Is February 2012 the time to make changes to your advertising?

This is the busiest time of the month for us here at BMON, with monthly reports to create for all of the industrial and scientific companies whose Google AdWords campaigns we manage. Looking across the board, I'd say that 2012 has got off to a strong start for AdWords marketing, although there have been yet more changes in the way Google positions the ads which have affected a lot of companies' campaigns. We're on top of things, however, and have factored in the effects to maintain response. However, it does remind everyone that Google AdWords campaigns need to be looked at on an almost daily basis, even if you're only spending a few hundred pounds a month on them. It's not a fit-and-forget method of advertising, because new competitors are coming into the market all the time, and most of the rest are improving what they're doing. If you only review (and ruthlessly prune) your search terms every few months, it'll be costing you a lot of money.

Of course, if I may shamelessly advertise the fact, you could get us to run your AdWords campaign for you. There are loads of good reasons for doing so, and you can request a copy of our 2012 AdWords Guide here if you'd like to be persuaded why. If your market is limited enough in size that there's only a few hundred pounds a month of search traffic out there, you may be better off running your Google AdWords campaign in-house. But when there's enough out there to justify about £750 or more, we think outsourcing the campaign makes a lot of sense.

Still, for industrial and scientific companies even a poorly-run, in-house Google AdWords campaign is better than none at all. Unless you're single-mindedly into branding rather than enquiries, every other form of advertising is, in comparison, a luxury nowadays. From what I can see, the response which businesses are getting from other forms of advertising is currently a bit of a joke.

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Published on 1 February 2012