For an inbound marketer, one of their main goals is to get your site to rank high on Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs). Make no mistake, this task is easier said than done.
To rank high in the top organic spot entails a lot of work, and would also need your marketer to have extensive knowledge of Google’s rank page. The thing is, even if you do reach that hallowed number one spot, you may instantly lose it. This normally happens when Google decides to implement an algorithm revamp or update, which changes the rules of the game, sometimes almost entirely.
If you happen to have no technical or limited knowledge of how SEO works, it can be quite a challenge to push your website and its content to appear on the first page of search engine results.
One avenue you might employ is by paying for that prime position with Pay-Per-Click advertising. Not only will you assuredly appear on the top of the SERPs, but you will also gain invaluable insights about users who come to your website.
What is Pay-Per-Click (PPC)?
PPC is an online advertising strategy in which you only pay when people click on your ad, hence, the name. It is the “go-to” method commonly used by online advertisers because they don’t want to pay to display an ad. The advertisers want only to pay when people take action by clicking after seeing their advertisements.
That is a much better way to invest in marketing, wouldn’t you agree? Simply put, the way it works is you set a budget for an amount of time (daily, monthly, etc) for your ads on a platform, and just pay when someone clicks on your ad.
Several ad networks allow advertisers to run PPC ads, some of them are more popular than others.
How can PPC work for you?
There are numerous benefits of PPC advertising. For starters:
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- PPC offers quick entry.
- PPC results are very easy to measure and track.
- It works well with other marketing channels.
- It can provide you with a wealth of information and data.
If you are not doing any PPC marketing, you are more than likely losing out on valuable traffic and limiting your revenue, as it can have a major, and positive, impact on businesses and brands.
If you still aren’t sold on the idea of how PPC can work for you, take a look at the following:
1. PPC Promotes Your Business Goals.
This is one of the most compelling reasons to employ PPC advertising, as it can help you achieve a wide variety of your marketing and ultimately your business goals.
These can range from high-level brand exposure, through leadership to hot lead submissions or e-commerce sales.
PPC is a powerful tool for aligning website traffic drivers to end goals. Nearly any type of conversion goal can be tracked with PPC.
It can foster the middle ground of nurturing and serving the middle of the sales funnel (and many parts of it) through advertising content downloads, encouraging newsletter signups, entries to contests, and even pushing for app downloads.
It supports the path that your prospects take from initial awareness to becoming a full-fledged customers. PPC is fairly easy to know if it is working or not in achieving granular goals and targeting.
PPC campaigns with their robust data to report are highly successful, and they can be set up effectively regardless of your set of identified goals.
2. PPC Can be Easily Tracked and Measured.
One major benefit of using PPC is that it can be easily tracked and measured by simply using the Google Ads tool in combination with Google Analytics.
You will not be left with any mystery when it comes to PPC performance. Immediately spot high-level performance details based on your defined business goals. This includes impressions, clicks, and conversions.
Stats are easily accessible and show how well your campaigns are performing, including the kind of traffic and results they drive for your budget. Using g Google Analytics, you can see what you have spent and what your ad spend drove in terms of your end goals.
Further, you can do more with tracking and isolating your PPC efforts than in SEO, as many other marketing efforts can be a big blind spot.
3. Offers Quick Entry.
Even if you come in late in the game, you can easily get it going quickly with a bit of optimisation. There is in big contrast to starting up SEO efforts, which takes a degree of time and attention just to get the same positioning and traffic that Google Ads offers within minutes of its launch.
Compared to other channels such as organic socials and email, you have the distinct advantage of targeting people apart from those who are already aware of your brand.
PPC casts a wide net to find new prospects and customers, Additionally, most of the dirty work is done through the PPC advertising platform, from research, and campaign build-out, to writing the ads.
4. You Remain in Control.
There may be several nuances with default campaign settings, but ultimately you have absolute control over a wide range of options for reaching potential customers.
This begins with your choice of keywords and/or the placements you pick to target, and how restrictive you’d want to be. Add to this, you have a lot of budget flexibility, which is highly beneficial if you want to start small. You get to set your ad budget and bids and choose how much you are willing to spend.
If your efforts show positive results, you can immediately scale up. Or if you want to take a break, you can always pause and immediately stop your ad spend.
5. PPC Works Well With Other Marketing Channels.
Content marketing has long taken over the digital marketing world. Content plans and calendars are a necessity in most businesses today.
Your investment in producing unique and original content is now a necessity to support a customer’s buying cycle and establish through leadership positioning. Google Ads is an engine that leads visitors to content more effectively and improves the ROI of your content investment.
SEO and PPC work hand in hand, as the impressions and opportunities presented for traffic are often addressed to the same audience.
Impressions, clicks, and conversions from Google Ads provide great insight and direction on a keyword-by-keyword basis for prioritising SEO efforts. Additionally, the performance of organic traffic data and SEO strategy can also advise PPC, if the data is available.
6. Terrific Targeting Options.
It is not uncommon for advertisers to take a multi-layered approach when it comes to Google Ads to test and ensure full coverage across networks and several targeting types that may gain brand exposure.
It can range from text ads with targeting keywords, to running ads through remarketing based on past behaviours or by simply setting your crosshairs on specific audience demographics on the display network.
Let’s go back a bit to business goals, with PPC, you can see what performs best and set expectations on what the tolerance is for cost per click (CPC). Also determine your cost per acquisition (CPA), for you to be able to gauge the different targeting methods you employ.
Ultimately, the biggest benefit of PPC targeting options available is that you will be able to tap people who are not already in your audience as well as those who are already exposed to your brand.
7. A Treasure Trove of Marketing Data.
Though there is already a wealth of data and performance information that is already available in Google Ads, its value extends beyond just PPC performance.
The amount of impressions, clicks, and conversion data for each keyword can be employed to steer SEO strategy and content marketing efforts. More than that, you can use the built-in keyword planner and display planner tools to locate where your audience is.
Further, you can also cross-reference where your competition is at through the use of third-party tools for you to be able to build a solid profile of what you’re up against and what possible market share you can gain.
Where can I do PPC advertising?
At the top of the most popular ones is, without a doubt, Google Ads. It allows you to run ads on search results and even on private websites.
Of course, Google is not the only search engine on the World Wide Web. Microsoft’s Bing has its version of PPC that allows advertisers to run ads on a variety of Microsoft search partners and its other properties.
Not to be outdone, Meta’s Facebook also offers PPC. Many marketers adore advertising on Facebook since they are relatively inexpensive. It is often the “go-to” avenue for advertisers who want to promote products to consumers based on demographics and interests.
Another avenue you can exploit is running PPC display ads which are a great alternative to the boring, text-based ads you may run on a lot of websites.
If you so choose or need, you can also run retargeting campaigns via PPC. It’s a great way to reel in audiences/customers who have already visited your website.
Still Not Convinced?
PPC advertising is a proven reliable and profitable channel for a lot of B2B, B2C, nonprofits, and other entities seeking quick, quality traffic and conversions.
Considering its numerous benefits, PPC offers little risk not to try it out to see where it can move the needle and gain a wealth of data to inform your other marketing and optimisation efforts.
If you want to learn more about Google Ads and PPC ads and management, you can make an educated start for your brand’s presence online by getting in touch with our Google Marketing Certified Experts. We will provide you with professional PPC services on the Gold Coast.
