Find Out The Quick Benefits of PPC Consulting!
Did you know that brand awareness for companies who use Google paid ads increases by 80%? That’s the true power of using a PPC consulting service!
But where do you start with paid internet marketing? How expensive is it? What type is really going to show a high return for your unique business?
Pay-per-click or PPC is the segment of inbound marketing responsible for paid advertising on the web. While it’s best to get help from a PPC consulting service if you’re unfamiliar with how it works, it’s smart to arm yourself with as much information about it as possible.
Below is the ultimate guide for everything you need to know about PPC.
Understanding What PPC Exactly Is
Before you can understand PPC specifically, you’ve got to know where it fits into the search engine optimization landscape (SEO).
PPC is a type of search engine marketing or SEM. The goal of SEM is to improve a website’s ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs) through paid advertising and optimization.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is also a type of SEM. PPC is the paid advertising leg of SEM, where SEO is the organic optimization part of SEM. With PPC, companies create ads that they pay for through the number of impressions and clicks an ad gets. This is very similar to running display ads like programmatic display ads!
Simple, right?
How Does PPC Work?
So how do you set-up a PPC ad and run a campaign? There are many different tools, but a select few that are more popular than others.
Google Ads is “the big one.” It’s the most popular because it’s the most effective and the most trafficked. There are more than 3.5 billion searches on Google every day, so it makes sense that it’s the coveted paid advertising platform for businesses. It can also be extremely expensive.
The average cost per click of a Google Ad is $2, which doesn’t seem very high. But $2 ads-up very quickly when an ad is successful. Smaller marketing budgets might find options like Bing Ads more affordable, but still effective.
AdRoll and RevContent are two additional tools that worth mentioning.
AdRoll is a retargeting tool that you’ve likely seen online. It’s the tool responsible for it feeling like the internet is “watching you.” It sends targeted ads to users who have visited your site through display ads.
For example, if you recently compared shoes on a shoe company’s website, the company could send you ads of their shoes through display ads when you go to another website that allows for display ads.
RevContent is a platform that creates ads in “disguise.” The platform works with a network of high-traffic publishers (millions of views per month) that it can place client ads on, in the form of content like a guest post. The advertiser still pays for the ad by click-through rate, like a traditional PPC ad.
Facebook Ads can also be used for PPC, but it’s more often used for cost per mile (CPM) due to options like behavioral targeting and demographics.
The Difference Between PPC, CPM, and CPC
Where PPC is paid for by the number of clicks, CPM ads are paid for by the number of impressions, or views. But unlike PPC, CPM campaigns aren’t paid for by the advertiser every time an ad is viewed.
CPM ads are paid for more like a traditional ad, where the advertiser predetermines the number of impressions an ad will get before it expires. These ads are usually sold in impressions by 1000, which is why CPM is also commonly called cost per thousand.
This style of advertising can make this style of ad more affordable than PPC, however, the results and calculation of ROI aren’t as precise.
Cost per click or CPC is a term you’ll run into while researching PPC. CPC is often used interchangeably with PPC and is important to note to avoid any confusion.
PPC and CPM are both types of paid advertising, whereas CPC is just a term used to communicate that an advertiser is paying for cost per click in an advertising program. Think of CPC as the metric you need to track in a PPC campaign.
The Benefits of Hiring PPC Consultant
Paying for ads by impressions and click-through-rate versus an up-front fee like traditional advertising like in a magazine ad or broadcast segment, allows the advertiser to only pay for what actually works.
Historically, if you paid for a newspaper ad, you were taking a leap of faith that the circulation of the paper and the strategic placement of your ad would generate action.
But even if it did, unless you included a special sales code or way for new customers to identify that they found your business through the newspaper ad, there was no clear way to establish what the ROI of a print ad actually was.
PPC makes tracking the success and value of ads easier than ever before. It also can bring some of the most qualified leads to an inbound marketing campaign. If a user is already clicking on your ad, they are showing an interest in your product, service or brand.
Although PPC can be an investment, it offers some of the highest ROI, when done correctly. PPC pushes further than organic search alone.
Quality, organic SEO campaigns that include off and on-page strategies require a lot of manpower and work to execute effectively. While organic search is “free” technically, in reality, it’s not.
If a business has to choose between an organic SEO campaign and a paid campaign that “guarantees” placement and more trackable ROI, they will likely go with the later.
But PPC and SEO shouldn’t be put against each other or seen as choosing one or the other. They should work together, and complement one another, like the Marines and the Airforce. SEO is key to growth as a company.
What Types of Businesses Should Use PPC or Hire A Consultant?
Any business that is looking to compete in a big way should consider running a paid advertising campaign. It’s best for businesses that have a specific goal for their company they are trying to reach.
But it’s also important that an organization ensures that they have the infrastructure to support a successful PPC campaign. Any type of PPC campaign is best for businesses that know what they are getting into.
If you are a small company that knows you are wanting to scale in the upcoming year. Run a few smaller “test” PPC campaigns before implementing the big one.
For example, if you want to take holiday sales to the next level, consider running a few small, short festive campaigns surrounding observances that are relevant to your business throughout the year, so that you have worked out all of the kinks and know what to expect.
How to Get Started with PPC Consulting
Start your PPC campaign with clear goals and benchmarks. A surefire way to have your PPC efforts “not work” is to create and hope for the best, without a clear purpose or intent.
“Getting more business” isn’t a specific enough goal. Generating X% more sales over a specified period of time is.
Ask yourself, and all the key decision-makers for the campaign these questions:
What is the type of person we want to target? Think not only about the general type of person like “a mom” or a “Millenial employee,” personify them. If your marketing team hasn’t already created buyer personas, now will be the time. Establishing the personality, lifestyle and demographics of your target audience will help you create ads that speak more directly to your audience.
What will make this campaign relevant? Establish a clear purpose that will help identify a theme for your campaign. Think about what your buyer personas are currently experiencing in their lives, and what will be the most relevant to them. Is there a current event? Holiday? or Observance?
Which metrics will actually track if we’ve been successful or not? How your team defines success might not always be exactly how another team does. Look at every campaign with a fresh perspective, and ensure that you choose the metrics that will show the value (or non-value) the campaign brings.
What type of campaign will best fit all of the above? There are different types of PPC ads you can choose. Which one is “best” will rely on the parameters you’ve set by answering the questions above.
Diving Deeper Into Campaign Objectives
Before we get into the exact type of ad you need to run, it’s important to define the true intent of your campaign. This intent will help you choose the type of ad that will be supportive of your goals, and help you track the right metrics.
Below are some of the main types of objectives to decide between when crafting a PPC campaign.
Traffic generator. This is the type of campaign that focuses on bringing traffic to the website. An obvious metric for this type of campaign is the number of visitors. But to make this type of campaign even more valuable to your team, consider going deeper and tracking the behavior of visitors.
Which pages are they going to the most? How long are they viewing them for? What is your audience really interested in? Before you send people to your website, make sure it’s updated to make the best possible first impression.
Qualified leads. PPC ads are one way to generate more leads for your business. Create separate ads for each of the segmented lists you want to fill for leads. Create separate, email-sign-up forms or landing pages for each ad, so you can clearly organize your contacts.
Consider asking for more than an email. Use a form that asks for location, occupation, or needs, to get the most out of the campaign.
Special offers and sales. You can track which ads are bringing customers to your store. You can create a campaign that pushes more sales in general or offer a limited-time sale or promotion. To track ROI even more precisely, create a special discount code only available to customers via the PPC ad. Or, consider creating a custom web page or web form for users to use to access the store.
Brand recognition. Are you simply trying to build an audience or following? A brand awareness campaign will accomplish this. Engagement, new followers and reach and views from non-subscribers are the best ways to track brand awareness.
It’s important to note that all key decision-makers in the campaign be on the same page when it comes to the intention of the campaign.
Choosing the Right Type of PPC Campaign
Different PPC ads serve different purposes. Search ads are one of the most common types of PPC ads. They are the ads you see at the top of your Google search results, they are text ads and require masterful copywriting skills.
Display ads, which we mentioned earlier in the article, are ads that pop-up on sites you don’t own. Retargeting or re-marketing ads target people who have engaged with your company online and deliver them ads based on their previous interactions with your company.
Google shopping displays products in Google’s “shopping” search results based on a user’s keyword search, and links to the advertiser’s e-commerce store.
Social ads allow you to pay to be displayed in the social media feeds of your target audience, and the styles of these vary between the platforms.
When To Get Help with PPC Consulting
If you’re still following, we applaud you! PPC is a complicated process for even the most skilled marketers. Unless you’re a professional marketer, we highly suggest working with a PPC consulting agency before attempting paid advertising on your own.
Although you might be saving money upfront, the amount of time it will take you added to the true cost of trial and error (with little return), isn’t really cost-effective in the long term.
Be confident in your campaign with the assurance that a dedicated expert is managing your PPC strategy. From ad display design to tracking, reporting, and landing pages, our team will deliver you the results your company needs.
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Want to keep reading? Check out our other recent blog post on “What is OTT Advertising?”
