What is pay-per-click marketing ? Is it worth the money? Does it really produce profitable results? When it comes to pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, most people have a lot of questions.
The business world is full of old wives’ tales, but some of these clichés are actually true. For example, a classic business adage: You can’t make money without spending money first.
This saying is absolutely true and is something we sometimes need to remind clients of when they are going to spend good money on great equipment but don’t want to waste a dime on marketing. Building your business is an investment and you will never see the return without investing time and money in marketing.
For many businesses, PPC marketing is an essential part of that investment, and in this post, we’ll cover everything you need to know to get started.
1. What is pay-per-click marketing?
PPC stands for “pay per click.” PPC advertising platforms allow you to create content, show it to relevant users, and charge for specific actions taken on the ad. In many cases, you’ll pay for ad clicks that take users to your website, but on some platforms, you can also pay for other actions, such as impressions, video views, and website engagements.
PPC advertising is an incredible opportunity architects mailing lists to give your business an edge by putting your brand and products in front of interested users who may otherwise have never encountered it. As you might expect, it can be a valuable and irreplaceable tool for building brand awareness, generating leads, and driving conversions.
2. Why can't I trust organic search?
No matter how amazing your business is, how optimized your website is, or how much your customers love you — if you’re not a mega-corporation like Nike, you’re probably going to struggle to appear at the top of the search engine results page. This is especially true if you’re trying to rank for highly competitive searches where customers are looking for specific products.
That said, you should optimize your website for search. However, great search optimization can’t make up for the kind of exposure that pay-per-click advertising can provide you. Especially since your competitors will be using the platforms even if you aren’t. That in itself is worth the financial investment.
3. What are the most popular PPC platforms?
Even if you’re not yet familiar with the concept of PPC, I guarantee you’re familiar with some of the PPC platforms, each with their own benefits. The two biggest PPC platforms are:
Google AdWords , where ads are displayed to customers based on their searches. The advantage of Google AdWords is that it displays your ad content to users who are actively searching for what you have to offer and are further along in the purchase funnel.
Facebook Ads , which has an unmatched targeting system (and also lets you advertise on Instagram). Facebook Ads has two main strengths: retargeting based on targeted marketing and custom audiences, and the ability to get your brand in front of customers who didn’t know they wanted it. Google AdWords is all about harvesting demand, while Facebook Ads is all about generating demand.
There are also many other PPC platforms, many of which exist on social media sites. These include:
Twitter Ads
Promoted Pins
LinkedIn Ads
Quora Ads
YouTube ads (which are technically part of the Google AdWords system)
Many businesses like to stagger their ad spend across different ad platforms to get the most out of each one. Almost all pay-per-click campaign platforms (and certainly each of the ones listed here) use a bidding system.
4. Why does PPC advertising involve bidding?
Almost all PPC platforms use a bidding system. Advertisers will choose a “bid,” the amount they are willing to pay for a single action (such as a click), which will influence the number of impressions their ad campaigns receive.
The fact is that there aren’t that many slots to give away, and bidding somewhat levels the playing field by allowing those willing to pay more to get those spots. It doesn’t hurt that this helps PPC platforms make as much money as possible.
However, some platforms take more into consideration than just bids to obtain a space.
Facebook ads and Instagram ads take ad relevance and engagement into account. Ads that perform well receive a higher relevance score and receive more impressions at a lower price than ads with low relevance. Similarly, Google AdWords assigns ads a quality score based on factors like keyword relevance and landing page quality that can affect the value of each click.
5. How much should I spend on PPC campaigns?
There are two big complaints I hear a lot from clients about PPC marketing. The first is that it can seem a bit confusing when you’re first starting out, though that usually goes away once you’ve set up your first campaign. The second is that it’s expensive.
But PPC advertising doesn’t have to be a waste of money. Yes, it will always cost money, but if you do it right, you can invest a little and reap huge results! (remember that business saying we were talking about at the beginning?).
Essentially, pay-per-click ad spending can be broken down into two areas: how much you can spend on a single campaign (total ad budget) and how much you can spend on individual results (your bid).
Your total ad budget will be determined by your marketing budget, which is pretty straightforward. If you can afford to spend $500, great, go for it. If you can afford $50, that’s great too.
How much you can afford to spend per bid can be a bit tricky to calculate, but consider your acquisition costs carefully. For product sales, it’s pretty straightforward – you can probably afford to spend $1.00 per click on a $70.00 product, even if only 25% of those clicks end up converting to sales. That’s a total cost of $4.00 per sale.