I heard a staggering statistic the other day during a radio segment on advertising.
The revenue coming in to Google for their Ad Words and related offerings is 150% more than the ad revenue of all of the newspapers in the U.S. combined.
We all know that ad revenue in daily papers has been declining for some time. But this statistic is really staggering. To think even just ten years ago that ad revenue in daily papers would be only a tiny fraction of an online advertising service was unthinkable.
But it’s all about how people search to get information today (face it, it’s almost all online) and how they buy. It’s not that Google stole the ad revenue; it’s that people’s search habits have changed.
When considering online advertising as compared to traditional methods, b-to-b and consumer advertisers alike benefit from almost instant testing and measurement of their ads.
For example, with Google Ad Words you can test different creative and offers and landing pages and measure the results within hours and days of your ad placements. You can also measure ROI via Google’s conversion tracking. And all of this analytical support is free.
I think that every company that sells anything should at least test Google Ad Words. And it’s not just the broad reach that Google has; they’ve been very committed to providing advertisers with better and better tools and support. You can even talk live to a Google rep. Imagine that!