What is PPC?
PPC stands for “Pay-Per-Click,” simple as that! PPC advertising is an effective way of generating income for your business, as it is a form of advertising where the advertiser literally will pay for every click to their website or app.
What is the most popular PPC advertising network?
Currently, Google Ads is the most popular PPC Advertising Network in the world. This makes sense as there are nearly four billion Google users worldwide.
Advertisers actually bid on keywords for clicks that will take users to their websites. So, they’re bidding on keywords or bidding on audiences. However, the advertisers only pay when someone clicks on their advertisement.
What are impressions?
Impressions are when your ads appear on certain pages. Every time your ad appears, it is counted as a single impression.
How does pay-per-click advertising work?
If you are an advertiser, you’ll set a bid for clicks to your website based on the keywords and/or audiences you’re targeting. The bid is basically how much you’re willing (or able) to pay for each click to your website.
You’ll enter an auction against other advertisers for each and every click. The ads that will show are based on a bid and an advertisement’s quality score or relevant score.
Basically, you’re bidding on a certain number of factors with regards to targeting and depending on who you’re going up against (other advertisers/competitors).
Different factors will determine the amount you’ll pay, the number of times your ad will appear in search results, and most importantly, how often your ad gets clicked.
What is a quality score?
Google gives priority to advertisers who are willing to pay more, and who also have great landing pages, where CTR (click-through-rates) are checked. Google looks through all of this to formulate an ad rank, and that’s where you get different ads based on ranking.
All these things of a website that Google looks through to formulate a ranking are referred to as the “Quality Score.”
Different types of ads on Google
Keep in mind, when it comes to Google Ads, there are search ads on top as well as shopping ads, if this applies to the relevant keyword. For example, you may type in a specific word that relates to gardening equipment. On the left of the SERP (Search Engine Results Page) you’ll see the search pages, and on the right (and on top) you’ll see gardening equipment that you can purchase.
How much are PPC clicks?
The price of PPC Clicks is mainly based on the nature of your business. If you own a clothing franchise, you may pay US$1 per click, whereas if you own a real estate company, you may pay up to US$5-$7 per click.
Certain lawyers and insurance companies pay more than US$20 per click because the ROI (Return on Investment) is potentially very high. Some top bids even go above US$50 per click.
How to Get Started with PPC Ads
In order for your ads to be the most effective, you need to use the most popular PPC Advertising Networks such as:
- Google Ads – The most popular these days
- Bing Ads – Many people use Bing
- Facebook Ads – 2.7 billion active users
- Instagram Ads – Hugely popular with the millennial crowd
- LinkedIn Ads – The working professionals’ playground
- Taboola/Outbrain – A lot of media is seen this way
- Yahoo Gemini (Verizon Media) – Much content is seen
- Twitter Ads – 330 million active users
- Amazon Ads – 197 million people use Amazon each month
- AdRoll – Offers really sophisticated audience targeting
You’re going to need a website or app to promote. So, once you have your website or app set up, you need to create many different landing pages as this is where your traffic will be sent. You can get really creative with these, and insert several SEO keywords to get the audience you want to attract to click on these pages.
You will then sign up with the different PPC networks you want to work with, enter all your payment information, and start by creating your first campaign.
Signing up is a really simple process, as all you need to do is enter payment details, business details, your website, and then get started with creating your campaign.
The difficult part is actually running the campaign.Over time, you will need to test and optimize your adverts and you’ll be able to do this by constantly checking the feedback and statistics of your campaign. You’ll be able to see the number of impressions, number of clicks, which can take a bit of a learning curve.
Is PPC Advertising Worth It?
The only way you will truly know if your PPC ads are working is by constantly testing and optimizing them. If you own a big company that has million-dollar yearly budgets, you’ll want to use PPC campaigns every day to drive your sales and lead to their optimum revenue.
There are so many ads (for instance) on Google, that in order to get noticed, you need to use PPC advertising, as sometimes it’s very hard to get noticed organically, as you’re competing against so many other websites.
The best thing you can do is test all the different PPC Advertising Networks, test your campaigns, really study these networks, and see which ones get the best results for your business. Remember, selling cosmetics for teens, for example, is going to be easier on Instagram than LinkedIn Ads, so really do your homework and study your different PPC Advertising Networks.
Final thoughts
If you are looking to start a PPC campaign to help grow your businesses sales, call us today to speak with a Digital Strategist.