The digital marketing landscape is full of acronyms and abbreviations, but few are as common as PPC, the shorthand phrase for pay-per-click advertising.
PPC has become the gold standard for businesses of all sizes to advertise their services, reach new customers, and generate web traffic.
The only question is, how to get started?
Why should you use PPC?
Because PPC allows you to pay only when someone clicks on your ads, it’s a great way to reduce ad spend while reaching a large audience, increasing brand awareness, and generating new leads. By allowing you to target ads to a more specific audience, you can ensure that only the right people see the ads, helping to reduce costs even further.
You also have full control over how your ads appear and the ability to customize them for different target audiences, ensuring they are only presented with relevant and engaging content.
But the benefits of pay per click go beyond that. Let’s look at some of the other key advantages:
- Massive Reach: With PPC, you can reach a vast audience of potential customers through platforms like Google, Bing, and Facebook. This can help your brand gain more exposure and build its reputation.
- Direct conversions: By combining PPC with conversion tracking tools like Google Analytics, you can track people’s actions after they click on your ad. You can see if they make a purchase, fill out a form, or sign up for a mailing list. This data is valuable for measuring return on investment (ROI) and improving campaign performance over time.
- Targeted advertising: By targeting your audience, you can avoid spending money on ads that no one wants to see. Your ads will appear where they are actually relevant and useful.
- Cost-effectiveness: PPC is the most cost-effective online advertising method because you only pay when someone clicks on your ad. And if you’re looking for a more strategic approach, Google also offers bidding strategies that let you control how much you spend per click. You can also set daily budgets and track performance at each level of your campaign.
- Brand Awareness: With PPC, your ads appear on keyword searches related to products or services similar to yours. This helps drive traffic to your website and increase brand awareness among consumers who might not otherwise have been exposed to your company’s name or products.
- Fast results: You can start seeing results in as little as 24 hours with some campaigns, however, it’s important to note that many factors will affect how quickly you see results (e.g. budget size).
- Highly Measurable: You can easily track and measure your campaign performance, including impressions, clicks, cost per click (CPC), cost per thousand impressions (CPM), and conversion rate. The ability to measure results allows you to make adjustments as needed to optimize your campaign and maximize ROI, an essential aspect of any digital marketing strategy.
Pay Per Click Campaigns for Beginners
Before you start a PPC campaign, set clear goals and KPIs to measure success. Goals can be to increase website traffic, generate leads, make more sales, or increase brand awareness. Doing this from the start allows for a more focused campaign.
The big benefit of PPC advertising is budget control. You choose a daily or monthly PPC budget that fits your goals and resources. It’s also critical to set maximum bids for keywords. This ensures that your ads perform within your daily budgets and cost limits.
Keyword Research
Excellent PPC keyword research is key. Find out what words and phrases your audience uses to search for similar products. Use this information to identify the best and most affordable keywords.
Create a Landing Page
When someone clicks on your PPC ad, they should land on a special landing page. It should match the ad and the user’s search. These PPC landing pages should have a good conversion optimization plan and provide a great user experience.
Writing compelling advertising copies
Writing strong PPC ad copy is key to getting clicks and generating sales. Make your ads clear and appealing to your audience. Testing different versions through ad testing to see what works is a smart strategy.
Setting bids and budgets
Determining the right bid amounts for your keywords is vital. You need to find a balance between maximum bids and your total budget. Consider ad quality, competition, and your conversion expectations. Some platforms have automated bidding to make this process easier.
Choosing the right PPC platform
Choosing the right PPC platform is crucial to your ad success. Key options include Google Ads, Microsoft Advertising, and social media ads.
Google Ads
Google Ads is the go-to choice for many, with ads spread across the entire Google network. This includes YouTube, Gmail, and websites on the Google Display Network. It’s highly versatile for any business size. Every second, Google Ads handles over 99,000 searches, making it a big player in online advertising.
Microsoft Advertising
Microsoft Advertising, formerly Bing Ads, is Google’s main competitor. It offers ads on Bing, Yahoo, and Microsoft sites. Although it has a smaller user base, it can increase the reach of your ads. By targeting a more tech-savvy audience, it had 137 million unique searches in 2017.
Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter are all powerful for PPC ads. They allow you to target ads to very specific audiences based on their information and interests. Using social media ads can increase brand awareness, traffic, and sales. You can choose from several ad types to make your campaign stand out.
PPC campaign measurement and optimization
Good PPC campaign management involves keeping an eye on a lot of important numbers. You should be looking at things like click-through rate (CTR), conversion rate, and cost per click (CPC). Knowing these metrics helps you see how your ads and keywords are performing, allowing you to intelligently optimize your campaign.
Key PPC Metrics to Track
Monitoring your PPC campaign is crucial to getting better results and more profits. You should keep a close eye on the click-through rate (CTR) and conversion rate, which show you how many users click on the ads and then convert into customers. Looking at the cost per click (CPC) and return on ad spend (ROAS) helps you know if your efforts are worth it.
A/B testing for better performance
It’s important to continually test and adjust your PPC ads to improve their performance. A/B testing involves trying out different versions of ads to see which one performs best. This includes testing different images, copy, and landing pages. It helps you understand what your audience likes. By performing A/B testing, you can improve your advertising strategy and use your budget more wisely.
Refining segmentation and budgets
Once you have data from your PPC campaigns, use this information to improve things. You can adjust your approach and spending to get better results. This could mean changing your bids, adjusting your target audience, or reallocating your budget. Constantly fine-tuning your targeting and budget management is crucial for a better return on investment (ROI).
PPC Best Practices for Beginners
Successful PPC campaigns are always looking for new keyword opportunities. You need to keep up with what people are searching for. It’s important to look at what your competition is doing and make sure your keywords are well-tuned. This keeps your advertising campaign at an optimal level.
Ongoing keyword research
Finding new long-tail keywords and understanding what users are searching for is key. Keep a close eye on what your competitors are doing. This can give you new keyword ideas and help you stand out. It’s all about creating ads that really connect with your audience.
Attractive advertising copy
Your ads need to grab people’s attention and get them to click. They need to clearly address your audience’s needs and wants. It’s a good idea to test your ads regularly to find out which ones work best at getting people to take action.
Optimized landing pages
After clicking on your ad, users should land on a page that is easy to use and focused on getting them to take action. This page should have a clear goal, such as signing up or buying something. Always check and improve your landing page. Make sure it is easy to use and motivates people to take the next step.
Your PPC Glossary for Beginners
- Impressions: This metric tells you how many times your ad was shown.
- Click-through rate (CTR): This metric tells you how many times your ad was seen divided by how many times it was clicked. You can also view this at the keyword level.
- Conversions: This metric tells you how many actions were taken as a result of someone seeing your ad. You define conversion in your PPC campaigns and it includes clicks, form submissions, phone calls, and more.
- Conversion Rate: This metric tells you the number of conversions divided by how many interactions you had on your ad during the same period.
- Ad Group: If you create multiple ads, you can group them by theme for more effective optimizations. This is where you control settings for all ads within that ad group, such as keyword targeting.
- Campaign: When you have multiple ad groups, you’ll also want to organize them at the campaign level, designating settings like budget and placement targeting.
- Ad extensions: Ad extensions allow you to display additional details about your business, such as your address, phone number, and secondary links to your website.
- Broad match: This is a keyword setting that shows your ads to people who are specifically searching for your keyword on a search engine or people who are searching for a variation of your keyword or a related topic.
