New York Times: Google AdWords For Small Business
Smash Party Entertainment, a New Jersey-based small business start-up, was was failing until entrepreneur Amy Gottesman started using Google AdWords and figured out how to make it work really well for her business.
“Six years ago, after leaving a high-powered career in fashion sales to become a stay-at-home mother of very young children, Amy Gottesman found herself missing her income — and looking for something to do when her kids were napping. So Ms. Gottesman, who lives on Long Island, put up a Web site under the name of Smash Party Entertainment, offering entertainment for parties, ranging from casinos to living Roman “statues” to murder mysteries.
And then she waited for the business to come in — which it didn’t, even though she was advertising in local newspapers and mailing out coupons. After three months of staring at the phone, she decided to try $20 worth of pay-per-click advertising through Google’s AdWords service, which placed her short ads alongside the search results for certain keywords, as well as on some Web pages with content related to those keywords. ‘In a few days,’ she said, ‘the phone started ringing.'”