Several digital marketing strategies could help your business flourish online. But let’s face it, not all of them may work for your business. But do you know that there’s a highly targeted and trackable marketing strategy where you only pay for the result? You read that right. It’s called pay-per-click advertising or PPC advertising, and it’s currently one of the most powerful marketing tools for boosting leads and conversions.
PPC advertising lets your business appear at your ideal customers the moment they search for your products and search engine. While PPC marketing isn’t exactly complicated, it requires a lot of planning and strategizing to achieve the results you need.
We’ve created this PPC guide to help you understand the entirety of pay-per-click marketing. We cover everything you need to know from different ad formats to the benefits of paid search advertising. We’ll also discuss all the key terms that are essential for PPC success.
How Does PPC Advertising Work?
Pay-per-click advertising more commonly known as PPC advertising is a form of paid digital marketing that allows you to gain instant visibility on search engine result pages and other PPC platforms.
Your PPC ads can be made up of text, images, videos, or even a combination of these three. What makes PPC a unique form of advertising is that you only pay when someone clicks on your ad.
The most popular form of PPC ads is search engine advertising, such as Google ads. Here, you, as an advertiser, bid on certain keywords. The higher your bid amount and the better your ad quality, the more likely you will win the auction.
Every time someone types something into a search engine, a bidding war begins among advertisers who want to show their ads related to that query.
The winners of these auctions get to display their ads on the search engine results page. For instance, if we bid “digital marketing agency in the Philippines”, you might be able to see our ads at the top or bottom of the search engine result page.
When PPC marketing is done right, you can boost your brand visibility, bring more traffic to your website, create new leads, and ultimately increase conversions.
8 Important PPC Terms You Need To Understand
When you are working on a PPC marketing campaign, you will encounter different jargon and acronyms. You need to understand these PPC concepts for you to easily plan and strategize. The following are the main elements of the PPC campaign.
1. SEM
Are SEM and PPC marketing just the same? We heard this question several times. And, no, these two terms are not the same.
SEM stands for Search Engine Marketing is an umbrella term of digital marketing strategy that encompasses both paid and organic strategy. This only means that PPC, a paid marketing strategy, can fall under this umbrella. However, It’s worth noting that a PPC campaign isn’t always on search engines. Some PPC ads are posted on social media like Facebook and Instagram.
2. Keywords
These are simply the words or phrases that you want your ads to show up for when someone searches for them on a search engine. Choosing which keyword to target is one of the critical steps in setting up a PPC ad as it determines who sees your ads and how much you pay for each click.
Take all the time you need to do PPC keyword research. Understand the trending keywords, the competition, and the search terms that you can capitalize on. Choose relevant and specific keywords that match your products or services.
In targeting specific keywords for PPC, it’s a good practice to choose long-tail keywords. As the name suggests, these keywords are longer, more specific, and more targeted. Searchers who use these types of keywords are usually the ones that are ready to take action.
3. CPC
Once a keyword is determined, you need to set a micro CPC specifically for keywords within your ads. CPC or cost-per-click is the amount that you pay each time someone clicks your ads. The CPC also acts as your bid in the placement of your ads.
Since it’s an auction, you may need to place a higher amount of bid to get a better ad placement. However, it is important to remember that CPC isn’t the only factor. The quality of your ad is also a huge factor. So, let’s proceed to the quality score.
4. Quality Score
Quality score is the metric that search engine use to evaluate how your ad matches the user’s search intent and expectations. The more relevant your ad is to the searchers the higher chances you can get a higher quality score. The search engine assesses the relevance of your keywords and the quality of your landing page.
Quality score is reported on a 1-10 scale. As an advertiser, you should aim for a higher quality score. High-quality ads lead not only to better positions but also lower prices.
5. CPM
CPM refers to the cost per mile or cost per thousand impressions. The CPM in PPC is the cost to have an ad displayed to 1,000 users. This metric is commonly used on paid social and display ads.
6. Ads
Ad groups are simply groups of ads that share the same keywords and target the same audience. Having an ad group is a great way to organize your PPC marketing campaign and bid more effectively. If you have several ads that promote different aspects of your product or service, you can group them in an ad group.
7. Ad Groups
Ad groups are simply groups of ads that share the same keywords and target the same audience. Having an ad group is a great way to organize your PPC marketing campaign and bid more effectively. If you have several ads that promote different aspects of your product or service, you can group them in an ad group.
8. Landing Page
The landing page is the page or website that searchers end up on, once they click your PPC ad. Your landing page can be your home page, service page, or product page. As mentioned, your landing page should be relevant to your keywords.
5 Main PPC Ad Formats You Can Try
Now that you understand the important PPC terms in launching paid ads, it’s time to choose the ad format that is right for you. There are different PPC ad formats with each one can appear on different PPC ad platforms. The following are the most common type of PPC ads for your business.
1. Text Ads Or Search Ads
Text Ads or search ads are among the simplest form of PPC ads. It only comprises a headline, display URL, and Description Text and only appears on search engines like Google and Bing.
Despite the simplicity, text ads remain to be among the most targeted form of PPC advertisement. In a 2018 survey of Clutch, three-fourths or 75% of respondents said that search ads make it easier to find the information they are searching for on a website or search engine.
The reason for this is that your ads only appear once a searcher uses your keyword on the search engine. This leads to more qualified traffic to your landing page.
2. Display Ads
If you regularly browse the Internet, chances are you already have seen several display ads before. Display ads are the banner or advertising blocks that appear on websites, social media, and apps. These are visual ads, so they can appear as images, videos, animation, and other interactive elements.
Using display ads is a great way to reach a wide audience and increase brand awareness. Google, itself, said that the display network reaches 90% of internet users worldwide. However, display ads may have lower click-through rates (CTRs) than text ads. This is because display ads can appear even to those people who are not necessarily looking for the products or services of the ads.
3. Shopping Ads
Is your business have an e-commerce counterpart? Shopping ads might be the best way to reach your target audience. Like the text ads, this PPC Ad format also appears on the search engine result page. This means that this PPC ad appears once a keyword is triggered.
When the search engine receives a high commercial search intent, it organizes the search result and displays shopping ads. This ad includes a product image, a title, a price, a store name, and other relevant details. This way you can target and attract customers who are ready to purchase your products.
4. Video Ads
It’s easy to recognize video ads. These are short videos that appear before, during, or after videos. You can find video ads mostly on Youtube, but right now video ads on social media platform has become more common these days.
Video ads can be skippable or non-skippable, and what makes them unique is that they contain a call-to-action (CTA) button. The biggest challenge is to capture and retain the audience’s attention.
5. Remarketing Ads
Remarketing ads can be any of the above formats. What makes this PPC ad unique is that it targets people who previously visited or search for your products. The remarketing ads serve as a reminder of your value proposition. Since your prospects may already be interested in your products and services, you have more chances to inspire them to act.
5 Biggest Advantages Of Pay-Per-Click Advertising
Still not sure if PPC ads are the right digital marketing strategy for your business? The PPC benefits below might change your mind. Below are 5 powerful reasons why you should invest in PPC marketing right now.
1. PPC Marketing Attracts More Qualified Traffic
With your PPC ads on top of search engine result pages, you’ll definitely reach a wide audience. There are literally billions of users using search engines every month. In fact, Google alone is being visited 89.3 billion times every month.
However, PPC marketing isn’t only about reaching a large audience. It’s more about getting quality traffic. The best example here is the search ads and shopping ads which only appear when searchers trigger relevant keywords.
Other PPC formats allow you to target users based on demographics such as age, gender, and geographic location. By taking advantage of this feature, you can target the right audience, increasing your chances of making a conversion.
2. PPC Ads Are Cost-Effective
Before anything else let’s be clear: PPC ad campaigns require a budget. After all its a paid advertising. However, since you have total control over the amount you can spend, it’s the most cost-effective form of advertisement. You don’t need to have set bids that are higher than your marketing budget.
Another contributing factor is its result-oriented model. You only pay when people click on your ads. You don’t need to worry about overspending or wasting money on ineffective ads. Picture this: you pay PHP 50 for a click, but that single click results in PHP 5000 sale, then you have created a hefty profit.
3. PPC Ads Are Trackable
One of the biggest benefits of PPC advertising is its measurability. You can run multiple ads to test different keywords and messages. Since you will have real-time updates on the results, you can easily see which ones driving the best results and which ones need improvement. Furthermore, you can scale the ads until it no longer produces desirable results.
4. You Can Get Immediate Results
4. You Can Get Immediate Results
Only PPC marketing can bring results quickly. Unlike search engine optimization or SEO which may require months of consistent effort to see results, PPC ads can generate results in a matter of days. In fact, some PPC ads start driving results as soon as you launch the campaign.
The result from PPC ads, however, may not be permanent. For instance, a trending keyword today may be completely forgotten next week. This is the reason why constant monitoring and planning are a requirement in running a successful PPC campaign.
5. Algorithm Changes Have Little Effect On PPC Ads
When your ads won a PPC auction, your ads have a greater chance to appear on top of a search engine result page. You don’t need to worry about ranking factors of search engines. What’s more, your ranking won’t be affected by algorithm changes.
It’s a convenient advantage for you as you can concentrate more on optimizing your PPC campaign. Instead of search engine multiple ranking factors, you only need to pay attention to your performance metrics, such as click-through rate, conversion rate, and return on ad spend.
Trusted PPC Advertising Services In The Philippines
Awesome! You just learned the basics of PPC advertising. But don’t stop here, there’s so much more to learn about paid marketing if you want to run your own PPC campaign. However, if you are in a hurry to get leads, you can let Be Global E-commerce Corporation do it for you.
Our PPC advertising agency can customize a campaign for your business. Our PPC experts will find out the best-paid search terms, the right ad format, and the best platform to get the results you need. With our expertise, we can help you lower the cost per acquisition while increasing your chances of getting leads and conversion.
Contact our team today and let us help you launch an e-commerce ad campaign that converts.
