What is Pay-Per-Click Advertising?
Pay-per-click marketing is an effective advertising channel on search engines, and the businesses or individuals may bid on the keywords used in searches. This concept is also known as paid search marketing. This online advertising model ensures that the advertisers pay only when the user clicks on one of their online ads. There are various types of PPC ads, paid search ad being the most popular among all the types. Paid search ads appear when people perform commercial searches on search engines such as Google. For instance, PPC ads may include mobile search, local service search, shopping for a gift, or any other high-end items. In paid search marketing, the businesses or individuals posting ads are only charged when an end user clicks on their ad. Additionally, the other methods of PPC online advertising include remarketing and display advertising.
Though SEO advertising and content marketing are ideal for attracting the target audience, but these strategies take several years to develop a remarkable amount of traffic. However, pay-per click advertising is much faster, and helps in reaching out to the target audience that were not accessible before. A successful PPC campaign is the one that reduces the pay-per-click cost over time, and improves the advertising quality score.
How does Pay-Per-Click work?
In order to make your ads appear on the search engine results page (SERP), one needs to apply an appropriate strategy in targeting the right keywords. Since ads are subjected to an automated process known as Ad Auction, Google and the other search engines use this technique in determining the validity and relevance of ads that appear on their search engine results page.
Pay-per-click campaigns work excellently well in achieving a good ROI, since one can target ad copy keywords with the intention of the buyer. The trick lies in bidding the terms that are necessary for triggering their ads. These terms are also known as keywords. Once the end user submits the search query, the search engine performs certain algorithmic calculations based on the Ad Auction. This step determines the ads that are being displayed, the order of the ads being displayed, and the advertiser of the ads being displayed. Bidding on the right keywords that are relevant to your business is important to be sure of getting ROI from your Pay-per-click campaigns. One can take assistance from the keyword tool for analyzing the appropriate keywords that are likely to drive sales and are not very expensive.
This eventually enhances the quality score and ad rank. For instance, commercial searches such as buying something will have maximum number of ads on it. It is also estimated that SEO advertising results get approximately 60% of the clicks. Hence, it is evident that PPC visitors are more likely to buy something than those who prefer organic search results.
Reasons for giving PPC a shot
Including PPC campaign in your marketing strategy certainly offers tremendous benefits. Even a small investment in PPC can assure you rapid growth of your business. The reasons for attempting PPC are:
* Predictability – Though search engine marketing and content marketing have proven to drive website traffic and generate leads, but the results of these strategies are not predictable. Hence, organic search engine traffic may change at any point of time. One may get outranked or get hit with a Google penalty. There is no control over the rate at which your traffic grows. On the other hand, pay-per-click service assures the exact number of visitors you aim to achieve. The trick in getting more visitors is to spend more in your pay-per-click campaign.
* Faster results – Inbound marketing strategies such as search engine marketing tend to take approximately 6 to 12 months for achieving traffic. However, driving visitors to your website with PPC campaigns is just a matter of few hours.
* Less time consuming – Running a PPC campaign is not time consuming, apart from the setup time when one is new to PPC. Once you manage to run it the right way and gain considerable profits, it hardly takes an hour per day to keep in running. Thus, one gets sufficient time in focusing on the other aspects such as improving the product for converting the pay per click visitors.
Tactics for mastering your PPC campaign
Marketers can achieve incredible results by customizing and targeting their ads. Since the potential of pay-per-click service is vast, one needs to apply certain useful tactics in fully utilizing its potential. These tactics are helpful in increasing your PPC’s conversion rate and ROI.
Though SEO advertising and content marketing are ideal for attracting the target audience, but these strategies take several years to develop a remarkable amount of traffic. However, pay-per click advertising is much faster, and helps in reaching out to the target audience that were not accessible before. A successful PPC campaign is the one that reduces the pay-per-click cost over time, and improves the advertising quality score.
How does Pay-Per-Click work?
In order to make your ads appear on the search engine results page (SERP), one needs to apply an appropriate strategy in targeting the right keywords. Since ads are subjected to an automated process known as Ad Auction, Google and the other search engines use this technique in determining the validity and relevance of ads that appear on their search engine results page.
Pay-per-click campaigns work excellently well in achieving a good ROI, since one can target ad copy keywords with the intention of the buyer. The trick lies in bidding the terms that are necessary for triggering their ads. These terms are also known as keywords. Once the end user submits the search query, the search engine performs certain algorithmic calculations based on the Ad Auction. This step determines the ads that are being displayed, the order of the ads being displayed, and the advertiser of the ads being displayed. Bidding on the right keywords that are relevant to your business is important to be sure of getting ROI from your Pay-per-click campaigns. One can take assistance from the keyword tool for analyzing the appropriate keywords that are likely to drive sales and are not very expensive.
This eventually enhances the quality score and ad rank. For instance, commercial searches such as buying something will have maximum number of ads on it. It is also estimated that SEO advertising results get approximately 60% of the clicks. Hence, it is evident that PPC visitors are more likely to buy something than those who prefer organic search results.
Reasons for giving PPC a shot
Including PPC campaign in your marketing strategy certainly offers tremendous benefits. Even a small investment in PPC can assure you rapid growth of your business. The reasons for attempting PPC are:
* Predictability – Though search engine marketing and content marketing have proven to drive website traffic and generate leads, but the results of these strategies are not predictable. Hence, organic search engine traffic may change at any point of time. One may get outranked or get hit with a Google penalty. There is no control over the rate at which your traffic grows. On the other hand, pay-per-click service assures the exact number of visitors you aim to achieve. The trick in getting more visitors is to spend more in your pay-per-click campaign.
* Faster results – Inbound marketing strategies such as search engine marketing tend to take approximately 6 to 12 months for achieving traffic. However, driving visitors to your website with PPC campaigns is just a matter of few hours.
* Less time consuming – Running a PPC campaign is not time consuming, apart from the setup time when one is new to PPC. Once you manage to run it the right way and gain considerable profits, it hardly takes an hour per day to keep in running. Thus, one gets sufficient time in focusing on the other aspects such as improving the product for converting the pay per click visitors.
Tactics for mastering your PPC campaign
Marketers can achieve incredible results by customizing and targeting their ads. Since the potential of pay-per-click service is vast, one needs to apply certain useful tactics in fully utilizing its potential. These tactics are helpful in increasing your PPC’s conversion rate and ROI.
"You can always edit a bad page. You can’t edit a blank page.
― Jodi Picoult"
Ad extensions
Since PPC is highly competitive, your ad has to compete with the other opposing ads that are trying to gain the user’s attention. Apart from targeting the right keywords, one needs to find ways of making your ad stand out. Most individuals prefer easy and personalized buying experience. Approximately 75% of customers prefer to buy from a business that recognizes them personally, is aware of their purchase history, and recommends options based on past purchases. Hence, incorporating ad extensions into your PPC ad improves the customer experience and makes it stand out. One can choose from a variety of extension options for extending the ad.
For instance, you can choose to add your location, links to other pages on your website, click-to-call phone number, or your review rating. Furthermore, only the ads in the top positions will be allowed to use ad extensions. Ad extensions offer detailed information about your business, and chances of interaction with your ads is higher. This tactic eventually increases your click through rate and ad’s visibility as well. Even if the user clicks on your product page or on the click-to-call extension, the marketers will be charged the same amount. For instance, Sitelinks extension is beneficial in adding links to other pages on your website. Furthermore, the Callout extension is useful in adding additional information about your offer. Providing additional options to engage with your ad is indeed necessary for boosting it to stand out in the search results.
For instance, you can choose to add your location, links to other pages on your website, click-to-call phone number, or your review rating. Furthermore, only the ads in the top positions will be allowed to use ad extensions. Ad extensions offer detailed information about your business, and chances of interaction with your ads is higher. This tactic eventually increases your click through rate and ad’s visibility as well. Even if the user clicks on your product page or on the click-to-call extension, the marketers will be charged the same amount. For instance, Sitelinks extension is beneficial in adding links to other pages on your website. Furthermore, the Callout extension is useful in adding additional information about your offer. Providing additional options to engage with your ad is indeed necessary for boosting it to stand out in the search results.
Retargeting
An old marketing motto states that the potential users need to come across your PPC ad at least 7 times before they generate interest and take action. However, this principle indicates the minimum number of times one might need to expose their ad to the target audience. You might also consider exposing your ad more than 7 times as well. This traditional principle indeed increases your chances of standing out and attracting more prospects despite the noise of marketing. The trick in retargeting is to expose your ad to the audience who have already come across your ad earlier. For instance, you might try to retarget people who have visited your website, expressed an interest in your business, signed up to your mailing list, or purchased from you. The conversion rate increases by approximately 50% in case one offers personalized experience. Implementing pay-per-click ads on Facebook is the one of the effective ways of retargeting the prospects on Facebook. Moreover, implementing pay-per-click Google AdWords to target prospects using their email addresses certainly increases your PPC ROI to a great extent. The users who have already encountered your offers are more likely to convert than the new users.
Optimizing for mobile
Since the majority of individuals are using mobile devices for accessing the internet, optimizing your ads for mobile devices is absolutely necessary. As per official Google statements, more than 50% of the world’s search queries arise from the mobile devices. Furthermore, Ecommerce is also conquered by mobile. Since mobile device plays a vital role in the growth of PPC advertising campaigns, you are missing out on excellent opportunities if your ads are not yet optimized for mobile devices. Hence, optimizing your PPC ads for mobile users, and optimizing your mobile landing pages for increasing conversions are the two main aspects of driving your business in a better position. Taking advantage of the click-to-call ad extension on the mobile ads lets the user connect with you immediately. The next step is to optimize your landing page.
It is very important to carefully structure your advertising approach to conversion optimization, for increasing sales. Hence, maximizing your mobile conversion rate is vital in boosting your ROI. The landing pages that are simple, concise, highly responsive and load quickly attract prospects that are more likely to convert. Furthermore, call-to-action is yet another important aspect in converting the visitors to potential customers. A single, clear and concise CTA is useful in convincing the visitors to take the expected action. Including a single field while collecting information from the customers, and designing the CTA button the whole mobile screen’s width are some of the useful tips.
An old marketing motto states that the potential users need to come across your PPC ad at least 7 times before they generate interest and take action. However, this principle indicates the minimum number of times one might need to expose their ad to the target audience. You might also consider exposing your ad more than 7 times as well. This traditional principle indeed increases your chances of standing out and attracting more prospects despite the noise of marketing. The trick in retargeting is to expose your ad to the audience who have already come across your ad earlier. For instance, you might try to retarget people who have visited your website, expressed an interest in your business, signed up to your mailing list, or purchased from you. The conversion rate increases by approximately 50% in case one offers personalized experience. Implementing pay-per-click ads on Facebook is the one of the effective ways of retargeting the prospects on Facebook. Moreover, implementing pay-per-click Google AdWords to target prospects using their email addresses certainly increases your PPC ROI to a great extent. The users who have already encountered your offers are more likely to convert than the new users.
Optimizing for mobile
Since the majority of individuals are using mobile devices for accessing the internet, optimizing your ads for mobile devices is absolutely necessary. As per official Google statements, more than 50% of the world’s search queries arise from the mobile devices. Furthermore, Ecommerce is also conquered by mobile. Since mobile device plays a vital role in the growth of PPC advertising campaigns, you are missing out on excellent opportunities if your ads are not yet optimized for mobile devices. Hence, optimizing your PPC ads for mobile users, and optimizing your mobile landing pages for increasing conversions are the two main aspects of driving your business in a better position. Taking advantage of the click-to-call ad extension on the mobile ads lets the user connect with you immediately. The next step is to optimize your landing page.
It is very important to carefully structure your advertising approach to conversion optimization, for increasing sales. Hence, maximizing your mobile conversion rate is vital in boosting your ROI. The landing pages that are simple, concise, highly responsive and load quickly attract prospects that are more likely to convert. Furthermore, call-to-action is yet another important aspect in converting the visitors to potential customers. A single, clear and concise CTA is useful in convincing the visitors to take the expected action. Including a single field while collecting information from the customers, and designing the CTA button the whole mobile screen’s width are some of the useful tips.
How to grow your existing PPC campaign?
It is time to take your PPC game to the next level when you observe the following indications:
* When the click-through rates are peaking.
* When the quality scores have improved.
* When the investment is reduced, and conversions have increased.
One can grow their PPC efforts by improving the existing campaigns and rolling out new ad campaigns.
Ad Position Targeting – Since Google tampers with the placement of ads on the search network, a recent change dropped ad displays on the right side, and limited ads to the bottom or top of the search engine’s results page. However, one can still improve the ad placement strategically. Experimenting with the placement of the ads and examining how they work is quite beneficial in improving your existing performance.
Target specific set of audience - One can target long tail keywords and top level keywords in case of search and display ads in Google. Focusing on the long tail keywords is indeed necessary in targeting a specific set of audience, and for successful optimization. Customers using long tail search phrases or more descriptive phrases may convert more quickly than those using general terms. Though including long tail keywords in improving your existing ads targets a smaller set of audience, but one may observe reduction in cost-per-click, and increase in conversions and CTR. Since one has complete control over the target audience that sees your content, pay-per-click ads on Facebook also leads in similar results. Furthermore, improving your custom audience by targeting specific behaviors, employment type, purchase habits and interests is yet another important strategy. Layering these aspects based on the buyer personas is useful in shrinking your audience and improving conversion rates.
Remarketing - Including remarketing into your PPC strategy is yet another essential tactic in growing your existing campaign. Remarketing is more important than launching new search ads, and creating a new set of audiences of Facebook. Targeting people who have already generated interest in your business not only saves your money, but also assists in winning the click. Furthermore, remarketing lists for search ads (RLSA) is an effective feature in pay-per-click Google AdWords that allows you in customizing ads for people who have previously encountered your offers. This particular feature in AdWords can eventually increase the click-through rate, and reduce the cost-per-click by 50%. Similar outcome can be achieved on Facebook Ad platform as well. One needs to install a tracking pixel that collects data on the visitor behavior. This technique lets you create highly targeted Facebook ads based on the data gathered by this pixel.
Final Words
Since thousands of ads are being displayed in a day, marketers need to up their game of PPC campaigns in order to stand out and grab the customer’s attention. Creating an effective PPC advertising strategy and incorporating effective measures of growing the existing campaign are crucial in improving the quality score and reducing the pay-per-click cost.
Seize the chance of acing the game of PPC by adding extensions, retargeting people who have already encountered with you, and optimizing the campaign for your mobile device. These tactics eventually increase your conversion rate, enhance customer’s experience and make you extraordinary among your competitors. Furthermore, tremendous success can be achieved by focusing on improving the existing campaign by ad position retargeting, remarketing and targeting specific audience.
It is time to take your PPC game to the next level when you observe the following indications:
* When the click-through rates are peaking.
* When the quality scores have improved.
* When the investment is reduced, and conversions have increased.
One can grow their PPC efforts by improving the existing campaigns and rolling out new ad campaigns.
Ad Position Targeting – Since Google tampers with the placement of ads on the search network, a recent change dropped ad displays on the right side, and limited ads to the bottom or top of the search engine’s results page. However, one can still improve the ad placement strategically. Experimenting with the placement of the ads and examining how they work is quite beneficial in improving your existing performance.
Target specific set of audience - One can target long tail keywords and top level keywords in case of search and display ads in Google. Focusing on the long tail keywords is indeed necessary in targeting a specific set of audience, and for successful optimization. Customers using long tail search phrases or more descriptive phrases may convert more quickly than those using general terms. Though including long tail keywords in improving your existing ads targets a smaller set of audience, but one may observe reduction in cost-per-click, and increase in conversions and CTR. Since one has complete control over the target audience that sees your content, pay-per-click ads on Facebook also leads in similar results. Furthermore, improving your custom audience by targeting specific behaviors, employment type, purchase habits and interests is yet another important strategy. Layering these aspects based on the buyer personas is useful in shrinking your audience and improving conversion rates.
Remarketing - Including remarketing into your PPC strategy is yet another essential tactic in growing your existing campaign. Remarketing is more important than launching new search ads, and creating a new set of audiences of Facebook. Targeting people who have already generated interest in your business not only saves your money, but also assists in winning the click. Furthermore, remarketing lists for search ads (RLSA) is an effective feature in pay-per-click Google AdWords that allows you in customizing ads for people who have previously encountered your offers. This particular feature in AdWords can eventually increase the click-through rate, and reduce the cost-per-click by 50%. Similar outcome can be achieved on Facebook Ad platform as well. One needs to install a tracking pixel that collects data on the visitor behavior. This technique lets you create highly targeted Facebook ads based on the data gathered by this pixel.
Final Words
Since thousands of ads are being displayed in a day, marketers need to up their game of PPC campaigns in order to stand out and grab the customer’s attention. Creating an effective PPC advertising strategy and incorporating effective measures of growing the existing campaign are crucial in improving the quality score and reducing the pay-per-click cost.
Seize the chance of acing the game of PPC by adding extensions, retargeting people who have already encountered with you, and optimizing the campaign for your mobile device. These tactics eventually increase your conversion rate, enhance customer’s experience and make you extraordinary among your competitors. Furthermore, tremendous success can be achieved by focusing on improving the existing campaign by ad position retargeting, remarketing and targeting specific audience.
Penned By: Aanchal Patil
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