PPC advertising, or pay-per-click marketing, is an online advertising model that has been designed to drive traffic to websites. Every time a user clicks on a PPC ad, the advertiser will get charged, hence the term pay-per-click. PPC, or Pay-per-click, is a form of advertising on search engines, like Google and Bing. It’s a way of moving to the top of search engine results pages by paid means. It’s called PPC because your ad account is charged every time one of your adverts is clicked. The cost of each ad, or CPC (cost per click), depends on the quality score of your website and the selected keyword’s competition. PPC campaigns can be a short-term solution, and many use it to shift products or seasonal deals, as a way to boost revenue. There are around 4 spots for Ads on Google, so getting your website in the for a selected keyword can be challenging. SEO work is about your ranking being ‘earned’, but PPC your ranking on the first page is bought.
How it Works
By bidding on a selected keyword or search term, you can make your way into the 4 ad spaces on offer by Google. Through tools like Google AdWords, PPC pros work on finding keywords that your website will perform well, and dependent on the competition, CPC is determined. Through bidding on keywords, against competitors, your ad appears in relevant search results and will charge you if a user clicks on your ad.
How Does PPC Work?
Advertisers pay a set fee every time internet users click on a PPC ad. Essentially, advertisers pay for site visits instead of attracting clicks through organic traffic. This cost-per-click (CPC) can rise or fall depending on various factors in your campaign.
What is a PPC Campaign?
A PPC campaign is a well-defined advertising strategy that sets out to achieve a specific goal, known as a conversion. The most common conversion goals include generating more leads and getting customers to make a purchase. Advertisers must select keywords – user search queries - and create ads with these keywords to ensure their ads perform well in search engine results pages. Your ad can show on the search network when someone searches for terms that are similar to your products and services. You can set up a PPC campaign on advertising platforms, using these dedicated systems to create, publish, and promote your ads to a specific target audience. The main platforms for PPC marketing are Google and Bing.
Google Ads
As the front door to the online world, Google is the dominant force in paid advertising, owning almost 80% of the market share. You can use the Google Display or Search Network to post your PPC ads, which will reach more people on Google compared to any other platform.
Facebook
The Facebook Ads platform allows for a high level of targeting, enabling advertisers to target people by demographics, age, interests, and location. The immense global popularity of the social media giant makes it ripe with opportunity for marketers.
YouTube
Have you heard that video marketing is kind of a big deal now? With over 1.8 billion active users, YouTube is attracting a LOT of businesses to experiment with video ads. As mobile mania continues to grow, this channel will surely become more potent for paid advertising.
Instagram
Since Facebook acquired Instagram, the latter has surged north of 500 million active users. The world’s love of video content makes this a hot prospect for PPC advertising, especially if your target audience consists of young women.
How Does PPC Advertising Work?
PPC advertising success depends on relevance. If your PPC ad is relevant to users, it will attract more clicks. Ergo, a fully-optimized campaign that is relevant to your target audience will have a better chance of accomplishing your goals, such as:
Spreading greater brand awareness.
Generating more leads.
Increasing sales.
All over the planet, people search for information and solutions about specific topics, products, and services. Smart PPC advertising caters directly to these users by using targeted ads that satisfy their precise needs. For that reason, you can’t cheat in PPC advertising – paying for a better ad space won’t guarantee that you attract more customers.
Google Ads is a sophisticated system that uses Ad auctions to determine how valid and relevant every PPC ad is to users. As advertisers, you must target specific user search queries (i.e. keywords), bid on them, and the craft ads that will resonate with your audience.
With relevance in mind, you’ll have a better chance of generating a positive return on advertising spend (ROAS).
Why You Should Use PPC Advertising
As digital marketing has evolved and fueled more competitive markets, social media has become a tougher nut to crack. Companies are having less joy reaching audiences on free platforms, and organic traffic is slowing to a trickle as a result of the intense competition.
Now, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is taking center stage, preferred by many marketers over tried-and-tested techniques like search engine optimization (SEO) and content marketing.
There are many great benefits of PPC advertising, including:
Quick results – PPC makes it possible to reach audiences fast, as you pay to get your ads in front of specific audiences.
Attract targeted traffic – You can direct a ton of traffic to your business website by using targeted ads.
Increase leads, sales, and revenue – As you get better at optimizing your campaigns, you can earn a significant return on investment (ROI) from PPC advertising.
With these benefits in mind, it’s important to keep things in perspective.
PPC advertising is by no means a ‘get rich scheme’ – in fact, many have tried and failed, much to the detriment of their finances.
To succeed in PPC advertising, you must adopt a proactive attitude, where you are committed to constant monitoring and experimentation in an ongoing effort to optimize your campaign for better results.
