Pay-per-click (PPC) is an important digital marketing tool nowadays, helping you own “real estate” in the search engine results. Here’s an in-depth analysis of PPC to guide you.

What is PPC marketing?

Pay-per-click (PPC) is a powerful online marketing model that helps your business rank above the organic search results. It also helps to drive traffic to your website and increases conversions. You place ads online and pay the publisher every time a user clicks on your ad. Simply put, PPC lets the advertiser control their advertising by setting a budget to place ads and pay only for the clicks received.

You can calculate your ad rank using the formula:

Ad Rank = Quality Score x Maximum CPC (Cost-per-click)

How does it work?

Bidding model
Whenever an ad spot is available on the search engine results page, bidding takes place instantaneously. Brands bid for these clicks and tell the platform how much you are willing to pay for one click or 100 clicks. The highest bidder with good ad quality only gets their ad displayed. To participate in these auctions, advertisers must have an account on platforms like Google Ads to set up their ads and determine their ads' location on the website.

Flat-rate model
In this model, publishers offer a fixed rate for every click, with different rates depending on their website's location. They are often open to price negotiations.

The PPC marketing channel works on many search engines, the most popular being Google Ads and Bing.

Other popular PPC marketing providers include social media sites like-

Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest Pins
LinkedIn
Quora
Why go for Google Ads?

Using Google Ads for PPC marketing is quite valuable because it is the world's single most popular search engine. The platform enables businesses to place ads on Google’s search engine and other Google properties. Since Google experiences large amounts of traffic, it delivers the most impressions and clicks to your ads.

Google Ads operates on the bidding model and selects the winning bidders on the quality, relevance of the brands’ keywords and ad campaigns, and the size of their keyword bids.

Different Types of PPC Ads

There are different types of PPC marketing campaigns that help you promote your services to the targeted audience. You can choose from the following PPC ads depending on your goals-

1. Search Ads

Search advertising is the most popular form of PPC marketing. These ads target consumers who are already looking for your brand’s services online. Businesses who want one-time campaign promotions and aim to acquire strong and high-quality leads from new users should go for search advertising.

2. Display Ads

This advertising form has a far more effective reach and uses photos and texts to capture the users’ attention to boost conversion. Businesses with lengthy sales cycles and niche customers should go for display advertising

3. Remarketing Ads

These ads target people who have already visited your website and convince them to convert, thus, making it one of the best ways to reach high-converting users. Remarketing is relatively cheaper and can double your turnovers because of lower competition and streamlined targeting. 

4. Social Ads

This segment allows your ads to appear on various social media platforms, like Facebook, Linked In, and Twitter. The ads target potential customers based on their interests, hobbies, networks, etc. Brands with an active social media presence and highly targeted customers must opt for this.

5. In-stream Ads

In-stream or YouTube ads appear on YouTube videos, YouTube search results, and video partners on Display Network. Recently, Facebook has also launched in-stream ads, allowing brands to place ads in the best slots.

6. Gmail Sponsored Promotions (GSP)

GSP enables the prospects to make direct calls to the advertiser and convert at any point of the sales funnel. Unlike YouTube ads, GSP allows you to reach interested users right in their inboxes. Thus, it is highly effective to generate direct response leads.

7. Google Shopping Ads

These PPC ads are suitable for companies with a large volume of products, like eCommerce websites. They are displayed above or beside the main Google search results, allowing users to view products and prices even before they click on other’s websites. Since your target customers have already explored all the different websites’ products on Google Shopping ads, it gives you a higher chance of conversion with every click.

Factors determining your PPC advertising campaign’s success

Here are some important factors businesses must consider while optimizing their PPC campaign-

Keyword Research
Keywords are the basis of PPC. Therefore, you must do thorough keyword research to find the ones closely related to your landing page’s content. Keyword research helps you know which search terms are popular among your targeted audience and which are used by your competitors. Use relevant keywords to increase your Quality Score.

Quality Score
You must have higher Quality Scores for better ad placement and lower cost-per-clicks. Google considers various factors to determine your ad’s Quality Score, such as keywords, ad content, and landing pages.

Landing Page Quality
Companies must have optimized landing pages to which they want the traffic drawn. Your landing pages must be persuasive, tailored to specific search queries, and contain relevant content with a clear call to action.

Budget and Bids
Initially, companies can spread the budget across all the campaigns. After getting results from certain campaigns, you can gradually focus your budget on higher-performing campaigns and keywords. However, for placing bids, a budget based on keyword competition is the best.

Geo-Location Targeting
A lucrative tool for local businesses allows you to target specific geographic areas to connect with people who live near their business.

Conclusion

The expanse of digitalization calls for lucrative and in-demand marketing strategies, and PPC advertising has proven to be a reliable and profitable tool. Now, tons of B2B, B2C, nonprofits, and several other companies depend on PPC to grow their digital visibility, drive more website traffic and sales. Make the most of your PPC advertising campaign by keeping in mind the above points.

You can check if your PPC campaign is a success by tracking the URLs for traffic, and regularly analyzing your keywords and ad statistics.

Therefore, PPC advertising is a worthwhile investment and it’s time that you test the waters too!