The Benefits of PPC Advertising For Your Business
Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC Ads) is an aptly named branch of paid advertising, where your Ad Cost is a direct result of consumers clicking on your advert. Rather than an estimate of potential impressions, which other advertising methods might offer, this added level of consumer engagement is a tangible and usable metric. PPC Ads are easy to track and measure and can show immediate results. This also makes them the ideal accompaniment to your other advertising channels.
In this blog, I will outline the main benefits of PPC advertising (& will include a few challenges too!).
1) PPC Advertising is Cost Effective – You Set the Budget
One of the key benefits of PPC advertising is that you only pay when a potential customer engages with your business. You are never locked into a set rate or time-frame, so keeping track of spending (and adjusting when needed) is simple. Whether your daily budget is £10 or £10K, PPC can benefit your business.
2) Instant Traffic – Instant Results
Another one of the key benefits of PPC advertising is that pay per click campaigns can produce instant results. After an advert goes live, it can be seen immediately. Whilst SEO is important to the overall health of your website and business, seeing results from these (often labour-intensive) efforts can take weeks or even months. PPC ads offer real-time results, allowing you to fill the SERP top spots now, whilst SEO catches up.
3) PPC Is All About Data
All of the elements of your PPC advertising can be tracked, monitored and quantified, giving you real, tangible data to use across your marketing and business plans. Using Google Ads and Analytics, connected to your website, you can see all performance details, including impressions, clicks and conversions coming directly from your PPC campaigns. You can also track users behaviour from the moment they click on your ad to leaving your website to returning and (ideally) making a purchase. You can track how long they spend on each page and where they are dropping off, meaning you can discover exactly where your website’s weak spots are.
Using specific data, collected from your own campaigns, and Google’s massive database of consumer behaviours and patterns, it is possible to create extremely specific campaigns to target your customers. You can optimise for a wide variety of goals including ROAS, CPA and Impression Share, allowing you to adjust your bidding strategy to maximise your goal completions.
4) Finding Customers At The Exact Right Time
PPC Search Ads appear above, below and next to organic search results for similar products and/or services. If your ad appears, the customer is likely to be actively looking for what you are offering and conversions are much more likely.
5) Targeting and Re-marketing With PPC
Targeting your ads is easier and more effective with PPC, using Google’s machine learning, you can target the demographics of your customers, their geographic location and their hobbies and interests, to name a few. With this information, you can ensure only people who are most likely to convert will see and click on your ad. As your ads run, you will be able to see what kind of customer is interacting with your ads and who is converting, meaning you can tailor your campaigns to maximise on these audiences.
With PPC you can also re-market to previous visitors. Using analytics, you can build audiences who have interacted with your business but who have not converted and retarget them. Re-marketing works as you know the customer has an interest in your products or services, however they may not be ready to convert. By keeping your website, products and services in their mind, you will increase their chances of converting.
6) PPC Is Perfect For Testing Ideas
PPC Ad campaigns are relatively quick to produce, start, edit and (if needed) stop. This means it is simple to test new ideas, whether it’s longtail keywords, a promotional incentive or a hail-mary on a radical idea. As you also control your budget and you can adjust when and to whom your ad is seen, you can immediately collect data and assess whether the test is successful.
7) Support All Your Marketing Channels With PPC
PPC Advertising can work as your only marketing avenue, the tools and capabilities mean you could run a very successful campaign. However, PPC is also a fantastic tool for supporting any other marketing techniques you are using. For example, using PPC to test keywords is an ideal first step before spending time and resources on a large SEO project. Using PPC campaigns allows you to improve your website’s content whilst you wait for your content to rank via SEO.
8) PPC Challenges To Watch Out For
As you can see above, there are many benefits of PPC advertising that will be sure to help your business thrive. However, there are also some challenges you may come across:
- PPC campaigns require a level of time investment, you cannot simply start a campaign and leave, ads must be regularly checked and optimised in order to see results.
- The tools involved in running a PPC campaign can be tricky to navigate, learn and use to their full potential. Using them to the greatest effect does require a commitment of time and resources to learn the best methods for your business.
- Costs involved in a PPC campaign can also quickly add up, unchecked, an advert could easily spend a large amount, without providing a reasonable ROI. It is essential that all ads are regularly monitored and adjusted accordingly.
- Simply setting up and starting a campaign will not necessarily result in conversions and goal completions. Creating a good advert might get clicks but clicks won’t (necessarily) pay the bills. Once a customer has reached your landing page and website, you will still need to convince them to convert once they arrive.
Contact Us
If you are looking for a digital marketing agency to help you with your PPC Advertising, get in touch with us at Seed on:
01273 286 616 or enquiries@helloseed.co.uk.
