ridiculously low prices for a high number of clicks, since it was way less competitive back then. You didn’t even have to be a particularly savvy marketer. Any old ad and website would do.

Cut to 10 years later, when Google and Facebook have grown exponentially. They are way less reliant on any old advertising dollars. They only want the best to win.

As a result, advertising has gotten a lot more expensive and competitive, since many business owners have at least dipped their feet into PPC marketing. The room for error and sloppy marketing is gone.

So when this defensive guest called me out, saying it didn’t work anymore, my mind automatically assumes that because he’s an estate agent, then he’s probably a really good estate agent and not an expert online marketer.

That’s just the reality of online marketing today. Unless you take the time to really study it and take it seriously, you’re never going to get the result you want. You have to commit completely and be willing to take some risks to get the massive rewards waiting online.

The pile of cash sitting on Facebook is still there, but it’s a lot harder to pick up.

If you want to discuss a marketing strategy that can get online leads coming to you within a month, feel free to contact me to chat about getting started.
We’ll discuss a plan for creating a lead generation system that gets buyer or seller leads coming to you automatically and consistently. Click here to schedule a time to talk with me.

I’m not going to be a pushy salesman about it. It doesn't suit everyone and I'd much rather work with someone who can get customers and make money, than someone who can't. Let’s just see if we’re a good fit.

Click on the link above and it will take you to my calendar, where you can book a time that suits you.

Thanks
Adrian