What is PPC?
PPC marketing can be extremely beneficial for businesses of all shapes and sizes. If you want to learn what PPC is, how it works, and how best to utilise it, keep reading!
What is pay-per-click (PPC)?
Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is a digital marketing model where advertisers pay for every time their ads are clicked. It can drastically help to increase visits to your website without relying on a user searching for your company organically. Google Ads is Google’s PPC advertising platform. It allows advertisers to display ads on Google’s search results pages, as well as other websites that participate in the Google Ads network.
How can PPC help my business?
Smaller brands will always struggle when relying on organic traffic because big brands swoop in and take potential customers. Using PPC will allow you to target specific keywords users are searching, locations, and target audiences. Therefore increasing your chance of being seen on Google leading to increased website traffic and more sales.
How it works
One misconception is that advertisers can pay more so their ads appear in a higher position to their competitors. Instead Google ads and other search engines have an automated process called the Ad Auction. This determines the relevance of your ad. The point in which bidding more money helps your ad positioning is when the ad auction decides there are multiple ads that could be shown to a user. In that case, the highest bid is shown in the more prominent position.
How to create effective ads
Define your campaign goals
Before starting a PPC campaign, it’s important to know what you want to achieve. Is it to drive traffic to your website, increase sales or leads, or build brand awareness? Choosing the right campaign objective gives your ad the best chance of being shown to the right audience.
Identify your target audience
Determine who your target audience is and what keywords they might use to find your products or services. Keywords that are relevant to your business and have a high search volume. This will help you select the right keywords to bid on.
Create relevant and compelling ads
Your ads should be relevant to your target audience and should clearly communicate the benefits of your products or services. Use eye-catching images or videos to grab the viewer’s attention.
Optimise your campaign
When creating your ad, Google will give you an optimisation score, try to keep this either ‘good’ and ‘average’. This is decided on many different factors, including copy, imagery, key words, and relevancy. For example, if your ad copy is not relevant to the landing page you are sending users to, your optimisation score will be lower.
Monitor your campaign
Keeping an eye on your campaign’s performance is essential. For example, during your campaign you can decide to exclude irrelevant search terms your ads are being shown to. This will save you money and ensure ads are being seen by the right audience.
Types of Google ads
Google Ads offers several types of ads that businesses can create to reach their target audience. Here are some of the main Google Ads that you can create:
- Search ads: These ads appear on the Google search results pages when searching for specific keywords related to your business.
- Display ads: Display ads appear on websites and include text, images, videos, or rich media.
- Video ads: Video ads can appear on YouTube and other Google partner sites.
- Shopping ads: These ads appear at the top of Google search results pages when users search for products to buy.
- App ads: App ads are designed to promote mobile apps and encourage users to download or engage with them. They can appear on Google search results pages, YouTube, Google Play, and other Google partner sites.
- Performance Max: These ads are shown to all available networks and have inbuilt functionalities such as retargeting.
