Every time you go to your social media feed, you see a number of products of your choice appearing on the timeline. Do you think the products appear organically on your feed? That’s actually PPC marketing (pay-per-click).
It’s estimated that about 45% of small businesses use some form of online marketing and pay-per-click advertising remains the top choice of many. You ask, why? That’s because PPC marketing benefits tops all other forms of digital advertising.
Paid media or PPC marketing is a form of digital advertising in which companies display ads on the search engine result pages and social media platforms. For example, when someone types a keyword in the Google or Bing search bar, your ad appears on the top. How does this help you? It increases traffic on your page and lead conversion rate. Plus, you pay the search engine only when someone clicks on your ad. Sounds simple? Not really. So here’s a helpful pay-per-click marketing guide by The AdCzar that you need for using this form of advertising to boost your business.
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Why use PPC Marketing?
PPC marketing has become the favorite advertising channel for large and small businesses. Whether you look at PPC services in India or abroad, paid advertising is increasingly gaining prominence in every company’s digital marketing strategy. That’s because pay-per-click advertising is not only highly profitable but it is also cost effective. If done correctly, it can open the floodgates of quality leads.
The most striking feature of pay-per-click advertising is that it can be created and managed internally thereby reducing the cost of outsourcing the service. It’s quite simple to analyze and track the outcomes, so you can accurately observe how effectively the ads are performing versus your PPC marketing cost.
Benefits of PPC Marketing
- Budget flexibility– Advertisers can adjust budgets of PPC campaigns as required. Depending on the results, it can be increased or decreased.
- Measurable and trackable– PPC marketing service results can be tracked and measured in Google Ads and Google Analytics with optimum accuracy.
- Targeting options-Users can target specific audiences based on search behavior, browsing history, demographics & more to maximize impressions and reach specific audiences.
- Stay ahead in competition-Target keywords being used by competitors to prevent them from dominating search engine results pages (SERPs).
PPC adverting is profitable only when done correctly. You must know how to make an effective paid media strategy
PPC Marketing Terms You Must Know
Before getting further into explaining PPC marketing strategy, let me introduce you to some of the popular jargons and acronyms of this field.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM) – Many people confuse SEM with PPC. You must know the distinction. SEM is an umbrella term for both search engine optimization (SEO) and Pay per click advertising.
Cost Per Click (CPC) – It is the fee that the advertiser pays to the search engine or the social media platform to run ads. The advertiser has to pay for each click by the user.
Advertising Auction – CPC is determined by an auction or bid. Higher bid will get your higher placement in the SERP pages. You bid and rank are decided on the basis of competitor’s ad rank and your quality score.
Quality Score – The SERP evaluates your ad’s Quality Score (QS) based on how
relevant and useful it is. Advertisers with higher Quality Scores get lower cost-per-click and better positions.
Maximum Bid – This is the maximum price you’re willing to pay for a click on your ad. The bids are flexible and can be adjusted by the advertiser as well as the search engine.
Keywords – In the digital space, everything revolves around keywords. Even in pay-per-click advertising, your ads have to have a set of keywords for which you want your ads to be displayed. Choose the best performing keywords for your product/service.
If you want to know more about keyword research, this blog will be helpful – A comprehensive guide to keyword research for SEO
Ad Text – To ensure Quality Score as well as to attract the customer, use to-the-point ad text, which explains and communicates directly and clearly. Most importantly, it should match the target keyword.
Ad Group– PPC ads don’t always perfectly match the keywords you’re targeting. Therefore, you should create ad groups with associated keywords, landing pages, and text ads. For example, when a customer searches for “sushi in New York” he should get as result, the PPC ad and the landing page link of your sushi restaurant in the area.
Pay-Per Click Advertising Platforms
It is crucial to choose the right platform to showcase your ad. If you are spending on PPC ads on a social media platform which your target customers don’t use must, you will be wasting your budget. Also, analyse PPC marketing cost for each of the platform you want to run ads on. Here are the List of popular social media platforms for Pay-Per-Click Advertising as suggested by Forbes.com.
- Google Ads
- Facebook Ads
- YouTube Ads
- LinkedIn Ads
- Microsoft Ads
- Etsy Ads
- Amazon Ads
- Yelp Ads
PPC Campaign Types
- Search Network – This is keyword based advertising. The advertiser submits ad to search engines on the basis of target keywords to get traffic and leads. The most common are google.com and its Search Partners such as aol.com, amazon.com, among others.
- Display Network – In this, multiple sites show text, image, and video ads. Display Network ads are shown on the basis of demographics and not keywords. For example, a user reads a blog on destination weddings. He may be exposed to ads related to travel destinations. He may not be looking for planning a holiday, but he will still see the ad for awareness. He may click the ad as well out of curiosity.
- Search Network with Display Opt-In – Now, search engines allow you to combine search network and display network to target the user. In the new Google Ads you can create a regular Search Network campaign and add the Display Network as opt-in. However, in this case, the control shifts from advertiser to Google for determining when and where ads may perform best.
- Product Listing Ads – These are used on ecommerce websites. In PLA advertising, the advertiser has to submit a product feed to Google Merchant Center and then create a shopping campaign in Google Ads. The attributes to consider while create the ad group includes brand, category, condition, item ID, product type and custom attributes. PLA doesn’t contain keywords. The search engine uses user query with product to display the ad.
PPC Marketing Tools
When looking for the right PPC tool for your business, consider your ad type and business requirements. Also compare the features of each device. Semrush has a tool to identify the best keywords based on cost per click, volume, and other key metrics. You can use it to manage and optimize your keywords and get data-driven keyword suggestions. PPC advertising service providers who want a tool that covers all bases should consider Google Ads. The software makes it easy to define goals, create campaigns, and set advertising budgets. If you use the correct strategy, your ad will appear quickly on Google search. You can also use. Google Search Console and the Google Display Network.
Conclusion
It doesn’t take much effort to start a PPC campaign, if you’ve got the fundamentals right. All that it takes to make an effective PPC marketing strategy by doing accurate keyword research, writing an attractive ad copy, and participating in the PPC ad auction.
Instead of having to have a big budget for your campaign, you can start small campaigns. Increase the budget if the result of the campaign is encouraging. Using Google Ads and Facebook Ads which are the most popular PPC advertising mediums can be a significant contributor to brand building and increasing conversion. If you follow best practices of PPC marketing and monitor the results, the website traffic will continue to increase.
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