Google AdWords (www.google.com/ads), provides an inexpensive advertising venue for businesses to advertise products and services to a targeted audience, and allows for nearly instant traffic, which can be turned on and off. Advertisers have the ability to control their budget, target their advertising based on keywords, and are free to determine the ad contents.
Advertisers bid on keywords, the more an advertiser is willing to pay the higher the likelihood the ad will appear higher in position in the list of ads served. Google determines placement based on a combination of click through rate, bid amount and budget, and supplies tracking tools that assist webmasters in determining their return on investment based on keyword searches and phrases. While the technology is not perfect and cannot track phone and purchase orders, it should give advertisers a sense of what phrases and keywords are converting well in their advertising campaign.
