If you are considering advertising online for the first time, the cost may be one of your primary considerations. Unfortunately, it may be challenging to get a definite answer to get specific results.
You may have seen advertisements and videos claiming that you can advertise online for free. You may also have heard of multi-million dollar ad campaigns initiated by major companies like Nike, Facebook, and Apple. The question remains on how to use differences to create your budget?
The actual online advertising costs of most companies fall between two extremes. Although it is possible to sell your business online for free, it is very labor-intensive, and the results are almost impossible to achieve even with a small budget.
Although it is certainly possible to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars, or even millions of dollars, on online marketing, you don’t have to have such a large budget for your business to attract new customers and corporate customers.
The cost of advertising on the Internet depends on the channel you use, who manages the channel, and your exact goals. For example, your marketing price on social media is very different from hiring an SEO agency or launching an intensive PPC advertising campaign.
Read on to learn more about the available options and the amount you expect to spend on each option.
Search Engine Optimization
Search engine optimization (SEO) includes all the measures you take to help your website pages rank higher in search engines such as Google. The right strategy can help your business attract visitors who are actively searching for the products your business offers.
If you have experience using SEO, you can optimize your website for free. In other words, it is usually best to hire an experienced SEO agency. They will research your business, choose keywords, and create and manage a strategy to help your website attract more traffic and visitors without risking your website getting punished.
However, the cost of hiring an SEO professional varies greatly. Some individuals or freelance SEO professionals charge lower fees than agencies but provide fewer resources and services. Then, there are SEO agencies of all sizes worldwide, and they charge different fees.
However, in general, the expected price is $500-$5000 per month or $76-$200 per hour. Your exact cost will depend on the agent you work with, the service you need, and the pricing model. It should also get noted that many agencies now need to sign contracts on an annual basis instead of charging monthly fees.
But remember, this is only a rough figure. If you want to hire an agency, please feel free to use our SEO RFP template to estimate from the perspective you are considering.
Advertising
After SEO, the second most common way to attract customers online is paid advertising. Although there are many options, most businesses use Google AdWords.
The platform uses three different pricing models:
- Cost per thousand impressions (CPM). Here you will end up paying a fixed amount for every 1000 views of the ad. Regardless of whether someone clicks on your ad, you still pay for these views.
- Cost per conversion (CPA). In this model, you pay for conversions or interactions that might lead to transactions.
- Cost per click (CPC). Under this pricing model, you have to pay every time someone clicks on your ad.
Many other platforms use one or all three types of pricing models.
No matter which option you choose, AdWords can run on the auction system. You can decide the bid per click, received, or per thousand impressions. The bid may be as low as a few cents or as high as a few hundred dollars, depending on the pricing model and keywords. Although the average cost per click is about $1-2, the most expensive cost per click is hundreds of dollars.
However, these ads do not only get displayed in search engine results. You can also choose to place ads on Google’s Display Network, which means your ads will get displayed on websites relevant to your target market.
Also, you can explore advertising options on platforms other than Google. For example, sites such as Yahoo and YouTube sell “acquisition ads.” These are large display ads kept in the Yahoo! backend. Or the YouTube homepage. The cost of these advertisements usually exceeds $400,000. Facebook’s cancellation of advertising (showing your marketing message when someone logs off their Facebook account) costs more than $100,000.
However, these options are usually only used for large companies with large marketing budgets, and in most cases, it is more cost-effective to use platforms such as AdWords.
Sponsored Content
In addition to advertising, PPC campaigns, and other promotional options, you can also choose to sponsor content on websites relevant to your target audience. Sponsored content is paid content that can provide readers with benefits or information and, at the same time, promote your company or service.
For example, you can buy sponsored articles for $20,000 on BuzzFeed. However, this is a website with millions of visitors every day, and you will most likely find cheaper options to satisfy your potential customers.
You can also create original content and publish it on your website and then promote it on social media and email. If the content is exciting and relevant to the main site’s readers, they may republish it on their website. Although it takes more time than buying space, it is also a more budget-efficient approach.
Bottom Line
Because there are too many channels and pricing models to consider, it is not easy to price Internet marketing. However, this only means that you can freely set your budget and try a few of these options.
