Did you know it is estimated that Google processes over 40,000 search queries every second? If you can harness just a little of this traffic, you can convert it to serious profit. But how do you go about starting that process?
One answer is with pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns. Read on as we answer the question “What is PPC?” and talk about how it can benefit your business.
What Is PPC in Marketing?
Pay per click (PPC) is a way of advertising online. Its guiding principle is that you only pay if someone clicks upon your advert. Thus, you are paying by how many leads you gain, rather than how many impressions you have.
You will undoubtedly have come across PPC adverts before, even if you did not realize it at first. They appear on social media, and in search engines when you type in certain queries. It can promote everything, from clothing to services and even health and dental PPC.
What Are the Benefits?
To understand the benefits of PPC marketing, you need to think about the old way marketing campaigns were done. Generally, you would pay to put an advert on a billboard, in a magazine, or on television. It would be shown to a number of people, many of which had no interest in the product, in the hope that it would catch the eye of the few who did.
Then, you would have to wait until the campaign finished gathering data and judge its effectiveness. This could be a long process, with no guarantee your budget was being spent wisely.
PPC campaigns do not work like this. Firstly, adverts only appear to people who have already shown an interest in your niche, industry, or product. This information is taken when they type search terms into engines or show they like certain products on social media.
When they do this, they are logging their interests and information. You can then use this to target them specifically. You can aim your product at people based on interest, geography, age, or any number of other factors.
After this, you only pay if they follow the link. That means you are increasing brand awareness to people who will be interested in your company, for free. When they convert into solid leads, you will pay a fee.
Lastly, data on the campaign is provided in real-time. This means you can tweak a PPC campaign as it is ongoing. You don’t have to wait until afterward to see if it was worth it.
What are the Cons?
A PPC campaign has very few cons, though there are some to be aware of. The first is that it can get costly. If you are bidding on high competition keywords over a long period of time, expect to amass a fair-sized bill.
Another factor to be wary of is that you are reliant on a paid campaign, and must keep paying for it to work. If you work to build an email list or social media following, you have an asset that can be called upon at a later date. This is not the case with PPC advertising.
Google Ads
Google Ads is arguably the most successful PPC platform available. By using it, you make ads appear on Google’s search engine and its other platforms. This provides huge exposure.
It works by asking people to bid on keywords. These are the terms that people type into Google when they have a query. The more popular a keyword is, the more it will cost to bid on.
The ad that shows up is determined by a number of factors. Firstly, it is based on the size of their keyword bids. However, it is also based on the quality and relevance of the ad.
Types of PPC Campaign
PPC campaigns are not all the same. There are a number of variations you can use to get different results, depending on your marketing goals. By knowing what you want beforehand, you can get a much better return on investment.
The most common are search ads and social ads. They are very simple and show at the top of search engines or on social media platforms. Ads of this nature from Google with a focus solely on shopping are known as e-commerce ads.
One very successful method of PPC marketing is by using retargeting ads. These take a little more setting up but target people who have already visited your website. This means you can remind them of the products and services they looked at but did not purchase.
Keywords
Keyword research could fill an article on its own, but it is so intrinsically linked to PPC campaigns that it needs to be mentioning. If you don’t get your keywords right, then your campaign will not work. Unfortunately, it is not only about getting keywords that everyone is searching for.
If more people are searching for a term, then it attracts more competition. For example, is your boutique shoe brand going to be able to compete with Nike and Adidas when it comes to keyword terms such as red sneakers? Probably not, so you need to do a little more research.
You are looking for terms that have high search volumes but low competition. Keep in mind that search term volumes change on a daily basis, so it may be worth doing a check once or twice a month. You will also find that low competition words have a cheaper cost per click, the amount you pay when people follow the lead.
Starting a Campaign
Now you can answer the question “What is PPC?” you can start your campaign. This is easy to do yourself, but very hard to master. If you want to fast-track the process, you should consider hiring a company.
If you enjoyed this article, we have many more informative pieces to help. From tech news to online advertising, we can help your business traverse the digital economy in the coming year.
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