Pay Per Click or PPC is an internet advertising model used for driving traffic to websites through clickable ads aiming at converting the driven traffic into potential or actual customers.
This advertising platform allows online marketers to place their ads on an ad platform and pay only when a user clicks on their ad. When working with PPC or Google Ads campaigns, you only pay when every time a user clicks on your ad.
PPC aims to entice users to click on an ad leading them to the advertiser’s website or app where the clicks can turn into actual conversions. The valuable action can be in the form of a product purchase, email sign up, subscriptions, etc.
PPC is typically seen associated with search engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc. Via Google Ads Campaign, Bing Ads Campaign, etc.
What makes this significant is that search engine advertising services like Google Ads campaigns, Big Ads operate on real-time bidding, which involves advertising inventory being sold via a private, automated auction making use of real-time data.
Now that we know what PPC is, Let’s have a look at how Pay Per Click Advertising works.
HOW DO PPC AD CAMPAIGNS WORK?
PPC works like Google Adwords.
Advertisers use accounts on various platforms such as Google Ads or Bing Ads for setting up their ads and deciding on which search engine platform they want their ads to appear and where. Once you choose the ad platform and create your account, the accounts are divided into campaigns. The main aim of doing so is to ease out various ads campaign management and reporting of different product types, locations, etc.
Then begins the Auction Process, similar to Google Ads campaigns multiple factors such as:
- Quality Score
- Bids
- Keywords
Decide which ad wins and will be placed on top of SERPs.
An auction begins every time someone searches for something over a search engine. If there are advertisers who are interested in showing ads corresponding to a user’s query, then an auction gets triggered based on the keywords bid on by the advertisers. Ads winning the auction appear over the SERPs. Keywords play a very important role in the working of PPC and even Google Ads campaigns. Always remember to input keywords most used or likely to be used by your audience target. This practice will boost up your PPC game for sure.
10 Important PPC Terms:
Understanding the following important PPC terms will help you strengthen your PPC game and guide you through Google Ads campaigns and various other PPC campaigns. The below-listed terms are used daily when working on PPC campaigns.
Let’s have a look at them:
- Quality Score: A common Google Ads campaign term, Quality Score refers to the score given by Google on a scale of 1-10, stating the quality of your ads, keywords, landing pages and your ad relevance. Google denotes an ad’s quality score by studying its click-through rates (CTR). Higher ad quality score results in paying lower prices and better ad positions on Google Adwords.
- Keywords: Keywords form the founding stone of PPC advertising. PPC is nothing without keywords. Keywords refer to words or phrases typed by people over search engines when they want to find something they are looking for. Every industry, business dealing in products/services have specific keywords that they use in their PPC Ad campaigns. Using correct product/service related keywords can make your Google Ads campaign a huge success.
- KPI: Key Performance Indicators are measurable values indicating how successful your PPC campaigns prove to be. Few important KPIs in PPC Ad Campaigns include:
- Click-Through-Rate (CTR)
- Cost-Per-Click
- Conversion Rate
- Quality Score
And many more!
Every PPC ad campaign has different KPI elements depending on their Goals and Business objectives.
- Conversions:
A conversion in PPC ad campaigns or Google Ad campaigns occurs when a specific action is performed by users after they click on an ad.For example product purchase, app installation, email sign up, etc.
5.Landing Page:
A landing page is a stand-alone page, created for a marketing or advertising campaign. The landing page is where the visitor will land after clicking on a link in an email, ads, or search engines.
- Ads:
Ads are marketing tactics used by business owners for promoting their products and services. They aim to entice users for buying products/services offered by business, agencies, etc.
- Campaign:
An Ad campaign is a set of ads revolving around a single message intending to achieve a particular goal.
- Remarketing:
A simple way to connect with people who have interacted with your website in the past. Via remarketing, you can place your ads strategically in front of the audiences as they browse over various websites. When remarketing through Google Ads campaign, expect your ads to appear on all Google partnered websites.
9.Audience:
The most important element of PPC Ad campaigns. You create a PPC campaign for your audience. Audiences are online users who comprise your ideal customers. All PPC or Google Ad campaigns aim to entice these audiences for product purchase, brand awareness, etc.
10.ROI:
Return Of Investment refers to the return on the ads that you spend on. Known as ROAS,
ROAS= PPC Revenue-PPC Cost/ PPC cost.
PPC GUIDE FOR BEGINNERS: TIPS FOR DEVELOPING A STRONG PPC STRATEGY
When working with PPC, every advertiser aims to create a strong and sustainable PPC campaign. These tips will help all you PPC beginners develop a strong and stable PPC campaign:
1.Define Clear Goals:
Defining and setting clear goals is a must before you begin your PPC campaigns as it gives you clarity for designing an effective and successful PPC campaign. It also helps you decide ad types and platforms most effective for your PPC strategy. Being organised will help you focus on crucial campaign aspects.
Every business has different PPC campaign goals. Example, businesses wanting to improve their brand awareness must focus on social media and display ads. Businesses wanting to increase sales must invest in product listings.
Not having clear goals will leave your PPC campaigns mismanaged and unfocused. You must set clear goals if you want your PPC campaigns to be a success.
- Engaging Landing Pages:
The goal of most Google Ads campaigns or any other type of PPC campaigns is to generate high conversions.
Every PPC advertiser must make sure that the landing pages are:
- Add specific and clear conversion Call To Action like a subscription or email sign-ups, contact numbers, etc. This is a good practice as potential customers can get in touch with you easily.
- Curate a highly visual landing page as it will attract the attention of your target audience. Visually optimised landing pages motivate potential customers to go through the entire page content and perform the required action.
- Always keep your landing pages systematic and organised.Avoid adding distractive designs, unnecessary pop-ups, etc. It can take away quality visual experience from users and provide them with a disattractive and cramped up experience.
3.Create A sustainable Ad Content Strategy:
Content is crucial. You must create a sustainable ad content strategy. Once you decide and pick the perfect keywords you need to investigate upon the content type preferred by your target audience. You have to make them think “This is what I have been searching for” when they come across your product/service.
Curate an ad copy that is compassionate, makes your audience connected to you and pushes them to click on the ad.
4.Audience Analysis:
PPC advertisers create ads for audiences. What is the point of creating brilliant ads but not have your ideal audience click on it?
Audience analysis is one of the most crucial elements of Pay Per Click Advertising. You must perform an audience analysis for creating your ideal audience data. In the current times, when the market competition has become aggressive, you have to know who your potential customers are and their surfing habits.
For creating an ideal audience database, ask yourselves important questions like what are the ideal devices used by my target audience? What are the keywords they use while searching for products/services? And other significant questions helping you gauge your audience habits and target the audience you are looking for.
5.Keyword Strategy Optimisation:
Consider the following points when creating a strong Keywords strategy:
- Have an organised approach to keyword research saving time and effort.
- Always put yourself in your target audience’s shoes for knowing the keywords they would use. Target low-cost but highly relevant keywords, high -performance keywords for your PPC ads.
- Never forget to review keyword costs. Remember to remove underperforming keywords.
- Avoid keyword overstuffing at any cost.
6.Quality Score Focus:
Measuring the quality score of your ads helps you understand your ad relevance.
Google divides the quality score into three parts:
- Expected click-through rate ( CTR)
- Ad Relevancy
- Landing Page Experience
For scoring a high-quality score you must optimise the above-listed factors. Remember having a high-quality score lowers your CPC, thereby lowering your bid estimates and providing you with a better ad position.
7.Monitor & Review:
Monitor & Reviewing is as important as creating an Ad. Your ad’s quality score and CPC and keywords will change over time, you must collect your ad’s performance data and use it for better optimisation. You can monitor your PPC ad data once every 15 days, review it and implement the necessary strategies.
TOP 6 BENEFITS OF USING PPC ADVERTISING:
PPC Advertising can do wonders for your business if used correctly. Although the benefits are numerous, let’s have a look at the top 6 benefits offered by PPC advertising:
1.Offer Total Control Over Ad Campaign:
Working with PPC offers you full control over your ad campaigns, from choosing the specific keywords, budget allocation to the target audience, you always have the last word. You are free to set your bids, budgets and change them as per the results you receive. PPC offers more flexibility than any other digital marketing campaigns.
- Easily Measurable & Trackable:
A significant advantage, you can easily track and measure your PPC results and tweak your PPC campaigns according to the results you achieve. You can simply use Google tools combined with Google analytics for measuring and tracking Google Adwords campaigns. Various other search engines too offer their own PPC campaign measuring and tracking tools.
Check out high-level KPIs such as impressions, clicks and conversions, etc. All statistics are easily available to show you your campaign performance and the kind of traffic it attracts with the results received from that traffic. This is something unseen when working with other marketing channels.
Further, you can look at the amount you spend, calculate your ROI and whether or not you are reaching your desired goals.
3.Reach Your Audience In A Cost-Effective Manner & Receive Instant Traffic:
When you work with PPC, you only pay whenever an online user clicks on your ad, making it a cost-effective digital marketing strategy.
With PPC ad campaigns everything is instant, from traffic to clicks to monitoring campaigns. Unlike organic practices like SEO that focuses on long term results, PPC results are instant driving traffic to your website. PPC campaigns focus on instant clicks, so remember every time a user clicks on your ad, your product/services are visible to them and there is a chance that they might turn into potential or actual customers!
The more the number of clicks, the more traffic your website receives. You do know that over millions of people browse over the internet every day, so imagine the number of clicks your ad receives, leading to instant traffic. PPC also helps you reach out to people whenever they search for products/services related to you, increasing your leads drastically.
4.Fantastic Targeting Options:
Online advertisers prefer opting for a multi-layered approach when working with Google Ads Campaigns aiming to test and make sure that the ads have full coverage across various networks and target types for gaining wide brand exposure.
With PPC, you can further make your ads more target-specific by adding additional demographic metrics like user’s age, location, interests, etc.
You can also know how people respond to your campaigns, the kind of users responding to your campaigns, the platforms used by them. Knowing this data lets you hyper-target various audiences on platforms or devices they convert best on.
Further, you can reach all kinds of people, even the ones who do not fall in your ideal audience category and who are not exposed to your brand/business.
5.Benefits Your Social Media & SEO Strategies:
You might not know this, but PPC greatly benefits your organic media strategies. How is that?
- Usually, with SEO, you might not always target the exact keywords restricting you from displaying your fullest potential online. It is not the same as PPC. When working with PPC, you can receive a complete overview of keywords bringing conversion and the cost and percentage of it.
- Further, you can use the PPC keyword data and apply it directly into your SEO strategies also and also use it in the optimisation of existing metadata, headlines, keywords.
- You can improve entire website content using your PPC data instead of waiting for your content to rank organically.
Your Social Media Strategies will also benefit from PPC campaigns.
How so?
- Very simple, combined PPC campaigns running across search and social media help to reduce cost per acquisition while converting a significant amount of customers as compared to individual PPC campaigns.
- The more cross-channel customer data you receive, the more you can use the data and combine it in your social media campaigns, thereby improving themPPC data can be extremely valuable when used correctly.
TOP 5 PPC TRENDS TO WATCH OUT IN 2021
With the year 2021 just being a month away, watch out for the top 5 PPC trends in 2021:
- Voice Search:
2021 will see a rise in voice searches due to the rise of personal assistant speakers like Alexa and Google Home in almost everyone’s homes. Almost 50% of search users will prefer performing voice searches over typed searches by 2021.
- Smart Bidding & Automation:
Automation will be one of the biggest PPC trends in 2021. Automation uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate ad work related to Google Adwords and bing ads.
By 2021, the global automation industry will generate around 238 billion dollars with ad automation occupying the largest segment. Processed automation market size is expected to grow from 71.5% to 83.2%.
Automation will be used for:
- Identifying account performance issues
- Automatic generation of ad performance reports.
- Calculate the best bidding strategies for different goals.
Smart bidding, a subset of automated bidding is expected to become equally powerful and relevant leaving manual bidding behind.
- PPC & Video Ads:
In 2021 business running PPC Ads campaigns will prefer centring their campaigns on video ads. For example, businesses will adapt to Google’s vertical ads.
Online advertisers might start connecting products to video ads. Instagram stories will dominate the PPC ad market with major brands using it as their advertising methods. For maximising your PPC ads strategy, you can choose an amalgamation of tv and online video ads.
- Artificial Intelligence:
The economic impact of artificial intelligence can reach 15.7 $ trillion by 2030! With PPC advertising, artificial intelligence will play the following role.
- Help & predict the CTR of future ads easing PPC workings
- Help to calculate an ad’s impact on quality score
- Investigating the potential conversion rates from a given customer
- Analyse bids extracting maximum traffic
- Optimisation of keywords, ads or campaigns when certain events take place, like if your CPC falls below a said amount.
You can use AI for learning audience behaviour resulting in creating more audience-specific ads. AI will have an impact not only on Google Adwords Campaigns but over other search engine ad channels such as bing, amazon as well.
- Virtual Reality Ads:
VR will have a positive impact on PPC campaigns in 2021.
It will transform PPC ads in the following ways:
- The new generation is an avid user of VR and using VR technology in ads will surely keep them interested and attract them to explore more.
- The 360-degree videos can help customers explore and interact with products better. When customers explore better, they choose faster.
- The eye technology that helps in activating ads when using VR, will intrigue the users and help in increased ad clicks.
