What is PPC?
In the world of digital marketing, PPC (Pay Per Click) involves placing adverts within the first page of search engine results to increase the click rate onto your website.
Did you know that the top 96% of traffic clicks on Google are concentrated on the first page alone? Only 6% of clicks occur on the second page. 25% of that first page traffic is focused on the very first result on the page, meaning that PPC is hugely effective at keeping your business at the very top of Google rankings persistently.
By creating PPC, your website listing will bypass any organic results that rank based on SEO content like keywords and create a situation that maximises engagement with your website based on keyword search.
There are many different forms of PPC, but all have a similar intended purpose, namely, to increase traffic to the host site, and as a result, may increase customer interaction on your site or sales.
Paid search marketing is the most common type of PPC advertising and involves using services like Google Ads to showcase adverts at the top of organic search engine results pages.
Display advertising uses images, banners, and text to target specific individuals, and can be good for building your brand awareness, whereas re-targeting PPC uses cookies to show adverts based on a customer’s past activity on the website.
Shopping campaigns can show customers what you’re selling through ads in a visual format that displays a photo, title, shop name, and price to name a few.
As you are supplying the customers with additional information, shopping campaigns can lead to more qualified leads than other ads.
Leaning into the right kind of PPC for your business means that your website can gain significant traffic compared to an organic listing, as it is consciously targeting specific customers for the purpose of attracting them to your site.
Why is it Useful to Me?
The benefits of PPC are multi-faceted, and overall, it is a valuable way of generating direct website traffic from a search engine.
Notably, the impact is almost instant, giving readable and measurable results almost overnight. In fact, Statistics show that 52% of customers are ready to engage with the business immediately after clicking on an ad, whether that involves contacting the business or making a sale.
This is in contrast with SEO, which still achieves notable results, but over a much longer period, and can take months to see notable results.
Additionally, PPC can also help you to achieve specific key performance indicators (KPIs) relating to your business performance by generating sales, web traffic and brand awareness.
Plus, you can formulate your ads to link to pages that typically receive less organic traffic by analysing keyword data to pinpoint exactly what your customers are looking for, and how your page content fulfils their needs.
Using PPC can also indirectly result in customers fulfilling a call to action by subscribing to a newsletter, joining a mailing list, or commenting on a post. They may also make an account by linking their social media information or reposting information.
All these factors boost your website up Google’s organic ranking system.
Although you may be deterred by the cost of PPC, when executed correctly, it can be hugely financially beneficial – your business only pays a fee for the advert when a potential customer clicks.
You can choose their own budget and how much you are willing to pay per click. Ads are displayed without cost, and their ranking is determined by customer demand and keyword search.
The more keyword research is conducted, the more successful your investment will be, and the high conversion rate means that often any investment into PPC is returned with an ample profit margin.
How does Google Ads fit in?
Google Ads is the name of Google’s advertising services on their webpages and across their property and partners.
Formerly known as Google Adwords, it was created in October 2000 as the first self-serve online advertising platform, meaning that businesses could control how much they invested in their online advertising for the first time.
It’s now one of the largest online advertising platforms, and Google as a search engine has a massive search reach of around 4.3 billion users worldwide and around 86% of the market share.
As a result, Google can afford to be competitive with their rates, and their fees are consequently discounted if your link is proved to be useful and relevant to customers.
If Google Ads is Self-Serve, Why Do I Need a PPC Specialist?
Overall, PPC marketing is a treasure trove in the marketing industry and is an investment that will keep giving back. It’s a great way to gain instant results on web traffic and increase your brand awareness.
45% of small businesses alone invest in online advertising, and it’s a growing industry due to the digitalisation of the marketing and advertising industry.
However, PPC, much like SEO, is a refined art, requiring a lot of experience and skill to perfect. You’ll need to conduct in depth analysis to establish a fantastic PPC campaign, including keyword research and creating top-notch landing pages.
Ongoing maintenance of pages and data is also incredibly important, as trends change frequently, and as a result, keywords need to be constantly analysed and updated to reflect this, as well as page content.
Google is savvy about making sure that listed pages remain up to date, as it prioritises ranking pages that will provide the most useful information to browsing customers.
If you’re interested in working with us on a PPC marketing campaign, you can set your own budget and see regular reports on the results your campaign yields.
Additionally, we offer campaign planning and expertise in working with Google Ads, digital design work from our internal team, expert analysis of data, skilled copywriting from our in-house content team, ongoing maintenance and analysis of data and performance management to stay on target to meet KPIs.
All of this means that you can reap the rewards of excellent PPC campaigns and enjoy elevated profits as a result.
If you would like some advice about how we can improve your existing PPC, or get you started from scratch, contact us to get friendly expert advice.
