Digital marketing is evolving at a fast pace. It offers multiple opportunities for businesses to let their voice reach to a larger set of audience. Pay-per-click (PPC) is one of the most sought-after tools for digital marketing. It is reported that 45% of small businesses deploy PPC as a part of their digital marketing strategy.
As the arena of digital marketing becomes more complex, it is important to master the tools it offers. PPC can be rewarding in the long run, if understood and deployed correctly. If you are a PPC newbie, this beginner’s guide to PPC will help you understand the basics. Mastering the basics will increase your chances of a successful PPC campaign.
What is PPC?
- PPC is a tool for Search Engine Marketing (SEM). Through PPC, a company attracts traffic to its site. This is done by purchasing advertisements on different search engines or social media platforms. The idea is to advertise your product through paid advertisements. Once an ad gets clicked, the advertiser pays the search engine or social media platform. Hence, this is where the name Pay-Per-Click comes from.
To make the ads relevant and by extension more ‘clickable’, the ads are customized according to geographic location, demography, and gender. Certain keywords are used to make the ads more specific.
- For e.g. if you search ‘affordable beauty salons in New York’ a list of searches will appear. The top search links will probably be paid ads. Those ads have been customized in accordance with the keywords affordable and geographic location of New York.
Upon clicking the ad, the user will be taken to the business page of the advertiser. Hence, online traffic is directed to the business page. This helps businesses meet the following goals:
- Generation of leads
- Conversion of leads, hence increase in sales
- Brand awareness
How to Deploy PPC as a Part of Digital Marketing Strategy
- Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising are two online advertisement platforms. Using these platforms, advertisers bid on keywords. Once a bid is won, the advertisers’ ad will be displayed containing those keywords.
In theory, it seems simple. However, attention needs to be paid to certain factors for a successful PPC campaign. Let’s see what those factors are:
- Picking the right keywords. The most sought-after keywords for any domain are highly-priced. It is important to bid for the right keywords while making sure you don’t go over budget. Low yielding keywords are not priced high but they also don’t bring relevant traffic to your website either.
- Quality of ads. PPC and keywords will work their magic only if your ads are convincing and well-written. Adding visual attractions like images to your ads will help them fare better. It is important to learn the dos and don’ts of digital ads for an effective PPC campaign.
How to Maximize Your ROI on PPC
According to Google reports, a successful PPC campaign can help you earn $2 for every $1 you spent on the campaign. To maximize ROI, the lowest input cost should generate the highest revenue. How to make that happen? Let’s see:
How to Decrease Input Cost:
- Determine a budget before beginning the campaign and don’t go beyond it.
- Create relative ads to click with the right audience. This will help in generating more leads and consequently a higher conversion rate.
- Aim for a higher quality score. One way to do that is to divide your keywords into smaller and tightly focused groups. If you have a higher quality score, search engines will charge you less for the clicks.
How to Increase Revenue
- Follow best practices for landing pages for higher conversion rates.
- Pay attention to quality leads that are generated through relevant ads. Quality leads have the highest conversion rates.
If you wish to learn more about PPC to become a successful PPC marketeer, we recommend you to take the Local Marketing Vault course. It is a premium course that teaches how to launch a successful PPC campaign.
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