All business owners want to see a fast and lucrative return on their marketing investment, but not all marketing methods lend themselves to speedy results.
Search engine optimization, social media marketing, and content marketing can sometimes take a while to generate traffic, leads, and sales. Pay Per Click advertising, on the other hand, can yield much speedier results.
Could your business benefit from Pay Per Click advertising? Read on to learn more about PPC, the different types of PPC ads, and how you can start using PPC marketing for your business.
What is PPC?
Pay per click (PPC) marketing is a type of internet marketing in which businesses pay a fee each time someone clicks on their ad. When a user clicks on the ad, they are taken directly to the business’s offer, meaning brands can generate near immediate results from their PPC marketing.
If you want to generate more customers fast, then PPC marketing might be the way to go. With this type of advertising, you can pay to have your ads shown to prospective customers instead of waiting on the slow influx of organic or social media traffic.
How Does Pay Per Click Work?
Search engine advertising is one of the most popular types of PPC and involves advertisers displaying their ads in the search results (typically, ahead of the organic results).
Brands can determine which keywords to target, so when someone searches for relevant terms, they will see a related ad, and be enticed to click through to the website.
PPC ads are also available on social media channels such as Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. For these ads, you set your targeting, run ads to be displayed to your target audience, and pay every time a user clicks on your ad.
It is important to note that the fee you pay (or the “cost-per-click”) can vary depending on the competition level, the precision of your ad targeting, and other factors. Setting a budget aligned with your goals and auction prices of your desired targets is crucial to your PPC success.
How Much Does PPC Cost?
The average cost-per-click on Google Ads is between $1-$2 per click, but this can vary widely. Similarly, you might end up spending a few cents per click to a few dollars per click on social media ads.
The best way to get a close estimate of what your PPC ads will cost is to work with a PPC advertising specialist who will look at the keywords you want to target, the ad competition within your niche, and the way you should set your ad targeting.
Many business owners start PPC with a budget in mind, but your best bet is to look at the data and determine how much you should spend to generate the results that you want. You can always increase or decrease your budget over time.
Types of Pay Per Click Services
There are several types of pay per click services and the list below is by no means exhaustive. These are the most popular PPC marketing platforms and you can easily find PPC professionals who can help you launch a successful campaign on any of them.
Google Ads
Google Ads is Google’s paid advertising platform, which allows businesses to run ads to be displayed for certain keywords/queries. You can create campaigns and ad groups that target certain keywords, exclude certain keywords, and reach specific geographical areas.
Then, if a user Googles this keyword and meets your targeting specifications, your ad will be displayed and may entice clicks through to your website.
Google Ads also offers Display Ads, which help brands share their message at scale. Display ads have much cheaper clicks, as well as lower click through rates (CTR). This ad format is useful to remind prospects to complete a desired action, and create brand awareness.
YouTube Ads
YouTube Ads are displayed at the beginning of (and throughout) YouTube videos. Advertisers can pay to have their ads displayed to certain audiences in hopes of driving clicks. Here, it’s best to identify your target audience so that you can display ads that will be of interest to them.
Microsoft Ads
Like Google Ads, Microsoft Ads are ads that are displayed ahead of the organic search results, but these are on the search engine Bing. You can target specific keywords so that your ads are shown to users actively looking for your goods or services. If a user clicks on your ad, you pay a cost, but then that user may turn into a new customer or client.
Facebook Ads
Facebook is one of the most popular social media platforms, so it’s a great place to target a wide range of consumers and business owners. You can run photo and video ads to boost engagement, drive traffic, and even direct users to your inbox. You pay a cost per click and can adjust your budget and targeting to generate the best ROI possible.
LinkedIn Ads
LinkedIn is a popular platform among business owners, professionals, and B2B service providers. You may choose to run LinkedIn ads to reach CEOs, other service providers, employees, and other professionals. Like Facebook Ad, you pay a cost per click but can generate high-quality traffic and leads.
Increase Traffic and Leads with PPC
PPC is more involved than just “boosting” a post on Facebook or targeting a single keyword on Google – it takes an understanding of the data to get it right. If you don’t want to blow your marketing budget, you should make sure your keyword and audience targeting is on point.
Before you get started with PPC on your own, consult with a trusted PPC specialist who can advise on what your budget should be and how you should set your ad targeting. With full PPC ads management, they will be able to generate the best ROI possible for your business.
