Marketers and advertisers, can we be straightforward for a moment? How well do you understand paid advertising on a scale of 1-10? Although 45% of small companies engage in online advertising, many are still unfamiliar with pay-per-click. PPC is a tool every marketer should possess or at least have a fundamental grasp of.
This article will assist you in understanding pay-per-click advertising in its totality. We’ll discuss the advantages of paid advertising, followed by the definitions you’ll need to know. Continue reading this PPC marketing guide to learn PPC basics, training, PPC websites, and PPC management.
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How does PPC advertising work?
Pay per click, also known as PPC, is an advertising method that charges you to display your website on the search engine results page (SERP) when specific keywords or phrases are entered into a particular search engine. The SERP displays the search ads you produce to lead visitors to your website, and the cost you pay depends on the number of people who click on your Google ads when they appear.
PPC management can help your web content generate high-quality leads when adequately implemented. If you can design a smooth user experience, it could result in a significant return on investment for your PPC efforts.
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Key Terminologies in PPC
Whether you learn PPC or intend to engage in paid advertising, there are a few phrases you should be familiar with. Here are some of them:
1. Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
All types of digital advertising aim to rank for a particular keyword, which can be accomplished in multiple ways. Search Engine Marketing (SEM) refers to paid or unpaid digital marketing done on a search engine such as Google, Yahoo, or Bing.
SEM is an umbrella phrase that includes paid search ads and search engine optimization, sometimes known as organically ranking for target keywords. It is essential to understand that not all PPC takes place on search engines, like Bing ads. If you’re yet to learn PPC basics, know that PPC ads are also available on social media, such as Facebook Ads.
2. CPC
Cost-per-click (CPC) refers to the price an advertiser pays for each click on your ad. CPC serves as your bid in an auction, determining the placement of your ad. Therefore, a greater bid results in better Google ads placement.
You set your CPC to the highest amount per click you are ready to pay for your ad. Following is the calculation that determines your real cost:
Actual CPC = (rival’s Google ads rank / your quality score) + 0.01
Let’s review the terms in this equation, so you understand what you’re paying for:
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GOOGLE AdS rank
This number determines the placement of an ad on a page of search queries. You get this figure by multiplying your maximum bid by the quality score.
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Quality score
This is the score search engines assign to your ad based on your click-through rate (CTR) relative to the average CTR of ads in that position, the relevancy of your keywords, the quality of your landing page, and your historical performance on the SERP.
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Maximum Bid
This is the maximum cost per click you are ready to pay for your Google ads.
You may set your CPC to the manual approach, in which case you select the maximum price for your ads, or enhanced, in which case the search engines will update your bid depending on your goals. Bid strategies that automatically modify your offers depending on ad clicks or conversions are one of these upgraded choices.
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PPC Benefits
1. PPC ads are economical
During PPC campaign settings, you have full control over your budget. Since you only pay when a visitor clicks on the link leading to your website or landing page, with a high likelihood of conversion, you will receive your money’s worth.
2. PPC ads get immediate results
Although organic search results are excellent, they could take months or years to reach the first page of search engine results pages (SERPs).
You likely don’t have the time to wait for direct, social, or organic traffic effects to take effect if you’re a startup or small business. That is where PPC ads come in handy. With customized PPC ads, you can reach the most popular search engine results page (SERP) within hours after initiating your PPC campaigns.
3. It is simple to manage and test PPC ads
PPC ads are simple to manage regarding targeted keywords, Google ads placement, and budget. You may also do A/B split testing with different ads to see which yields the most return on investment. The ads can then be scaled until they no longer yield favorable results.
4. PPC ads enable you to target your ideal buyers.
Pay-per-click advertising may target a warm audience eager to purchase your products or services. Find keywords that solution-aware personas would use to search online. In addition to keywords, PPC ads target choices such as previous online behavior and demographics.
5. Changes to algorithms have minimal impact on the PPC ad group.
Due to the many Google algorithm updates and the 200 ranking variables, obtaining free traffic from particular search engines can be more volatile than PPC advertising.
With PPC ads, you don’t have to worry about algorithm updates; instead, you can concentrate on the performance of your campaigns.
6. PPC ads enable you to rank despite poor domain ratings.
Keywords are becoming increasingly competitive now than ever. As a result, it is harder for a company with low domain authority to rank well on search engines and reach its target audience and potential customers on social media platforms.
With pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, you can swiftly rank for keywords your potential customers are searching for, regardless of your domain’s ratings.
7. Data from PPC ads can enhance your SEO strategy.
It would help if you did not forsake your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts. Paid advertising should supplement, not replace, your SEO approach.
When people search for your keywords, you understand their intent and may display the most relevant ad to your target demographic. These PPC advertising practices increase the number of clicks and boost conversion rates through search queries.
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How to design and build effective PPC campaigns?
1. Set Parameters
If you add negative keywords or miss out on parameters, you risk having an ineffective and untargeted ad. It would help if you situated your ad campaigns within the framework of your ultimate company goals.
Consider how your paid campaigns will support these goals. Then, consider what you want to achieve with your ads, whether site visits, brand recognition, sales, or something else, and how much you’re ready to part with to reach that objective.
Your ads must include the following:
· Whom you intend to pursue
· The theme of your advertising campaign
· How will you evaluate the campaign’s success
· Type of campaign you want to conduct
2. Develop Objectives and Goal Metrics
You will have something to show for your PPC advertising budget if you define how you measure campaign objectives. Your target metrics should not be confused with your campaign metrics, which we will address further.
Let’s discuss specific PPC goals and how to measure them.
· Brand Awareness
This is the degree to which your target market is familiar with your firm. For this objective, it may be prudent to investigate display ads so that you may supplement your material with attractive visuals. You can gauge brand awareness using social interaction, surveys, and direct visitors.
· Lead Generation
This is the direct effect of having relevant keywords and compelling landing pages with your paid ad. Since you’ll create a unique landing page for all ad groups, you should be able to track lead conversions in the Google Ads interface using tracking pixel or UTM parameters.
· Offer Promotion
Offer promotion is ideal if you are conducting a limited-time offer, product or service discount, or contest. You should develop a specific sign-up page or a unique discount code to determine which users came from your ad.
· Sales
You can determine your sales by calculating the product or service sold due to your paid ads. Therefore, you can monitor this using CMS software or attribution reporting.
· Site Traffic
Site traffic is an excellent objective if your website contains high-quality material throughout. If you’re going to invest money in attracting people to visit your website, you should be confident in your ability to keep them there and convert them into leads.
3. Select the Correct Type of Campaign for Search Engines
You may find these common campaign kinds in your Google Ads account. Each campaign type has a unique ad format, placement, and contextual targeting choices. Let’s take a brief look at what they involve.
· Search Campaigns
This is the most frequent format of PPC campaigns, and Google users undoubtedly connect it with their ads. A search ad will be displayed if the user input (keyword) satisfies the criteria established by advertisers.
· Display Campaigns
Google’s display ads show in banner style across the Google Display Network (GDN). Numerous websites monetize their traffic by the placement of display network ads.
· Shopping Campaigns
If you are a store, you will utilize shopping campaigns to promote items with photos straight in the SERPs.
· Video Campaigns
We are all familiar with the frustration of wanting to watch a YouTube video but being interrupted by video ads. They are one of the most obnoxious ad forms and the primary reason people install ad-blocking plugins or pay for YouTube Premium.
However, when done correctly, they may be pretty potent. You’ve undoubtedly watched several video ads when you not only did not quickly click “Skip Ad,” but you enjoyed watching it overall.
· Smart Campaigns
This campaign type does not give a new ad style but a distinct sort of campaign management in which Google’s algorithms perform most of the work. Google determines who to target, what to bid on, etc., based primarily on the information you submit.
4. Integrate your display ads with your inbound PPC marketing strategy
Social refers to PPC campaigns displayed on social media platforms, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Depending on the site, you may pay to appear in your target audience’s social stream or elsewhere in their profile.
Remarketing can utilize either cookies or a contact list that you upload to target individuals who have previously connected with your organization. This activity might be filling out a form, reading a blog post, or simply viewing a web page.
Google Shopping is handy for e-commerce websites. Your ad, including an image, price, and a brief product description, will appear in a carousel on a search results page, depending on your chosen keywords.
5. Perform Keyword Research on Ad Groups
For search engines to know when and where to display your ad, you must give a keyword list to all the ad groups you create.
The usual rule of thumb of keyword research is to choose between one and five keywords per ad group, which must be very relevant; your Quality Score depends on them.
Choose keywords for landing pages that are closely related to the concept of your ad groups. If you discover keywords you like to target that does not fit under a particular subject, you should build a distinct ad group for them.
It is essential to realize that you are not limited to the keywords you begin with. You should regularly check your keyword list throughout your campaign, removing those that do not attract the desired traffic and raising your bids on those that do.
Please do your best to choose the most pertinent keywords, but don’t feel compelled to get it perfect on the first try.
6. Set Up Tracking and Google Ads Analytics
Since Google Ads Analytics is free, there is no reason not to install it on your website. The tool gives analytics into your web’s performance of your website, how people interact with your pages, and what material is appealing to visitors. Google Ads Analytics collects this information, and users can use the information for PPC and beyond.
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Best Practices for Pay Per Click Marketing
Your bidding strategy on selected keywords will place your ad in front of the appropriate audience; relevant content and compelling text ads, video ads, or Bing ads will encourage these individuals to click on your ad. Similar to your keywords, your ad must address the goal of the searcher; you must provide the searcher with precisely what they are searching for and ensure that this is evident through the language you choose.
Search ads consist of a headline, a URL, and a brief description, each of which must adhere to a character restriction. To maximize conversions, here is a guide to PPC to ensure that your ad content succeeds:
· Speak directly to your intended audience
· Include the primary keyword for which you are bidding
· Provide a call-to-action so that the searcher will know what to do next
· Make the PPC campaign offer desirable
· Use wording consistent with the material you use to create the landing pages
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The Bottom Line
Whether you set up your firm yesterday or have been in operation for decades, PPC may be the boost you need to get an advantage over your competitors or surpass them in the search engine results pages (SERPs).
Applying the lessons in this article on constructing a PPC campaign and the best practices for a high-quality PPC strategy will put you in an excellent position to increase your website’s traffic and conversions.
Resources
1. https://themanifest.com/advertising/small-business-advertising-2019
2. https://publications.aston.ac.uk/id/eprint/39389/1/31942.pdf
