Are you wasting precious advertising budget on dead-end campaigns?

Every penny counts when it comes to promoting your business. While organic campaigns are effective, they take a lot longer to generate the same results a paid digital marketing campaign can produce.

What if there were a way to spend less time and money, yet still generate quality leads?

PPC or pay per click is a digital advertising model in which the advertiser pays an amount (fixed or determined by auction) each time a user clicks on one of their ads to visit their website. The idea of a pay per click campaign is to “buy visits” for a specific site. The aim is generally to generate a specific type of user action, such as generating a lead or buying a product, for example.

Pay per click (PPC) advertising allows you to place your brand in front of the right audience instantly through paid ads. That means your marketing just got a lot easier (and cheaper).

But what is PPC? In this article, our digital marketing experts in Lincolnshire break down the PPC model, platform options, and strategy tips to help your business stay relevant online.

Sounds simple right? In truth, PPC is more complex than this. Running a profitable PPC campaign requires knowledge of ad budgets, copywriting, landing pages, keywords and much more.

What is PPC?

In a nutshell, PPC or pay per click is an online advertising model where marketers run ads and only pay when someone clicks on said ad.

Pay per click is an extension of paid digital marketing. When used correctly, it serves as an excellent tool to gain exposure amongst your target audiences without spending your entire ad budget. If you’re interested in learning more about how paid digital ads help generate leads, we’re happy to help.

Now that you know what pay per click advertising is let’s dive into how it works.

How Does Pay Per Click (PPC) Work?

Like we mentioned earlier, PPC is a model where the marketer, business, etc. pays each time someone clicks on the ad. The model can appear complex, but once you understand how PPC works the rest falls into place, allowing you to use your ad budget more efficiently.

It all starts with an online search. The search engine pulls results from all over the internet, which also triggers an auction for all of the ads seeking placement (including yours) in that search. This auction is where your paid search campaign is truly tested.

So, what determines an ad showing up on the first page versus the second or even at all? The outcome depends on a few key performance indicators within your campaign:

• Bid amount – This ties into your overall campaign budget and keyword bid amount.
• Ad relevance – Is your ad the best fit for the search? If not, consider when your target audience searches for and optimise your ads based on those unique search inquiries.
• Geotargeting – Target the specific locations you’d like your ads to show. If you’re a Lincoln-based estate agent you probably do not want your ads showing in Yorkshire.
• Mobile-friendly campaigns – Make sure your paid ads are showing up on people’s mobile phones and tablets.

Advantages of PPC

• You only pay for the visits you receive. In other advertising models, the advertiser pays a fee for having the ad shown, but does not have the guarantee that it is generating results. On the other hand, with pay per click, there is a direct link between cost and performance (visits).
• You have a lot of information about the performance of the ad. The pay per click platforms offer the advertiser complete information about what is happening with the advertisement, including the number of impressions, clicks and conversions.
• Good optimisation possibilities. With all this data, it is very easy to know if an ad is working or not and correct the course in real time. In fact, the most advisable strategy is to create several variants of each ad and compare them to see which ones work best. In this way, we can get our advertising to have better results every time.
• The ads reach the right audience. Thanks to the multiple segmentation options, we don’t waste a single click, since only the users that interest us will see the ad. This, in turn, improves the results of the ad, since a user who is part of the target audience is more likely to click. And as we have seen, the higher the percentage of clicks, the lower the cost of the ad.
• You can control your budget with precision. PPC models allow you to set a maximum budget per day, and in some you can start with just one euro. This means that they can be adapted to advertisers of all sizes and that you can control in advance how much you spend on each campaign.
• You can decide where and at what times your ad will be shown. Within the pay per click model, you can show your ads on many different platforms and locations (in the next section we show you some examples) and select the ones that interest you the most. Some sites also allow you to choose the days and times when your ads will be shown.
• You will achieve better positioning and visibility. Thanks to the PPC, you can show your ads on some of the sites most visited by users, such as search engines, social networks or the most famous web portals.

Defining Your PPC Strategy

Any successful PPC campaign starts with strategy, and before creating a strategy there are a few questions that you need to ask.

What are you selling? Are you a logistics company trying to bring in new employees or are you a clothing brand wanting to sell your upcoming line of clothing? What you are selling is important to what type of PPC advertising you use.

Who is your audience? Knowing your audience is a huge piece of building out your PPC strategy. Depending on your audience you may want to target mobile phones and tablets more than desktop, or ads on YouTube over search ads.

What are your goals? Is your goal to create and spread brand awareness? Then search ads may not be the best strategy for you. Instead, display ads would be more effective as they are much cheaper per impression than search ads. If your goals are more lead-driven (i.e. Click-to-call or click-to-directions), then you may want to consider search ads.

What type of campaign makes the most sense for your goals?

As mentioned above, your goals largely determine what type of campaign makes the most sense for you. There are more types of campaigns than just paid search and paid display. If your site gets a lot of traffic, but you aren’t seeing the conversions you would like, then you should consider remarketing efforts. Through remarketing, you can keep your brand in front of the eyes of your non-converters in an effort to bring them back to your website.

For example, if you are a new estate agent in Lincolnshire and want to compete within the competitive local property industry, then geofencing may be an effective strategy. While it is more expensive than traditional display advertising, with Geofencing you can draw digital maps around the locations of your competitor’s businesses. Once a person steps foot within that geofence they will then be served your ads for a predetermined span of time.

Determine your budget

Once you know your audience and the type of campaign you are going to build, it’s time to determine your budget. The most important thing to consider when creating a budget is the value per conversion. If you are selling goods then your conversion value is rarely more than the price of the product itself. If this is the case, then you want to make sure that you are not spending more on media than you are making on your goods.

If you are offering a service and your conversion value is around $1,000/conversion, then you can justify putting more money into your media spend.

There are many things to consider when determining your budget. Some industries have more expensive keywords than others based on competition and other variables. Your reach is also important to think about. If you are only advertising locally then $1,000/month will get you much farther than if you are serving your ads at a national level.

Bring PPC to Your Next Digital Marketing Campaign

Every second billions of online ads enter an auction to be seen by people around the world. Depending on your business and the goals you have, pay-per-click advertising or PPC could be a cost-effective digital marketing solution. With a variety of paid ad platforms including Google and Bing, you’ll soon discover each platform has it’s pros and cons. What matters most is how you plan to use these platforms to optimize your PPC strategy. Don’t forget to narrow in on the audience, goals, and budget you’re working with. The more clarity you have up front, the more likely you are to see results from your PPC ads.

Digital Marketing & PPC Experts

PPC presents a range of opportunities to get what you’re selling in front of the right people. Yello Media is here to help you determine the best paid advertising options for your product, target audience, and your budget. Get in touch with us today to schedule a one-on-one and put your digital marketing on the right path.