Imagine you’ve just started your new business. Launched the business online and now looking for ways to bring traffic and land your first sales. Pay Per Click (PPC) can be a great way to reach those desired new customers, build an effective ad strategy and grow your brand’s online presence. But it can be quite confusing at first for those just getting started with this particular channel of online marketing. And in this blog we’re going to take you through the whole process of PPC and show how it works, the benefits, drawbacks, and way of developing strategy for your PPC advertising. So let’s get started!

What is PPC and how does it work?

Pay-per-click (PPC), alternatively known as the Cost-Per-Click (CPC) is a form of online advertising in which an advertiser pays a publisher every time an ad link is clicked on. And this model is primarily based on keywords. PPC is essentially – a form of advertising that allows you to pay a fee to have your website on the search engine result page (SERP) when someone types in specific keywords or phrases to the search engine.

Simply put, PPC is a paid advertising model where you bid on your ad to appear at the forefront of search results, when someone searches for a specific term or keyword. And every time your ad appears and someone clicks on it, you pay for each click. Sounds pretty easy, right? But that’s not the whole story. There’s a lot you need to know before you dive in and actually start creating ad campaigns. Because, for starters, it’s easy to blow your budget if you don’t know what you’re doing. So to truly be successful in PPC, you need to have some clear ideas about the basics, which we’ve divided into three main categories. Let’s take a look.

PPC Basics

Advertising Formats

1. Text ads: Texts ads, also known as Ad Copy, are clickable links shown to the visitor/searcher that deliver traffic to your website when clicked. Search ads consist of a headline, a URL, and a short description, and each of these has limited character requirements to follow. And the relevancy of your ad copy in those search ads – determines the Quality Score and has major impacts on CTR and many other key metrics.

2. Responsive text ads: Responsive search ads are text ads that adapt to show more text – and more relevant messages to your customers, and allow advertisers to enter multiple headlines and descriptions.

3. Video and Image ads: Although quite self explanatory, Image ads allows you to choose to create a responsive ad that will automatically adjust size depending on where it is shown or utilizing standard image sizes. And Video ads have multiple parameters surrounding them in comparison to the PPC text links, such – high visual retention, repurpose values in other medias etc.

4. Call-only ads: This is designed in a way when a potential customer clicks your ad, they’re not taken to a landing page; instead, a small window pops up and the ad prompts them to place a call to you from their device.

Ad Networks

• Google Ads (formerly known as AdWords)
• Microsoft Ads
• Adroll
• Gemini
• Facebook Ads
• RevContents etc. are some of the best PPC platforms.

Terms and Acronyms

• Campaign: The first step in setting up your PPC ads and is essentially the strategy for online advertising through this channel
• Quality Score: Like the one mentioned earlier before, this is Google’s rating of the quality and relevance of both your keywords and PPC ads
• Ad Rank: Ad Rank is the order in which your ad appears on a search engine results page (SERP)
• CTR: This is a metric that measures the number of clicks advertisers receive on their ads
• ROAS: Return On Ad Spend (ROAS) is the total revenue generated by your channel divided by the amount of money you spent on ads
• CPC: Is the overall Cost Per Click of your PPC ads. You set your CPC at the maximum price you are willing to pay per click on your ad.

And there is so much more!

Why Is It Beneficial to Advertisers

If you are considering PPC as a marketing channel for your business, you will want to know the benefits and why you should invest your budget here. Here are some of the benefits of running PPC advertising:

• PPC ads are cost effective – because you only pay when a visitor actually reaches your website.
• PPC ads allow you to target your ideal customers according to demographics like gender, location, language or device.
• PPC ads provide instant traffic and fast results.
• These ad campaigns are measurable and an exact ROI can be determined.
• The campaigns can be customized and improved from time to time based on what works best for a product.
• PPC ads are not affected by search engine algorithm changes.
• PPC ads can improve your SEO strategy and investing in both, can help create a cohesive marketing campaign that complements each other and grows your business.

Challenges of PPC

However, PPC advertising has some drawbacks as well. Such as:

1. PPC can cost a lot if you aren’t monitoring and optimizing your campaigns properly. PPC can generate exposure and conversion for a low cost, but it can backfire on your budget if you’re not careful. So apart from money, investing in time and skills is also a must for PPC.

2. PPC can generate junk traffic. There are instances when some business owners will deliberately click on their competitor’s ads just to rack up the latter’s expenses. Although the volume of clicks might look good for your statistics, it’s going to be bad for your budget. That’s why you need to manage your PPC campaign closely to make sure your ads are reaching the right audience and generating conversions.

3. Clicks and visits don’t always lead to sales and conversion, and PPC campaigns are not always successful. It’s not just about setting up ads and expecting them to generate traffic and revenue for your business, you will need to convince the user to ‘convert’ once they reach your website. A PPC campaign will only be successful at helping you achieve your marketing goals if you know how to manage it properly.

How to Develop A Solid PPC Strategy

A strong PPC strategy equals better results. Here’s a short and comprehensive guide to develop a winning PPC strategy:

1. Define goals – in terms of lead generation, site traffic, sales, promotion, creating brand awareness.
2. Target demographic – Decide who you want to target for your PPC ads to reach.
3. Define budget and plan the campaigns – This is in order to make best use of your resources. Know everything you need to know before you begin to better manage the finances in your PPC advertising.
4. Keyword research – well, because keywords are basically the foundation of PPC and are used to define why and where your ads should appear. Targeting the right buyer-intent keywords is crucial for PPC.
5. Competitor analysis – which is vital to create a high-performance PPC campaign. Understanding of competitor strengths and weaknesses reveals areas where you can capitalize on or create one.
6. Set some best practices for – writing effective ad copy, optimizing landing pages, A/B testing to increase both your CTR and conversion rate.
7. Identify negative keywords – The ones that show high impressions but low CTR. And eliminating those you need to focus on higher performing keywords that have a better chance of increasing CTR, boost Quality Score.
8. Measure and report – Some of the basic reports are: Auction Insights, Search Terms, Ad Performance, Campaign Performance that’ll give you some extensive updates on your PPC works.

PPC can be a highly profitable marketing channel for your business. When done right, this can earn you quality leads. However it’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of bidding and forget to apply strategic thinking to PPC marketing. For that we suggest – take a step back, and invest the time in building solid foundations for those paid ads. In the right hands or with the right skills, PPC just might be the boost you need to get an edge on your competition — and stay ahead of them in the SERPs.