Could a Monkey Sell Search Engine Advertising?

As a tactic, search engine advertising practically sells itself. Here's just one example:

I was recently asked by a somewhat price-sensitive client which tactic I would recommend they should do first: perform search engine optimization (SEO) on their Website or run a search engine advertising campaign for a few months.

I said go with the search engine advertising campaign, and here's why:

• They'd start to receive qualified traffic to their Website almost immediately versus waiting weeks or months for the SEO to kick in;
• This traffic could be directed to a very specific landing page (or set of pages) that could be fine-tuned to increase the conversion rate;
• The traffic they'd get would be from people within the client's specific geographic target market (in their case, Ontario);
• The client would quickly learn what people were searching for, which search terms generated the most clicks, and - most importantly - which search terms converted the best into leads;
• Learning from the search engine advertising campaign could then be applied to the SEO project and, perhaps, the client's offline campaigns; and
• All of this was guaranteed to happen within a fixed budget (agreed to in advance by the client) leaving little room for any last-minute surprises or overages.

Needless to say the client agreed with my recommendation and gave us an immediate green light on the search engine advertising campaign. We will also likely be doing the SEO project, but for now the client is happy to be receiving qualified traffic so quickly and so affordably.

I wish all Internet marketing tactics were as easy for clients to buy!