Ok. I'm sure everyone will probably agree, that PPC in the hosting, colo, or dedicated server market is extremely expensive, if your trying to get on the front page. Do you agree? Cost of $10-$15 per click is becoming the norm. Yes, if you have a big marketing budget already then that is one thing, but for the small company, it isn't any option.

What are your thoughts? Do you use PPC ?

PPC is the effective way , but its difficult for small budget people to afford it.

PPC especially Adwords is an effective way of marketing as it sends you highly targeted traffic. Web hosting related niches are hot niches so it's natural Google charge you high for visitors they send to your website. Anyway, you can choose cheaper options of marketing, like paid review on blogs.

I agree. What you need is to find rightv keywords. Let it ne 1 click per day but that would be effective

I've not found Google Adwords to be an effective marketing tool, at least not in generating new orders. It can be an effective branding tool as you should get lots of looks.

Depends on the conversion, if sales conversion is good than the cost per click should not be expensive.

I have not gotten the nerve to venture off into the ppc options much as I am certain most things in that field are out of my price range for now. I do hope to get in there soon but with prices like that I am not sure!

PPC is ok as long as it's not just a one word click that you're trying to purchase. The word "HOSTING" on google is quite expensive - I believe WHIR puts it at the $50.00 mark as the value of the word.

Instead, going for a 2 or 3 word target is a much better investment. Just like in SEO, it's easier to rank for 3 words than it is for 1!

As for out of price range - you can pick up combinations for $0.10-0.20 per click if you use the right words and target market. The challenge you have to accomplish is your conversion. We often purchase $7-8.00 clicks on google, but we convert them too. It's no differnet than roulette

Pick 8 numbers on the roulete table and put a dollar on each. You start with a total investment of $40.00. You have 5 spins to make your money back with an 8 in 37 (or 38) chance of hitting your number. The payout is 35:1. So your $1.00 just made you $35 *IF* you hit your number on or before your 5th spin.

So the same approach is taken in advertising for us. Our goal is not to convert EVERY customer, but rather 1 in 4 with our package of $36.95/month. As long as 1 person buys, our investment in the advertising was covered. If two buy, that's profit (and lets not forget about the recurring revenue.

Advertising (and business) is a gamble, always was, always will be. You have to be willing to put it on the line and invest in what you believe is a good investment, but you must also have the conversion plan in place with effective copy.

It depends on the keywords or keyphrases. There are some of them who pays low and some of them pays high. I think there is a website that displays the list of keywords which are being searched and their price too.

That is quite a conversion rate! 25% is probably one of the highest I've seen. Does it really convert? In today's competitive world with so much choice, I would assume people would click away to many sites before they can even remotely make a decision for themselves of which company to go with. Then it would also involve visiting the same site a few times before the final decision. This is how it at least plays out in my mind: people shop around.

For me in has been always a point of interest - why do companies pay incredible PPC rates, but I think that if it didn't work, or there would not be anyone making a profit on $10-15 per click bids, they wouldn't be so high in the first place. Some companies know what they are doing when they are placing their bid at $15 because for them its a calculated risk, and I am sure there is also a bunch of companies simply bidding high without any model to it - just trying to imitate rivals. Only it will play out for those who planned it well a bit differently. The market balances itself out.

We're converting either a 1 in 3 or 1 in 4 for the most part, but this is dealing with a niche that we have cornered from many different angles. We are not targeting a blanket term such as "hosting". We may not convert the link on the initial click, but it converts usually within 7 days, although we track it for 30 days.

People do shop, that's for sure, but the trick is to offer something that the competition doesn't offer (or can't offer). There's nobody in our niche that is giving away $400 worth of shopping cart software, SSL Certs and domain names FOR FREE with a regular 1 month signup. It's a risk most others in our niche can't afford to take.

Marketing is definitely not childs play or a guessing game. When you're spending money on marketing, you need to be sure you're getting the investment back - otherwise go buy a coffee! There's a reason that my designs and marketing replaced an advertising agency that was getting $100k/year - and that was 10 years ago. I could only imagine what I could do with the internet and a 100k budget! I had to spread everythign around paper, magazine, penny saver, radio and tv spots back then - these days if I had the dollars, I'd target 100% online.

Very interesting. Are you guys managing marketing in-house or with a PPC specialist outside of your firm?

As far as PPC goes, I've had a lot of success with Facebook of all places.

It's very very easy to target a captive audience directly and it let's you be very creative with targeting at the same time.

Most everything that I do is internal. I have worked in the past with some people that are very well vested into PPC and the conversions, but for the most part I run everything internal, and then every few months they do a glance over of how things are going. I had discussed possibly utilizing two agencies in the past but you pay top dollar for those that know what they're doing Like anything else, I don't put all my eggs into one basket - I use two places that are unrelated and keep an eye on what they're doing. They also run side by side campaigns on different domains. It's a challenge sometimes, but worth it in the end.

That's quite surprising to hear. Were your Facebook marketing efforts surrounding a web hosting related product/service, or something else?

In my brief experience of talking to people, Facebook does much better in leisure, entertainment field rather than web hosting (or any IT product for that matter).

Now, I occasionally notice a web hosting ad here and there on Facebook, but those are from well known companies with large budgets. It would seem that for some its just important to keep expose their brand, no matter what media platform it is on.