Pay-Per-Click 101

Marketing

There is no denying the value of having a digital presence for your business. If you are just starting your business, or are just starting to promote your business online it can be very overwhelming. One of the easiest ways to quickly reach your target audience is with pay-per-click, but knowing you should do it and understanding it are two very different things. Here is a basic overview of what pay-per-click is and a few ideas how to effectively implement it for your business.

What is Pay-per-click?
Pay-per-click (PPC) refers to a way to advertise where you only pay when your online ad is clicked on. You can utilize PPC along with your organic search engine optimization measures to bring more visitors to your website. Typically, when you utilize PPC text ads, your advertisements shows at the top of Google search results for your pre-determined key search terms.

Along with Google text PPC ads, there are PPC options available through other online resources, including social media platforms. Also, through Google you can create dynamic and image PPC advertisements as well. We encourage you to find the best way to advertise for your organization, but suggest starting with Google text PPC ads, which is the focus of this blog.

Steps to a successful pay-per-click campaign.
Creating a successful PPC campaign for your organization relies heavily on the steps and effort you put in to creating it. You cannot create an advertisement that won’t appeal to people and hope it will yield results. To get started and be successful with pay-per-click, you should follow these straightforward steps.

1. Develop an offer of value and interest. Your advertisement needs to entice people to click on it in order to be successful. If people are not intrigued, they will never click and you won’t have an effective campaign. You should make sure you are not only getting people to click on your ad, but also, give them some value for doing so. We suggest focusing your ads around your organization’s core competencies and differentiators.
2. Direct clicks to a landing page. All clicks on your advertisements should lead to a landing page. This will ensure that any potential clients who click on your ad receive the content that initially enticed them. It is important to deliver on the promises your advertisement makes, to build trust with your potential clients. A landing page will also allow you to capture valuable leads. This is imperative for you to be able to contact potential customers if they don’t convert at the initial visit. You can then include these leads in future drip campaigns by offering them to easily opt-in.
3. Choose relevant keywords. One of the most important things to research when creating a PPC campaign is determining your keywords and phrases. These are what will trigger your ad to appear. Keywords all come at a price and can vary greatly based on their relevance and popularity. Typically the more expensive words and phrases lead to more relevant clicks. You can view the cost of particular words and phrases per click by utilizing Google AdWords’ Keyword Planner
4. Conduct A/B testing. A/B testing can also be referred to as split testing, which is essentially testing two different versions of the same ad to determine the better performing option. There are a variety of different things that you can use to differentiate your ads, but we suggest only changing one element at a time to isolate where successes or opportunities arise. Once you have researched and created a PPC campaign, you should develop an alternate advertisement to test and see which performs better for your organization. Try utilizing different keywords, calls-to-action or links to create your most effective PPC ad. Typically success is determined by the conversion rates, but you may choose to use a different AdWords metric to measure your success.

Continuing to Optimize Your PPC Campaign.
Once you have your PPC campaign running, you should always keep trying to improve it. You can continue to refine your landing pages and your strategies to increase relevant clicks. Additionally, keywords or phrase you may not be able to afford may become available later at a reasonable price. The key is to never stop improving your PPC campaigns and testing different strategies. With this approach, you will be successful. Interested in learning more about how pay-per-click can benefit your business? Contact AdvisorPR today at (866) 888-5333 or email us at Info@advisorpr.com.