• Rimm-Kaufman Group, Wednesday, October 8, 2008 2:15 PM

No one can avoid talking about the current financial crisis -- and it's not enough to say that search will be spared because advertisers will start shifting their dwindling budgets online. You need a serious PPC strategy to ride out the recession, and Alan Rimm-Kaufman offers some tips for developing one.

First, make sure your campaign objectives are clear. "This is not the time for hazy goals," he says. "Determine how aggressively or how conservatively you should be advertising, and stick to your numbers. If your SPCs (sales-per-click) decline, so should your bids." And tap robust bid management tools to help you maintain bidding integrity.

Also, don't be afraid to shift dollars to or away from search as necessary. It may not be the top-performing channel anymore. Rimm-Kaufman also suggests working with an agency that caps its fees -- or reduces them proportionally to how much you're spending. "Anything that scales without limit with ad spend or with sales places a heavy burden on your margins." Lastly, he says, don't panic.

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