ROI improves by 25% in 2009

As mentioned by Brand Republic last week, a recent study has shown that despite the reductions in online marketing spends during the last quarter of 2008, search engine advertisers have improved their ROI (Return on Investment) by 25% during the first three months of 2009.

PPC (Pay Per Click) spends have decreased by 6% year on year, which I expect is due to the fact that advertisers are now investing more in SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) as this has a long term benefit for their website.

The current economy is putting more pressure on marketers to generate higher returns for their spend.  I recommend using a strategy that combines both PPC and SEO to promote your website and generate returns, particularly if your business is fairly new to the online industry. This is because PPC provides an instant method of creating brand exposure within the market for your most important keywords and themes, whilst allowing you to keep a tight hold on your budgets.  Carefully selecting the correct keywords and ad texts for your PPC campaign can ensure a decent return on investment.
 
Due to the fact that it can take some time for the SEO work to materialize and your website may not populate the first page of organic results until a few months down the line, using PPC advertising in tandem with the SEO work will retain your position in the market until the SEO work on your site takes effect in the search engines.

Following this you may want to refine the PPC campaign, according to which keywords are working for you and which organic results have been achieved. However it is worth remembering that retaining listings in both mediums increases brand exposure, provides more chance of a user reaching your site and enables your company to gain a larger market share.