A paid marketing strategy is like playing the lottery. There are many ways to go about it, and it involves some trial and error, which makes it frustrating to get started when you’re on a budget.
Some strategies offer higher success rates than others. PPC (Pay per Click) ads are among one of the best options available to small businesses that want to increase their visibility and measure the results of their marketing efforts.
What is PPC marketing?
With PPC marketing, you pay to display your ads in preferred locations on sites and in search results. You choose which keywords to target and decide on the maximum amount you are willing to spend for a click.
This amount is your maximum Cost Per Click (CPC). Budget-conscious marketers like this model because they only must pay a fee when someone clicks on an ad.
Let’s say, for example, you set a monthly limit of $244 and a maximum CPC of $2. You would need at least 100 clicks to use up your budget. This means that you pay $200 for 100 leads.
Of course, not every click on your ads will lead to a purchase, but if you convert just 10 percent of those clicks and each customer spends over $20, you’ve already made a profit.
How does PPC marketing work?
Many web publishers and social networking sites host PPC ads. PPC ads are labeled with the word “Ad” and appear above organic search results.
On social networking sites, PPC ads are often like standard posts in the news feed.
The two most common PPC models are bidding and flat rate. In either case, you create a fixed budget and choose the keywords you want to target. The main difference is that with real-time bidding, like through Google AdWords, you must win the bid for the ad to appear.
The PPC platform suggests a bid amount for your keywords. When someone performs a search, an auction is triggered between different bidders targeting similar keywords. The platform awards the best spot based on the maximum CPC and quality scores of the bidders.
It’s natural to feel reluctant, as a small business owner with tight margins, to participate if the best spot goes to the highest bidder. However, sophisticated PPC platforms take other factors into accounts, such as click-through rate and relevance.
Click-through rate (CTR) is the ratio of clicks to the number of times an ad is displayed. The average click-through rate for ads hosted on Google AdWords is about two percent, according to Wordstream.
You measure relevancy involves determining the quality of your ads and how they relate to the landing page. All these factors contribute to your position and actual cost per click, which may be lower than your bid.
PPC and SEO
When people search online, the search engine strives to provide the most useful results. For a site to rank well in the organic results, it must be optimized with relevant content and keywords.
Achieving high rankings takes a lot of time and effort. You need to update the site on a regular basis and create content that people ask for.
PPC—pay per click—is a type of paid search engine marketing (SEM) that is a non-organic search process.
If you already know SEO and are implementing it in your marketing strategy, you may be asking yourself a lot of questions about PPC. What’s the purpose of PPC marketing? Why add one more thing and go through the hassle of trying to appear in paid results when you can get visitors without paying a dime with SEO?
In short, combining PPC and SEO can seriously boost your online marketing strategy. Here are three reasons why:
SEO is a long-game strategy that depends on continuous content creation, whereas paid ads are short-term lead generation. Most websites, however, experience occasional traffic drops when marketing efforts falter. Running PPC campaigns can help you attract new leads. If your ads lead to quality, optimized sites, your PPC campaigns will be very successful, and your costs will decrease.
Precise targeting: Good keyword research is the foundation of any PPC campaign. Using long-tail keywords can help you reduce the number of irrelevant clicks that plague your conversion rate. Many PPC platforms allow you to refine your demographic criteria. This allows you to narrow your audience by characteristics such as age, gender, and browsing activity.
Performance measurement: PPC marketing gives you transparent access to the source and frequency of quality leads. Using real-time data, you can invest in small test campaigns and adjust your SEO tactics to improve your results.
Tips for a Successful PPC Campaign
A well-thought-out PPC campaign is a good way to separate the good prospects from the bad. Between the thousands of people who see your ad, the interested ones are more likely to click through to learn more. However, PPC marketing can be chaotic without a good strategy.
Common Reasons why PPC ad Campaigns Fail:
Poor landing pages: The cost and position of PPC ads depend on how consistently you offer what users are looking for. Having good landing pages is essential. It’s recommended to create different pages with specific calls to action. For example, you’ll need one landing page if you want customers to make a purchase and a second landing page for email capture via opt-in. Each landing page should highlight the value you want to add to each consumer segment.
Bland ads: All the work you put into consumer research and keyword research will have no impact if the text of your ads makes people sleepy. Make sure headlines contain a strong selling point, and that ad copy answers the most important question readers might have. If consumers are searching for “buy brown biker boots,” make it clear that this is what they will find on your site.
Poor performance management: Don’t just run the same campaign over and over. Pay attention to what’s generating conversions and what is not. Try groups of keywords at the same time to compare them. Better yet, use negative keywords to prevent your ads from showing up for unrelated search terms.
PPC marketing is not for everyone, and creating campaigns that pay off takes practice. To increase your profits, you need to set clear PPC goals. Ask yourself where your customers spend time online before choosing a PPC platform.
If online engagement is critical to your business model, you may need to capture followers on social networks before your ads can have a real impact.
The most important thing is to avoid comparing your business to others. Do not give up unless you get amazing results right from the start. PPC is a very individualized style of marketing.
Small changes in the text, keywords, or budget can make a huge difference. If you decide to try PPC marketing, approach it as an experiment and be prepared to avoid the pitfalls.
