PPC Killed the Radio Star
As I was driving along in my car one evening, I was listening to a local radio station and I heard an advertisement for a local glazed doors company. They were reeling off reasons why their company and their products were so great, and, as a PPC Account Manager, I had to wonder: What was the point? Why were they wasting so much money on promoting such a specific product on the radio airwaves?
It was late in the evening when the ad went out on the radio station. At best, I would say that there were two or three thousand people paying attention to the audio ad. Out of those thousands of people, I had to ask myself: Exactly how many need a glazed door right now at 8pm on a Wednesday night?
This is the beauty of PPC (Pay-Per-Click advertising). If I was someone in the local area needed a new glazed door, they would come to you. They would type in ‘glazed doors’ in the Google, Yahoo or MSN search engines, click on a relevant ad and find your website.
Advertising budgets for such a precise product offering should not be spent on radio ads for my ears. I don’t need a glazed door; it will be several years before I need a glazed door, and, even after writing this article, I won’t remember the name of the company (let alone their phone number) by this time.
Even if this company was spending money on PPC AND radio ads, any money spent on the radio ads is a waste. It should all go on PPC – with the right keywords, the audience for PPC ads is always interested in glazed doors.
