According to statistics, for every $1 spent on Google Ads, you’re likely to earn about $8 in return. This explains why about 45% of small businesses spend on paid advertising.
Here’s everything you need to know about PPC marketing and why it’s crucial for your marketing strategy.
What Is PPC Marketing?
PPC stands for pay-per-click, and it’s a popular type of online advertising. As the name suggests, with PPC, businesses can pay based on the number of clicks they get on their ads. These ads are displayed by the SERP and lead users to your website. As an advertiser, you’d have to bid on the value of a click—this is a perceived value based on platforms, keywords, and other factors.
Generally, PPC advertising is considered a cost-effective model and is known for the high ROIs it brings to businesses. Most use Google Ads; however, you can also choose Facebook Ads, Microsoft Ads, Yelp Ads, or LinkedIn Ads for your campaign. These are popular platforms that can help generate exclusive leads for your business.
Paid search revolves around four main components. These help you stay on track as you create a successful PPC campaign.
Keyword Research
Paid search depends almost entirely on keywords. They help link a search query to a relevant ad. Choosing the right keywords makes a huge difference to the success of your campaign. Ideally, it would help if you chose keywords closest to the products and services you offer and the words people would typically search for when looking for those products.
Ad Groups
PPC ads aren’t always perfect matches for the keywords being targeted. This is why creating ad groups with related keywords, text ads, and landing pages is important. Needless to say, ads within a group should carry the same message. This helps the copy align with search intent leading to more clicks.
Ad Auctions
Ad auction is what happens every time a user enters a search query, and Google decides which ads will appear where. Contrary to what you may think, the highest bidders don’t always get the top spots—Google is smarter than that. It considers everything from ad quality to user experience before placing an ad.
Quality Score
Quality score is one of the prime factors in ad auctions. It’s a rating given by Google to your ad and landing page. A quality score of 8 is considered great, and the higher the score, the better your ad will rank, and your cost per click will also decrease!
How Does It Exactly Work?
PPC campaigns work slightly differently for every advertising platform. In general, though, all platforms are based on similar components. However, we’ll use Google Ads as an example since it’s the most popular ad network right now and is used by most businesses.
When a user searches for something on Google, the search engine scans its advertisers based on the keyword being searched for. Each company’s ad is assessed from several angles, but the quality score and bid amount are typically the deciding factors.
Based on the two, Google delivers the most appropriate ads by posting them on top. This entire process takes mere milliseconds, though.
How Is SEM Different from PPC
PPC is a part of SEM, which is search engine marketing. SEM can be considered an umbrella term that covers different marketing strategies geared toward bringing your business to the search engine’s first page, including SEO, content marketing, and PPC. However, there is a distinct difference between the two. PPC is paid traffic, and SEM includes organic approaches as well.
Additionally, it should be noted that PPC only refers to sponsored ads that lead a user toward landing pages for promotional purposes.
Tips for A Successful PPC Campaign?
For many businesses, PPC campaigns involve a fair bit of trial and error before they’re able to get results. Here are some tips that may help you build and launch a successful PPC campaign.
Use Negative Keywords
Keywords help you become more visible to relevant audiences, but in the same way, you can include negative keywords in a campaign to avoid showing up for certain searches. This will help you display your ad to more relevant audiences looking for the products you offer.
Stand Out Using Marketing Insights
Many businesses, including your competition, are using PPC campaigns. But your competition on a search engine may not always be from your industry—they could be from a parallel industry. Do your keyword research to know who you’re up against. Also, determine your USPs and focus on marketing these to stand out from the crowd.
Optimize!
If you want relevant audiences to find you, you must optimize your ad copy using your main keywords. You can maximize your ad’s performance by placing the keywords in the heading and the display URL.
Work on Your Content
A common mistake businesses make is directly advertising their product or service and singing praises of their business in an ad. Instead, you should focus on the customers, and your ad should outline how your customer will benefit from a product or service and how their quality of life will be improved. It’s all about phrasing it the right way!
Make the Most of Every Second
With PPC, time is money. Make sure your ads are scannable and easy to comprehend. Make it compelling, and make sure the CTA is clear and visible to prompt action.
When done right, PPC campaigns can be a turning point for your business. But to make the most of these, it’s best to outsource the campaign to a PPC services company like Kenny Digital Marketing. As a digital marketing agency, it offers a wide range of services, but its main focus is Google Ads management services and other PPC advertising services.
Give them a call to discuss it all further.
About the Author
The author is a digital marketer with over 30 years of experience with paid advertising. They’ve helped several businesses with successful PPC campaigns and lead generation. They share their insights with clients and fellow marketers through online blogs and articles.
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