As a business owner, you most likely have sought the need to advertise the products or services you are offering, and in today’s digital era, you have probably heard of pay-per-click (PPC) marketing. If you are curious to learn about how to maximize PPC to help your business grow, keep reading this article.
To begin, let’s define PPC and establish an understanding of how it works.
What is PPC?
PPC, also known as Search Engine Marketing (SEM), is an online advertising model (a form of digital marketing) used to promote a product or service through the internet. Advertisers pay each time a user clicks on one of their ads. Technically, it is a way of buying traffic to your site rather than doing it organically. PPC allows you to appear on the front page of your target audience actively searching for products or services like yours.
What are the different types of PPC?
PPC is a valuable tool for businesses, especially those looking for a quick way to bring traffic to their website and generate leads. There are different types of PPC ads such as:
- Search Engine Advertising. This includes text-based ads that show on search engines such as sponsored links, shopping banners, or page ads. Search engine advertising allows businesses to bid for an ad placement in search engines results pages (SERP).
- Display Advertising. This allows your ads to appear across all Google partner websites. Typically, image-based ads are displayed on websites users usually visit in the form of a banner, sidebar, or footer image. Display advertising targets slightly differentiate from search engine ads, which are focused more on target keywords. In-display advertising, you can choose your exact target market, or people who have visited your website or a similar one. You can also select relevant business websites on which your adverts will show.
- Social Media Advertising. This is placing ads with your target demographics in your social media accounts. You can create ads on the most popular social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and TikTok. Most of your ads will appear on your target user’s newsfeed.
- Remarketing Advertising. This is a type of PPC that targets people who previously viewed your products or website. This method is effective as seeing your advert might entice people to go back to your website and convince them to use your services or purchase your product.
- Google Shopping. This is the type of PPC ad that is great for eCommerce websites. Your adverts show in the carousel above the main Google search, allowing potential consumers to see your price and products before clicking on your website. It is like window shopping, but virtual.
How Does PPC Marketing Work?
PPC has become a valuable marketing tool for businesses. The trick when using PPC is choosing the right avenue for your budget.
For an ad to appear alongside the SERP, it is subjected to Ad Auction, an automated process of search engines like Google to determine the significance and validity of advertisements that appear on their SERPs. Ad Auction, as its name implies, is like a bidding system for advertisers interested in showing their ads related to the user’s search query. A combination of several factors decides the winner on who will appear on top of the position.
- Keywords – Keywords connects advertisers to users through search inquiries. For an ad to appear in a search query, advertisers must bid on the term they want to trigger, known as keywords.
- Ads – Basically, advertisements are what you are trying to sell. It contains what you want the user to see and typically contains headlines, descriptions, URLs, and sometimes pictures. It is best to test different versions of the ads and see what works well with your target users.
- Budget and Bids – To participate in an Ad Auction, advertisers need to decide how much they are willing to spend on a keyword. A budget should be planned according to bid strategy. It will allow advertisers to set the primary and daily goals of the campaign.
After that, the search engine then performs the complex algorithmic calculation based on the Ad Auction with these factors combined. It regulates which ads will be displayed, in which order.
What are the Benefits of PPC in Marketing?
When set up correctly, the best PPC advertising campaigns can help a business grow, gain more traffic, and direct potential customers to perform beneficial actions like purchasing, availing a service, and recommending your product. Here are some seven benefits of PPC in Marketing.
- PPC Boosts Instant Traffic to your Website
As much as organic marketing efforts like SEO help your website appear on the first page of Google, PPC advertising slots are already there. Ranking your website through an organic search for keywords can take months.
Organic growth is necessary and beneficial for any business, but if you are looking for instant results, PPC can help you.
- PPC Works Well with SEO
PPC vs SEO has always been compared with each other. Nevertheless, PPC and SEO can work well together. Impressions and conversion often have the same audience. Thus, PPC insights can provide a great deal in choosing target keywords for SEO.
You can test your SEO keyword strategy in PPC first before committing to a long-term SEO strategy. In PPC, there is no restriction in the keyword search, and you can get a complete overview of keywords. You can directly feed these into organic search marketing and use them to optimise metadata, headlines, and keywords.
- PPC Ads can Reach Potential Customers Cost-effectively
PPC lets advertisers have complete control of their budget, targets, and ad placements. You can choose to spend as much or as little as you like on your chosen keyword. If your ads are effective, it is easy to scale and add more to your budget.
In addition, with Pay-Per-Click, advertisers only pay when a user clicks your advertisement and reaches your website.
Similarly, if your website is down, you can halt the campaign ads anytime, unlike traditional advertising, whereas your ads will continuously run until the agreed period.
- Measurable and Trackable
One of the benefits of PPC is that it’s easy to measure and track through Google Ads. Google Ads comes with a Google Analytics tool where you can see performance details, impressions, clicks, and conversion.
Reports are readily available, so you can easily calculate how your campaigns are performing. It can also help advertisers to improve their strategy based on the demographics of their viewers.
- PPC is Targeted and Focused
Another benefit of PPC advertising is that it gives you the ability to choose your target consumers based on age, location, keywords, interests, and more. It can help you pinpoint the exact people you want to view your products, unlike traditional advertising where everyone can see your ads on billboards, television commercials, and other methods.
Many advertisers create and pay for multiple ads to ensure that they are targeting all types of customers. By testing out different ads, you can see what performs best.
- Contributes to Business Success
Having successful marketing and advertising contributes to the success of a business. PPC can help businesses grow by introducing your product and services to a wide range of the right people, boosting visibility through the use of search engines.
- PPC is Accessible
Even if you are a few years behind PPC advertising, you can always join in and bid quickly. In contrast with SEO, which takes a lot of time and planning, PPC Ads can be launched in no time at all with the right keywords, advertisement, and budget.
The Bottom Line
PPC has demonstrated itself to be dependable and profitable to businesses seeking quick traffic and conversion. Considering all the rewards it offers, trying out PPC can come with little to no risk, unlike other marketing methods. Whether you are a start-up or an already flourishing small business, PPC can boost your success anytime.
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