Many businesses struggle to find ways to grow at a faster pace. SEO is a great way to generate leads. But it can take months or even years to generate inbound customers. There is an alternative – Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising.
PPC marketing is like a faucet. You can turn it on, and active buyers start flowing into your website, enquiring about your services. It’s a great way to generate leads and sales when you need them. And you can just as easily pause it, or turn it off.
This form of advertising is suitable for a wide range of businesses, and in many industries PPC ads are an essential part of the marketing budget.
An ad campaign is set up, and a monthly ad budget is allocated. The campaign requires regular ongoing management by trained, experienced experts. The size of ad budget will determine how many business leads you will attract, as will the quality of your ad copy, landing page and offer.
Pay Per Click can be a fast-acting way to bring new business in the door. It can get expensive really fast if you’re trying to do it yourself, and don’t possess the proper training.
Today, many small businesses are still somewhat confused or unsure about whether PPC is a good option for them to consider.
With that, we are eager to share with you some of the insights that have propelled Asset Digital Communications become Toronto’s premiere full-service digital marketing agency, with deep expertise in online advertising.
“Our goal is to provide our clients both experience and professional expertise so they can get the best value, and greatest number of leads from their PPC Advertising campaigns. We have one of the most seasoned teams in the industry who work tirelessly measuring campaign performance in order to consistently deliver results to our clients.” (says company founder, MJ Owen)
What Does PPC Advertising Even Mean?
PPC stands for pay-per-click. It’s a digital advertising model where advertisers pay when someone clicks on their ad. Think of it as buying visitors to your website.
The most common PPC Advertising search engines are:
- Google AdWords
- Bing Ads
The most common PPC Advertising social media platforms are:
Other Marketing Terms That Are Interchangeably Used:
- Paid Search
- Pay Per Click Marketing
- Paid Search Marketing
- Search Engine Marketing – SEM
Using PPC to Build Your Business
Here are several situations where PPC is a great way to build your business.
When You Need Immediate Results
SEO is a great long-term strategy to build quality traffic to your website. But there are times when you don’t have months or years to wait.
For instance, a new product launch where you want to create buzz and obtain customers quickly. Or for a rapid post COVID recovery where you need new business to fill your leads pipeline.
PPC Advertising Brings Targeted Traffic
PPC platforms give advertisers a wide variety of data points that can be used for targeting. That means you can be very precise on who you want to show your ads to.
Use PPC for Testing Purposes
Since PPC can start bringing traffic in a short period of time, it’s ideal when you want to test a web page or an offer.
You can get quick data to use and optimize. You can run A/B tests, get feedback from the marketplace and optimize for conversions. This is ideal for testing promotions, offers and new products prior to launching.
Keep Up With Your Competitors
In some industries, PPC advertising is the standard. In some cases, businesses run PPC campaigns only during certain times of the year, such as Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Back to School. If your competitors are advertising and you’re not, you risk losing sales to them.
When You Have Money to Spend
PPC advertising can be expensive, but it is highly effective if done correctly. Working with a competent PPC agency can save you time and a whole lot of money in the long run.
It’s not advisable to try to figure out PPC on your own. There is a steep learning curve and the platforms are updated frequently. You can shortcut this learning curve by working with a specialist who has years of honed experience on top of professional training and certifications.
Even if you’ve been doing PPC yourself, you can substantially increase your ROI and decrease your ad costs by partnering with an agency. They will find cost savings in your set up which you have missed, as well as campaign efficiencies because they know the ins and outs of the ad networks.
To Better Understand The Impact Of Your Marketing Budget
Traditionally, it was hard to measure the impact of advertising. It’s impossible to know how many eyeballs have seen a print ad in a magazine or a billboard on a highway. The best you can do is to get a rough estimate.
With PPC ads, you can get precise real-time data on how well your ads are performing. You have much greater control. You can find tune ads, pause and ad if it’s not doing well to save money, and you can increase spend on your best performing campaigns to scale your revenue.
How does PPC work for Search Engines?
Paid ads on search engines allow you to reach shoppers. By understanding the keywords buyers are using to search, you can reach people who are looking for your product or service.
Your ads will show up at the top of the search results page. It’s above the organic listings and is one of the first things users will see.
A well-crafted ad will capture the active searchers attention. They will see your ad and click on your offer, which sets you on the path of a new lead and customer for your product or service.
However, it’s unlikely that you’re the only one advertising to your buyers. To be placed at the top, you will have to bid against your competitors.
You win by doing careful analysis, a good ad campaign set up, and well-planned targeting to reach your ideal customer.
Users enter certain search terms into their browser when they’re in research mode and a different set of search terms, or keywords when they’re ready to buy.
You can be very strategic with the keywords you are bidding on. The fact that they went to search engines means that they’re actively looking for a solution. In this way PPC advertising brings buyers with purchase intent.
Using Social Media for PPC Advertising
Social advertising has a different goal. Consumers on social media don’t have the same purchase intent as search engines.
In fact, social media advertising is a form of interruption marketing. People are on Facebook and Instagram to check on their friends and see funny dog and cat videos. They’re not on social media to do shopping. If they’re looking for a deal or promotion, they would search on Google.
Therefore, to do well on social media, your ad needs to capture the attention of your audience. But once you’ve accomplished that, they will visit your website and are open to what you have to offer.
If done correctly, social PPC can be an effective supplement to your PPC campaign.
You can reach people who may not find you otherwise. There are rich audience targeting options only available in paid social ads, and in particular Facebook. Since it is relatively inexpensive, social ads can be a great way to build your follower base.
With that said, let’s talk about what type of businesses can benefit from this form of digital marketing.
What Type of Businesses Can Benefit from PPC Advertising?
Virtually any business can benefit from implementing a strategic, well thought out Pay Per Click Advertising campaign. The key is to know your audience, identify the most relevant keywords, and develop a strategy that will convert leads into sales.
Let’s discuss some businesses that may benefit from PPC advertising.
- High Ticket Products or Services – For example, business in law, home-repair or construction related services, health such as cosmetic surgery and dental procedures, durable consumer goods, and other high ticket items can benefit tremendously from PPC campaigns. The high sale value has created a situation over time where these types of businesses have come to rely on PPC to bring in new clients.
- Niche Products – Selling a product or service that may be somewhat rare or hard to find can benefit tremendously from PPC as well. The reason for this is that the search engines are such a powerful tool in order to find those rare and unusual items. For example, you sell specialized equipment for high end drones, or have an antiques businesses. By bidding for the right keywords, you’ll show up in searches where motivated buyers are doing their online research.
- Lifetime Value Services – If your small business is in a field that provides ongoing value to the consumer through the form of subscriptions. The lifetime value of the customer is high. PPC can be a good way to bring in more qualified leads. One example is Software as a Service (SaaS) companies, or a Digital Marketing Agency for your business.
Launching a PPC Advertising Campaign
Now that you understand the basics of PPC, you can leverage this knowledge in your next PPC campaign. When working with a PPC agency, you can communicate with them and provide relevant information.
While PPC agencies are the expert in the platforms and using tools to analyze data, you’re the expert in your own business. For example, you may have insights into the common search terms used by your ideal customers. Sharing this valuable information with your agency can speed up the success of your PPC campaign.
Step 1: Setting Clear Objectives. Clear communications between your team and your agency is essential to ensuring both parties are on the same page about goals and outcomes
Step 2: Setting a Budget. What is the worth, in new revenue, to your business of each customer?
This information helps you decide how much you’re willing to spend to acquire a new customer, and from there what monthly ad budget should be allocated. How many new leads do you need to meet your revenue goals? What is your team’s close rate for new business?
Step 3: Review the Strategy. Although you’re not the one managing the PPC ads, it is valuable for you to review the plans so you’re on track with the work they are doing. What keywords are being targeted for search engine ads? What targeting options are used for social ads?
Step 4: Decide on a KPI. One of the powerful strengths of PPC advertising is the amount of data available with which to analyze and improve campaign performance. The Key Performance Indicators tell us the campaign is performing well and meeting expectations.
How Pay Per Click Ads Help Small Businesses
Now that we have covered the different aspects and methods of PPC Advertising, let’s discuss the benefits of Pay Per Click and how overall, it can help your small business thrive in a competition filed industry.
1 You Set Your Budget to Control Costs
One of the biggest benefits of Pay Per Click Advertising is that you have a direct line to your budget always. Therefore, if you notice your small budget is not bringing in as many leads as you intended, you can increase it at any time and vice versa. You can put a cap on what you spend daily, weekly, and monthly, as well as when you would like it to end. Most importantly, you are in control of your budget.
2 You Can Reach Your Ideal Target
With simple statistics about the kind of target audience your small business intends to reach, you can multiply your leads. These statistics may include age range, location, and even buying schedule.
With that said, one of the best way to understand your target audience is to know your websites back-end statistics.
Who is visiting? What time of the day? Where are they from? From this, you can develop your ideal target audience for your small business and reach them globally and directly.
3 PPC Gives You Instant Results
Unlike organic reach, Pay Per Click can show you instant results. Organic search is extremely important for long-term website marketing; however, the ROI takes a longer cycle to show up. With PPC advertisement, you can begin noticing results within the next day, depending on a variety of factors of course.
4 You Only Pay For Each Click
Unlike other marketing channels, which you pay for a banner or ad with no notable results, with PPC advertisement, you only pay per each time a user clicks on your ad.
The intention is that each click will bring the user to your online website, subscription form, shop page or other avenue, which will hopefully lead to a sale.
With that said, it is not guaranteed that each visitor will turn into a buyer. However, if your target audience is like your current buyer or subscriber base audience, you should notice results.
5 Provides Marketing Data
One of the greatest aspects of PPC Advertising is the amount of data you will soon be able to collect from your campaign. For example, each ad will supply information on data and performance as well as impression, clicks, and conversions.
These strategies can then be used later to enhance your strategic marketing as well as future advertising campaigns. With that said, with a bit of tech-help from digitalwhitehouse, you can cross-reference where your competition is ranking and build a solid profile of what statistics your competition is utilizing during their PPC Ad.
Use Pay Per Click Ads to Grow Your Business
In this article, you’ve learned the different types of PPC advertising available, several ways you can benefit from it and best practices when launching a PPC campaign.
Every business is unique with different needs. Perhaps you may benefit from PPC advertising on search engines. Maybe you may benefit more from social ads. Or maybe, a combination of both will give you the best results.
A professional PPC agency can help you map out a strategy. If you’re already running PPC advertising, they can perform an audit on it and spot opportunities for improvement. They can point out holes in the campaign where you’re wasting ad spend and also untapped opportunities that are worth pursuing. We’re here, when you’re ready, to help you grow your business with PPC advertising.
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