To drive traffic to a website, splash page or blog, most marketers look to pay per click advertising and/or article marketing. Several discussions and studies have concluded that pay per click is more cost effective. Other studies conclude that article marketing is more cost effective. The conclusions reached for both methods may have something to do with who sponsored the studies. Did an article directory or a ppc marketing company sponsor or provide the research. We all tend to summarize or conclude based on information we know best.

With pay per click your ad is placed on search result pages based on the key words that are listed. Granted that your ad could end up on many search engine results pages.

Some advantages or pay per click advertising are:

1. The ad is placed very quickly providing fast feedback.

2. Testing the effectiveness of two or more ads running at the same time is easy to do.

3. Interest in your offer can be determined quickly. Decisions whether to continue or discontinue the promotion can be made in a short period of time.

Some disadvantages of pay per click advertising:

1. Ad costs are determined by the cost of the key words you choose. Some key words bid are as low as $0.05 to a few dollars. This is an area that needs to be studied as there seems to be a science to selecting key words and managing the cost.

2. Then there is click fraud. With click fraud you pay for the click through even though there is no chance of making a sale.

3. Pay per click ads are very concise. Word smithing is a must. Some advertisers use loud or even obnoxious words in an attempt to draw attention to their ad on the search page.

4. Ad placement on the search results page is largely determined by the keyword bid price. With popular keywords the bid price goes up if ad placement on the first search results is required and even more so if top four ad placement is necessary.

5. The ad remains as long as the fee is paid. There is no residual effect.

Article marketing:

Article marketing has been a darling of internet marketers for a long time. The advertising advantages or writing and submitting articles are:

1. The only costs involved would be if a ghost writer was used and if a paid article submitter was used.

2. Can be keyword targeted for higher search engine results page placement.

3. Articles have a residual advertising effect that sometimes can last for years, at no additional cost.

4. Articles use a soft sell approach as apposed to an in your face approach as is some pay per click advertising.

5. Article marketing can establish the writer as an expert in that particular field. It establishes trust.

6. Article marketing establishes back links to your site and improves the natural SEO ranking.

Some disadvantages to article marketing.

1. It may take several months before results are obtained.

2. It is time consuming to write and submit articles to several directories.

3. It requires a fairly good command of the English language and a good spell checker.

The pay per click advertising companies claim the ROI return on investment is higher than article marketing because more targeted traffic gives a higher conversion rate. That determination is not shared be everyone. Article marketers claim that the soft sell approach and longevity of your information being displayed more than offsets the quick results and short life of the ad.