It seems like there has been a lot of people asking me this question lately.  Since this is a somewhat loaded and complex question, I thought it was worth explaining in basic terms.

The short answer is, How much is your budget?

Internet advertising like all advertising is relative to ROI. What you can spend of course is unlimited, but that should depend on your calculated return on investment.
In the old days, pre internet boom, I would hear you can expect a 1-2% return of a direct mail campaign if you mail out so many post cards, letters or whatever…blah, blah, blah. That’s called guessing now a days.
With the analytics and metrics available to us today, we are able to make better calculated assessments of our advertising programs.

Online advertising ROI assessment should begin with looking at core areas. These are a few of the pre campaign areas to consider when thinking about spending any money online.

1. keyword competition of your product or service.
2. keyword development strategy.
3.landing page and conversion design.

The great thing is that there several tools available, to calculate and evaluate your on going advertising process.

So again, How much does internet advertising cost?

I tell people to start with a budget of at least $500. This budget will give you, in most industries (that are providing consumer products and services) at least a minimum online sponsored link presence in Google. I am speaking specifically of Google ( although there are several other search advertising programs) because they own 70% of the search market and most people are familiar with term google ad words.

Your online sponsored link presence is essentially the amount of time your sponsored ad is on the first page in Google. Keywords are a bit like the commodities market. As your specific keyword demand increases so does its price. The number of clicks and visits to your site will be a variable of this and your monthly budget. But just to keep things simple, think of your AD costs in terms of how much you can afford to spend daily. Then the important part, consider your target market, your visitor and the likely hood of them taking action from your website sponsored AD link.

If you have a created good call to action AD copy, a relevant web landing page with a good consumer friendly process for action (conversion) then you are way ahead of the game and your online competition.

This of course is where the ROI comes in.
The better the visitor conversion process, the more dollars, (or products & services) for you on your AD campaign. While this a simple explanation it essentially covers the basics of online sponsored campaigns. If you are spending money online think about returns because after all any money spent on advertising is related to how much you think you will make on that budget. Do you expect a 2-1, 4 -1 return or more.

Of course there are lots of details and nuances and tracking tools for managing an Sponsored AD campaign but that’s another topic I will cover later.

If you have any thoughts or questions, please let me know in the comments below or email me.

More information on the internet advertising process is available on our website.

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