ppc advertising

Getting started with PPC Advertising

Getting started with Pay Per Click advertising (PPC) can be a bit daunting. Aside from all the three letter acronyms there is a lot of jargon and complexity. However, it is easy to get started with PPC advertising with some simple approaches that will make a difference from day one.

One of the key benefits of PPC advertising is that your online marketing campaign can be more precisely targeted than ever. A cleverly planned and managed PPC strategy can save money, boost your profile and increase online sales, making best use of your marketing budget.

PPC Advertising – The Basics

As the name implies, ‘Pay Per Click’ advertising is different from other channels in that the financial cost to the advertiser depends on the number of times their advert is clicked on. Simply put, adverts are placed online, and the advertiser is charged each time a user chooses to ‘click through’ the ad.

This benefits advertisers as the amount you pay for an advert is set by the amount of positive response it receives. For search engine providers, advertising networks, and website owners, PPC advertising provides an effective way to monetize their content.

Google Ads – Content is Key

Google is long-established as the world’s leading search engine, so unsurprisingly opening a Google Ads account is often the first step many businesses make towards establishing an effective PPC advertising strategy. There is simply no other service which can offer access to the same volume of internet users with a clear interest in the product or service on offer.

While the way in which the Google Ads system operates is reasonably straightforward, there are a number of important aspects to understand in order to make it work effectively for your business.

Initially, as an advertiser you will submit a ‘bid’ for each of your keywords, specifying the maximum amount of money you are prepared to pay each time a user ‘clicks through’ to your website when Google displays one of their ads associated with that particular word. So-called ‘negative keywords’ can also be used to improve the efficiency of your PPC campaign by excluding searches that include those words. For example if you want to target ‘marketing’ keywords you might want to exclude ‘job’ or ‘vacancy’ to avoid traffic from people looking for marketing vacancies.

Google awards each advertiser a ‘quality score’ for the ads based on a variety of factors including the quality of the text used in the ad itself and the landing page content, keyword relevancy, and previous AdWords performance. By achieving a high quality score, businesses benefit from possible higher placement on the results page.

Google takes the view that by encouraging better content and a more favourable user experience in this way, the overall quality of content on the web will improve over time.

Therefore the content on your page needs to be relevant and informative for each key word you are targeting.

The Alternatives – Get Social or Go Niche?

If you have decided that – as formidable as it may be – Google Ads just isn’t quite the right ‘fit’ for you, or if you’re already an Ads advertiser and are looking for other PPC opportunities to increase the online presence of your business even further, then paid social is your next go-to for PPC advertising.

The social network that you choose for your ads will depend on where your audience hangs out. Most social channels enable businesses to target potential customers whose online activity shows that they are highly likely to have an interest in the product or service on offer, either by analysing their online activity via browser ‘cookies’, or by identifying their interests using data generated by their various ‘likes’ and ‘follows’.

This method of advertising can offer a more personal approach that is especially useful when promoting lifestyle products and services. Care must be taken not to intrude too much on the internet user’s experience. Once again, content is key, so its important to prepare all advertising with at least one – preferably both – eyes on how it will appear from the internet user’s point of view.

If your business caters to a particular community or interest group, it might make sense to place PPC adverts on smaller niche websites with readerships which can be expected to overlap with your target market. Rather than paid social activity you might want to consider affiliate marketing. This means that rather than approaching individual websites directly, advertisers use a specialist advertising network to gain access to a whole catalogue of relevant websites. This approach can produce exceptionally high conversion rates, and allows you to enhance results by closely tailoring your adverts and content to the specific audience you intend to reach.

Summary of getting started with PPC Advertising

  1. Set up Google Adwords, targeting specific keywords and excluding negative keywords. Try Google Skillshop to develop your skills.
  2. Identify which social network is appropriate for your audience and test paid social PPC ads.
  3. Advertise on niche websites via affiliate marketing or advertising networks.

Getting started with PPC advertising can seem complex. If you need further guidance just get in touch.