"Behind The Curtain" (Part 1) - The 2 Biggest Internet Marketing Lies That Small Businesses Are Told

Unfortunately the Internet marketing industry contains some salespeople who either don't have the experience and knowledge to properly advise small business owners, or deliberately mislead business owners into doing business with their company by giving them false information.

In part 1 of "Behind The Curtain", we expose the 2 most widely told falsehoods in the Internet marketing industry and how business owners can protect themselves from being misled.

Here are the 2 most common Internet marketing lies that small business owners are told:

1. We run your search engine advertising for free! 100% of your monthly budget goes to the search engines and we get paid by Google! The truth is when you run your Google advertising through a large media corporation there are a lot of hands in the pot. In most cases you are paying a 50% margin or more to the media corporation. For example, if you invest a $1000/month budget into a Google advertising program through a media company, $500 of that is going directly to the media company and only $500 is going to the Google Advertising. No one is saying that the media corporation doesn't deserve to be paid to provide this service, but 50% is absurd. A fair percentage is 10-20% and most smaller firms are in that range. If you have the time and knowledge to run your own, you could do the self-serve option with Google, but we typically recommend working with a smaller firm that is transparent and honest about the cost of providing the service. Google advertising can be extremely beneficial to a business if done properly and with the right strategy, but proceed with caution! If a company won't disclose what the cost of their service is, or says there is no cost, steer clear!

2. We have a "special relationship" with Google that allows us to get your business better placement, results, lower cost per click, etc. The truth is no company has any advantage because of how big they are or how many clients they advertise on Google. Large corporations have been claiming for years that they are "tied in" with Google or can deliver better results because of their size or "secret partnership". This is, and has always been, a flat out lie. If a sales rep tries this approach with you steer clear! It's a major red flag that they either lack serious knowledge on the subject or are straight out lying to you. Either way that's not someone you want to do business with.

The goal of "Behind The Curtain" is to help make the Internet marketing industry more open and honest, and to help educate small business owners with the knowledge needed to make intelligent decisions, based on the truth. In part 2 we will disclose the 5 most critical things for a small business owner to know right now about marketing/advertising.