Small Merchants Giving Up Search Ads In A Big Way

There was a time when search ads on search engines such as Google, Yahoo! and others was a powerful marketing tool for small and medium online retailers to directly reach their customers and make large and quick bucks. But now the story  has changed drastically with coming of big brands such as Best Buy Co, Zale Corp and many more who are investing large bucks in search ads. This has led online buyers to the big companies which they know instead of clicking on ads and purchasing from small and unknown retailers. The price per click on the search ads have gone by 31% in a year. The result is small merchants are going back to the traditional source of advertising – print and radio. They are buying less keywords and phrases and trying out ads on sites like YouTube, MySpace besides giving ads on blogs and niche shopping sites. But for now Google and Yahoo! are not worried as the big brands are pouring enough money in search making up for loss suffered from small merchants.

Richard Holden, director of product management for advertising, Google said “We're not seeing any erosion of ROI [return on investment] across the board by our customers.” According to search engines small merchants can beat the bigger ones by right products and message. 

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