UK SME's and PPC

Mel Carson posted some research details on the adcenter blog a while back about the perception UK small Business had of PPC advertising.

Apparently...
"The research which questioned 400 UK SMBs, reveals 44% of SMBs not doing search marketing think it is too time consuming; 56% think it is too expensive; and 33% too complicated. However, 76% of SMBs promoting their website on search engines see an immediate increase in sales."

Mel then goes on to "expose" the myths

Myth 1: Over a third (34%) of respondents think it would take a day or more to set up a campaign. In reality, the time taken from opening an account to it going live can take as little as 15 minutes.

Fact 1 : Ok so technically you can get an ad up and running in 15 minutes but let's be realistic. To create campaigns of any real value takes time, knowledge and patience.

Myth 2: Some 56% cite cost as a top reason why SMBs will not invest, with a quarter of all SMBs thinking the best keywords are already taken. Actually, SMBs can invest as little as 10-20 pence per click or a monthly budget of around £5.

Yup, cant argue with that one!

Myth 3: Many are put off by the idea that it sounds too complicated – with the overwhelming majority (89%) thinking it was more difficult than online banking. However, SMBs can easily manage accounts from their desk and are likely to see immediate results from just a few simple keywords.

Fact 3: Mmmmm not sure about that one Mel! Don't know who you bank with but as much as I love adCenter it's not the easiest interface in the world.

What's perhaps more interesting in the report are the stats for those SME's who tried to set their own accounts up but gave up! 33% of those thought it was too complicated. 44% thought it was too time consuming and over half thought it was too expensive.

Of course, I am biased but like any sophisticated system, the better your knowledge the more you're likely to get out of it. We see lots of accounts that have initially been setup by managers and business people with better things to do with their time.

Any agency worth their salt will reward their clients with better quality traffic and at a lower cost which should more than cover any fees they charge.

PPC engines have a vested interest in persuading clients that creating and running PPC campaigns is a walk in the park. The reality is somewhat different. It'd be nice to see AdCenter, Google and Yahoo actively promoting the use of agencies and in the long term it'd pay off for them too. The better a campaign is run, the more likely a client is to continue invest in marketing spend which is of course good news for the engines.

Qualifications such as AdWords Professional and AdExcellence help to promote agencies but we could do with these being more actively promoted.

You can view the research here