Google's simple text-ad service, AdWords, enables marketers literally to count how many Net surfers click from a Google text ad to the company's Web site.
That ad model is increasingly preferred to traditional TV, print and radio ads that have difficulty quantifying how many people are actually paying attention.
With AdWords, mutual fund giant Vanguard in November 2005 spent less than $.50 per click, one-tenth that of some rivals, and 14% of Net surfers exposed to the ad clicked through to its Web site. That performance beats the response rate from a typical direct-mail effort, for example, of about 2%. And it's why Vanguard upped its Net ad spending by 33% since 2003, to $12 million of last year's $40 million total spent on ads, while it cut every other media category, according to TNS Media Intelligence.
For financial planners looking for Baby Boomers who need to plan for retirement, Google now offers a "site targeting" program in which its banner ads could appear on a handpicked network of blogs, like www.SoBabyBoomer.com, and news sites.
Sean Haggerty, Vanguard's marketing chief, says, "As big as we are, we are a Web and 1-800-number company. We have no bricks and mortar, so our Web site and call centers tell us what works."
Source: BusinessWeek, January 30, 2006
