In this article, our digital experts at Eminence explain what PPC marketing is and how to effectively use this technique to increase your visibility and measure your campaigns.
What is PPC and how does it work?
PPC, also known as Pay-per-click advertising or Pay-per-click marketing, is a digital advertising method that generates traffic to websites. Each time users click on an ad, the advertiser will be charged, hence the term pay-per-click. The cost per click (CPC) can increase or decrease depending on the bids. Moreover, it ensures a high return on investment (ROI), because you only pay for your ads when there is a tangible conversion potential.
PPC ads are clearly labeled as an “Ad” on Google and appear above the organic search results. On social networks, PPC ads are often similar to standard publications in the news feed.
The two most common PPC bidding models are auctions and fixed rates. In both cases, you set a fixed budget and choose the keywords you want to target.
The PPC platform then suggests a bidding amount for your keywords. When someone does an internet search, an auction is triggered between different advertisers targeting similar keywords. The ads that win the auction appear in the top positions on the search engine results page.
Read also:
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PPC helps you to achieve your business objectives
With PPC you have the opportunity to promote your brand, your website content, and reach your target audience at every step of your sales funnel. So, if you want to increase your leads, increase your online sales or improve your brand awareness and visibility, you can do it by using a paid search engine optimization strategy.
PPC is quantifiable and traceable
By using Google Ads in combination with Google Analytics, you can easily monitor and measure your PPC campaigns. You can also track the results and statistics of your campaigns in real time (number of impressions, clicks and conversions according to the business objectives you have defined).
When you create PPC campaigns using dedicated landing pages and track them all the way to conversion with Google Analytics, you can compare how much you spent against what you have achieved.
PPC campaigns are customizable
With PPC campaigns, keywords, ads, targeting and locations are all customizable according to your goals and budget. You can make changes to your campaign at any given time, even if it is already online.
PPC can target very specific audiences
With PPC, you can track your targeted users and their behavior at every step of your sales funnel. For example, you can track users who:
- Visited your website
- Search for specific keywords
- Are located in a specific geographical area
By combining these different targeting criteria, your PPC ads are more likely to reach the right audiences at the right time. You will be able to reach both your potential customers and also reach new users who don’t know your company yet.
How do you implement and optimize a PPC Marketing strategy?
Start by setting your goals and budget
One of the most important steps in creating your PPC strategy is to define what you want to accomplish. It is crucial to have a clear vision and defined objectives before launching a campaign. Indeed, a PPC campaign can have several different objectives, including:
- Brand awareness
- Product and brand consideration
- Leads
- Sales
- Repeat sales
Analyze the competitive landscape
Research your main competitors, identify the ones that perform best on paid search and implement a strategy to outshine them. Google Ads can help you do this by automatically increasing your bids to surpass your competitors.
Identify your Search Keywords
We recommend that you choose “general” keywords that are in line with the characteristics of your product. For example, if you have an online website that sells shoes, your starting point could be the generic term “women’s shoes“. From this you could build up a keyword strategy. For this, you can use Google Ads to generate other keywords associated with that search term.
If your website has a search function, export all the searches performed in the last 90 days, then categorize them by type. This will help you create content that meets the exact expectations of your users and it will also help you to find new keywords.
Furthermore, with Google Search Console, you can find the keywords that are associated with your company and that generate a high click rate. This is a great way to identify search keywords for your PPC campaigns.
Define your account structure
To set up your Google Account, you need to define your campaigns and ad groups. For this, you will need to:
- Browse and select the relevant terms you have identified from your keyword search
- Determine what action you want users to take when they click on your site
To define your ad groups, evaluate the keywords that will be part of your campaign to further segment the terms.
How to write an effective ad description
A well-written ad is crucial for PPC campaigns. This is because it allows you to increase the ad quality level, lower the cost per acquisition and increase click–rates. At the same time PPC ads are shown to relevant audiences as users click on relevant ad after having read and checked that the description of the ad matches their internet search.
To write an effective PPC ad copy, we recommend that you:
- Include your target keywords at least once in the title of the ad and in the body of the text
- Include clear call–to–actions such as “sign up”, so the user knows what to expect when they click
- Highlight product prices and product advantage in your ad to attract users with concrete promises
Ensure that your PPC landing pages are optimized for conversion
Your ads must guide users to specific landing pages. The closer the match is between the content of the landing page and the search intent, the higher the conversion rate will be. If you redirect users to a generic page such as the home page, they might get frustrated and leave because it was not what they were searching for.
Measurement and Reporting
Google Ads allows you to have a detailed report so that you can track and evaluate your performance and make the necessary adjustments.
CTR and keywords are two important elements to keep in mind for PPC campaigns
CTR:
The click-through rate is the percentage of ad impressions that generate clicks. For example, if your PPC ad had 1000 ad impressions and 1 click, this means that your ad’s click through rate is 0.1%.
A high CTR means that your ad is very relevant to Internet users, while a low CTR could indicate a lack of consistency between your ad, the target keywords and your landing page.
The ultimate goal of any PPC campaign is to get qualified audiences to visit your website and take action (e.g. make a purchase, fill out a contact form, download a brochure, etc.).
Optimizing your CTR is the first step to improving the relevance of your ads to targeted users.
Keywords:
Before defining your keywords, it is important to define some key terms:
- Query: the word or words that a user types into their search engine
- Keyword: the word or a set of words that you add to your advertising campaigns on Google
- Keyword Match Type: the parameter that determines the scope of a keyword
To have an effective PPC campaign, it is important to choose the right types of keywords to use. The different types of keywords include:
- Brand Keywords:
- These keywords include the name of the brand
- For example: “Amazon”, “Apple”, etc.
- General Keywords:
- These keywords are often composed of a single word
- For example: “shoe”, “car”, “travel”, etc.
- They often have a high search volume and are generally very competitive
- Information Keywords:
- These include keyword queries written in the form of a question
- For example, using the words “How?”, “Why?”, “What?” or else followed by the word “definition“
- These keywords offer less competition and often generate more qualified traffic
- Transactional Keywords:
- These begin with verbs of intention or action
- For example, “buy”, “find”, “search”, “reserve”
- These are very interesting keywords if you are looking for leads or future customers
- Local Keywords:
- These keywords indicate either a geographical area (street name, neighborhood, city, etc.) or a desire to move somewhere (nearby, where, find, go, etc.)
- This is very useful for businesses with physical stores, especially for local SEO
- Short Tail vs. Long Tail Keywords:
- Google’s “top queries” for a given topic are called short tail keywords
- They are the ones with the highest traffic volume
- Long Tail Keywords are made up of several words that include all the requests related to your business and that have low traffic volume
If you are interested in implementing a profitable PPC strategy, get in touch with us today.
To contact us, click here: https://eminence.ch/contact-agence-marketing-geneve
