For years we’ve been preached to, and I’ve preached pretty heavily, that online marketing is about drawing people toward you. Interruption marketing doesn’t work online. In fact, if you are a Seth Godin fan then you’ve likely heard that song and dance more times than you can count.

There’s no wonder why. Interruption marketing, for the most part, is not an effective online marketing strategy. It doesn’t work for SEO, articles, blog marketing, social media, video marketing or most other free channels online. However, PPC ads are somewhat different.

Think for a second about what you are asking your PPC ads to do. You want them to attract the attention of people who landed on a specific page looking for information about a topic and get those people to click on the ad to visit your page instead. In essence, you are asking your ads to interrupt people in their browsing plans.

Great, you say. I’ve built my entire online marketing strategy on the attraction concept and now you’re telling me to interrupt people. What gives?

Nothing gives, really. It’s just a little insight I’ve gleaned from reading SEO ROI. They were speaking specifically about the content network, but the insight is relevant to traditional PPC as well. Even on the SERPs, when searchers get the top 10 results for their search query, your ad is hanging there waiting for their attention. Here’s the problem: 80% of the searchers won’t click on it. You’ve got to SCREAM at them to get their attention.

While most online marketing is about attraction, PPC advertising is about attention. Get it any way you can. Make your ads scream. They are, after all, in the business of seeking attention. And to do that, they have to be remarkable.