There are many advantages to using Fixed Placement Advertising in your paid online marketing campaigns. As one might expect, there are also a few drawbacks. But all in all, you should carefully evaluate fixed placement as a good source for additional traffic to your website.

As you can probably tell from the name, the definition of fixed placement advertising can be summed up as a text link that is locked into a specific position among other paid listings on the search results page. Fixed placement means that your ad generally doesn’t move, even if some of your competitors don’t renew their ads, although there could be some exceptions to this.

Some of the major search engines, such as Google and Yahoo offer such fixed placement advertising programs to some of their clients. Such programs are usually included at the very top of their results pages. At times, certain advertisers are offered a chance to add a slightly longer description of their services in that area. Yahoo calls this area “Sponsor Results”, while Google calls it “Sponsored Links”.

At any rate, these text links are always at the top of the page, ahead of their generic or ‘organic’ (free) listings. To have an idea of how this looks, just go to Yahoo, and then to Google and type the keywords “Car Insurance” and look at the top of the pages. In Yahoo, you will see four companies advertising for those keywords, beginning with Progressive Insurance.

In Google, the same keywords will generate two links, again with the first one being from Progressive Insurance. On Google, notice how those two links are shaded in a bluish colour. This is to distinguish them from Google’s organic (or free) listings.

Four main advantages of Fixed Placement Advertising

Generally speaking, fixed placement advertising takes usually less time to manage than certain other categories of paid search engine ad programs, simply because your positions are guaranteed. Another strong feature of fixed placement is that your costs are fixed. Fixed Placement Advertising programs with the major search engines offer some important features and benefits to advertisers, large and small.

Here are the 4 main features of Fixed Placement Advertising:

1. Lock out competitors from top positions
2. Some fixed placement deals can be negotiated
3. Lock in your ad rates for a longer period of time
4. Improved overall positioning on your results pages

Of all these, the biggest advantage to fixed placement is the ability to block some of your competitors from the search engine results pages (as it pertains to fixed placement). This is possible since the search engines only allow two, three or four companies to bid on these top positions. That is why we use the term “lock out competitors” from top positions.

A second great advantage you have with fixed placement is what is called the FRR, or the “first right of renewal”. What I mean by this is, at the end of your ad campaign, you can simply renew your original agreement for another specified length of time, which will further benefit your company and the advantages you hold on your competition.

I guess you could summarize this by saying search engines prioritize companies and advertisers that are willing to commit long-term, even if this represents a certain amount of risk on the part of the advertisers.

Disadvantages of Fixed Placement Advertising

As you might expect, not everything is ever ‘perfect’ and there are a few disadvantages or drawbacks from using fixed placement. One of them is that fixed placement tends to prevent small businesses from getting into this program at an affordable cost. For example, some contract minimums can be priced way above the normal ad budget of a small company.

Another drawback is that in some programs, campaign management can become really confusing and can irritate some small businesses that don’t have either the time or the tools to adequately manage their online marketing.

To really find out if fixed placement is for you, carefully review the four disadvantages and drawbacks listed below, and if you feel comfortable with all four of them, you can safely assume fixed placement is for you.

In Fixed Placement, there are four main drawbacks or difficulties encountered by most online marketers. Here is the list of these disadvantages, and a few ways how you can easily circumvent them.

1. Ad listings issues
2. Invoice auditing problems
3. Keyword placement limitations
4. Advertising contract length and minimum costs

Ad listings issues

Since you will be working with search engine’s tech support staff, some problems can and sometimes do arise. Or at times, some modifications you make to your ad listings can take longer to propagate in the system. There could even be some search engines that limit the number of modifications an advertiser can make in one month without incurring a set fee. You should check your contract or speak to your ad representative for clarification on any of this.

Invoice auditing problems

Budgeting for fixed placement ad campaigns and invoice reconciliation is usually simple and straightforward, since your cost is summed up into a monthly schedule of fixed and equal recurring payments. However, you should always remember that you are actually paying for estimated visibility and sales. The only way to accurately find out about your real traffic is to measure it with some good Web Analytic tools. I recently wrote an article on the correct way to use Web Analytics to help you in your search engine marketing efforts. You can read it by clicking here.

Keyword placement limitations

It’s very important to remember that you are committed to the keywords you actually select for the entire duration of your contract. With other forms of online ad programs, it is possible to instantly delete keywords that are not performing well or to simply replace them with others. However, this feature is NOT available with Fixed Placement. If you feel that certain of your keywords might be hampering your overall ad campaign, you should ask for a contract revision, in an effort to replace those inefficient keywords with others that will hopefully bring you better results.

Advertising contract length and minimum costs

The only way you might get a price discount on most fixed placement programs is if you commit to longer-term contracts. However, this will substantially increase the amount of risk you are taking. Although this is extremely hard to get, ask for a cancellation clause in your contract, since there is no way of telling in advance how any ad campaign will perform. Most major search engines today have severely restricted or completely eliminated cancellation clauses on fixed placement programs.

Conclusion

Although Fixed Placement isn’t for everybody, you should carefully evaluate its features and benefits, as well as the drawbacks before you ‘take the plunge’. Fixed Placement can have its limitations and there are certainly a few drawbacks. But, in the quest for online supremacy, companies and advertisers with fairly large budgets will want to take advantage of some of the fixed placement most important features.

Carefully choosing the right online ad vehicle should be done carefully, since the wrong decision can end up costing thousands if not hundred of thousands of dollars in the end. Add to this the fact that your company might also be damaging its brand or its image in the marketplace, if not done correctly.

Reference:  “Search Engine Advertising” by Catherine Seda. 347 pages.
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