Last Updated on May 26, 2023
Pay-per-click, commonly known as PPC, is a digital marketing technique in which advertisers pay each time a user clicks on their ad. The most prevalent form of PPC advertising is through search engines like Google Ads, where marketers bid on specific keywords related to their product or service. These ads appear at the top of the search engine results pages (SERPs) when users search for those keywords.
Apart from search engines, social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, and website display advertising are also popular avenues for PPC advertising. In essence, PPC advertising offers a powerful and cost-effective way for businesses to reach their target audience and drive conversions.
Don’t miss out, we’re currently providing anyone who is currently spending $5k/month on PPC a FREE PPC Audit. Just schedule a complimentary marketing consultation today.PPC, SEM, & SEO: Understanding The Differences
Although PPC, SEM (search engine marketing), and SEO (search engine optimization) are often used interchangeably, they refer to distinct digital marketing techniques.
SEM serves as an umbrella term that encompasses PPC but is not limited to this form of advertising. It includes activities that aim to enhance a website’s visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs) through both paid and unpaid means, such as PPC or organic traffic (SEO).
On the other hand, PPC is a type of online advertising that primarily works with search engines but also covers other channels, including video ads (YouTube) and image ads (Instagram/Facebook). It involves advertisers bidding on specific keywords relevant to their business to display their ads at the top of the SERPs.
SEO, meanwhile, is a process of optimizing a website’s content and structure to increase its visibility and ranking in organic search results. This includes researching and incorporating relevant keywords, optimizing metadata, creating quality content, and earning backlinks from other websites.
The ultimate goal of SEO is to improve a website’s organic search engine rankings and drive traffic to the website through unpaid, organic search results. If you’re currently wanting to know where your website stands within the search engines, you should take advantage of our FREE SEO Overview Report.
While PPC focuses on paid advertising, SEM encompasses both paid and unpaid search engine marketing activities, and SEO aims to increase a website’s visibility in organic search results. It’s essential for businesses to understand the distinctions between these digital marketing techniques and choose the most effective strategy for their unique goals and target audience.
PPC: How It Works
PPC ads operate by bidding on various keywords or phrases to allow advertisers to have their ads show up for a particular search term. Whenever a user conducts a search using any of those keywords or phrases, the advertiser’s ad will appear high in the search results. The advertiser is then billed a fee each time a user clicks on their ad.
An advertiser sets up a campaign that will target one or more keywords. The advertiser specifies the maximum bid amount to bid on these keywords on the search engine. The algorithm will work to determine what ads to display, what order to show them in, and bidder-based targeted ads depending on the bids.
This is one type of advertising that can be productively carried out on social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram.
What Makes PPC Important?
PPC is an investment that yields a positive return. In fact, on average, businesses earned $2 for every $1 spent on PPC in 2022, with an average cost per click of $1.16. While social media advertising remains a popular option, businesses allocated 40% of their advertising budget to search in 2020, with 73% of that going to Google.
PPC offers a number of advantages over SEO and social media such as:
Fast results: PPC-based advertising allows visitors to a website to see ads immediately, whereas search engine optimization can provide results gradually. Most platforms approve the guidelines immediately, offering a product that will attract visitors immediately. This could just be a text ad through Google search, an Instagram ad displaying a picture of your business, or a video displayed on YouTube.
Reach: Marketers can reach particular audiences via Pay-Per-Click advertising. They can adjust their advertisements to interests, demographics, and geographical locations to achieve the best results. You can also design your campaigns to reach people who are likely to convert to your website to view it or as a result.
Measurable: PPC advertising offers quantifiable results. It enables advertisers to measure conversions, return on investment (ROI), and other key performance indicators (KPIs).
Efficiency: PPC advertising can be more cost-effective than traditional advertising methods, such as television or print ads, because marketers pay only when users click on their ad, and they can also budget for campaigns.
Assisting SEO: SEO is an effective marketing technique that has proven itself effective at raising website rankings. However, SEO does not drive direct exposure and can take some time to take effect. PPC advertising can be used to reward these efforts immediately.
Boosting Reputation: PPC bidding can be used to bid on keywords associated with a reputation event and directs visitors to a landing page addressing the matter, so you can control the narrative, instantly and professionally.
PPC marketing is a cost-effective and effective means to reach out to a target audience, generate sales leads, and increase a customer’s brand visibility.
What Is Essential to PPC Strategy & Campaign Planning?
Now that we’ve gone over what makes PPC marketing important, let’s go over what you should do before beginning to set up a PPC campaign:
Think about the target audience you wish to connect with: Identify the demographics and psychographics of the target people who you wish to reach with your ads, including their age, gender, whereabouts, interests, and more.
Set clear objectives: Determine what you want to achieve with your PPC campaign, such as increasing website traffic, driving online sales, or generating leads.
Keyword Research: Select keywords that your target audience would use in online searches and include them in your ad copy and website content.
Write attention-grabbing ad copy: Create attention-grabbing headlines and descriptions for your ads that will entice visitors to click through to your website.
Pick the right ad platforms: Opt for which platforms you wish to advertise on, such as Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, Meta Ads (for Facebook and Instagram), and so on.
Monitor and optimize your campaign: Keep an eye on the performance of your ads and make any necessary adjustments to improve your campaign and reach your end goals.
Test a variety of different ad formats: Place text, image, and video ads; and develop different targeting options to see what resonates the best with your targeted audience.
Create and stick to a budget: Determine how much you will be allotted to your campaign and automatically budget this amount.
The Top PPC Marketing Platforms
Several popular platforms provide PPC marketing options.
Microsoft Bing, Google Ads, and Facebook are just some of them.
The audience and orientation of ads may vary depending on the ad platform that is used. Various types of ad platforms can show various types of results, such as search, display, remarketing, and video (on YouTube or Facebook on Instagram Reels).
Facebook Ads
Businesses and organizations can use Facebook ads to quickly promote their products or services on Facebook. Ads appear in the news feed and right-hand column of Facebook on the desktop version and the Stories section, if the user is on their phone, is receiving the ad.
Different types of ads you can run on Facebook include:
- Facebook images and video ads: These ads include a single image or video with a quick headline and a call-to-action button.
- Facebook carousel ads: Businesses may feature multiple images or videos in the same carousel ad, which can help target audiences gain insight into the products and services being advertised.
- Facebook slideshow ads: These ads allow businesses to create a video experience using multiple still images.
- Facebook instant experiences ads: These ads let companies leverage Facebook’s immersive, full-screen instant experiences.
- Facebook collection ads: Businesses can put multiple products in a single collection ad, directing users to a full-page view.
If you need help setting up and managing your Facebook ads, schedule a free consultation with our team today.
Instagram Ads
Businesses and individuals can use Instagram Ads to promote their goods and services on Instagram. These ads take the form of sponsored posts, seamlessly integrated into the users newsfeeds and look just like regular posts.
Different types of ads you can run on Instagram include:
- Instagram photo ads: These ads use one image to promote a product or service.
- Instagram video ads: These ads typically utilize a short video to advertise a product or service.
- Instagram carousel ads: These ads let businesses include multiple images or videos in a single ad, permitting users to swipe through them.
- Instagram story ads: These are Instagram ads that appear in the Stories section for 24 hours.
- IGTV ads: These ads appear before a video begins playing on an IGTV channel.
If you need help setting up and managing your Instagram ads, schedule a free consultation with our team today.
Google Ads
Google leads the way among other search engines. Its popularity is unsurpassed. That’s why one would need to spend more when looking to advertise on Google typically.
Companies make bids to have their advertisements featured, their offered services advertised, or their products or services listed. It is also possible to feature ads on mobile apps, videos, and non-search websites (search partners) on Google.
The largest PPC (pay-per-click) platform is Google Ads. Google processes ~99,000 search inquiries per second; there’s a high likelihood that your ad will be seen by your intended target audience, resulting in a customer profit. Google Ads is suitable for large businesses and businesses of all kinds.
If you need help setting up and managing your Google ads, schedule a free consultation with our team today.
YouTube Ads
YouTube ads are a form of paid online advertising which allow businesses and individuals to promote their products and/or services on YouTube. Such ads can take various forms, including:
- YouTube skippable video ads: These ads can be skipped after a specified amount of time, such as 5 seconds. They can be up to 60 seconds long.
- YouTube non-skippable video ads: These ads inserted into the ad breaks of some videos must be watched in full prior to the main video being viewed. They can take as long as 15 seconds.
- YouTube bumper ads: Short, non-skippable ads with less than six seconds are bumper ads.
- YouTube sponsored cards: Small cards that appear on the user’s screen in video clips contain additional information about the product being advertised.
- YouTube overlay ads: These are partially transparent ads that appear on the bottom of the user’s screen.
Advertisers are able to target audiences according to their demographics, interests, and behaviors. YouTube ads can be purchased on a cost-per-view (CPV) or cost-per-click (CPC) basis, and the advertiser is charged each time the ad is clicked or viewed.
If you need help setting up and managing your YouTube ads, schedule a free consultation with our team today.
Microsoft Ads
Formerly known as Bing Ads, Microsoft Ads is an online advertising platform that enables individuals and organizations to create and run online ads on the Microsoft Bing search engine and the Microsoft Advertising Network, which is a collection of websites and applications.
The platform allows advertisers to create different types of ads, such as search ads, product ads, shopping ads, display ads, and video ads. They are targeted to specific audiences based on various groups, which include demographics, interests, and behaviors. These ads can be purchased on a pay-per-click or pay-per-impression basis.
If you need help setting up and managing your Microsoft ads, schedule a free consultation with our team today.
TikTok Ads
Companies and individuals are able to promote their products or services through TikTok ads. These ads are designed to be engaging and interactive, and they often involve music or incorporate popular TikTok trends and challenges.
Different types of ads you can run on TikTok include:
- TikTok in-feed ads: These are full-screen advertisements featured in the main feed of the application and can either be image-based or video-based.
- TikTok brand takeover ads: Full-screen ads that appear when the user opens the application.
- TikTok hashtag challenge ads: In these ads, brands encourage users to participate in a branded hashtag challenge and submit videos using the branded hashtag.
- TikTok branded effects: These are special effects created by brands for the purpose to allow creators on the app the ability to use their branded special effects independently on their videos.
Advertisers can target specific audiences based on factors such as demographics, interests, and behaviors. TikTok ads can be purchased on a cost-per-thousand-impressions (CPM) or cost-per-click (CPC) basis and the advertiser is charged once per advertisement that has been viewed or clicked on.
If you need help setting up and managing your TikTok ads, schedule a free consultation with our team today.
Twitter Ads
Twitter ads allow individuals and businesses to promote their products or services on the Twitter platform. These ads, which are intended to reach a large audience, are often used to generate leads, build brand awareness, and increase website traffic.
Different types of ads you can run on Twitter include:
- Twitter promoted tweets ads: These are tweets that are marked as promoted and appear at the top of users’ timelines or search results pages. They can be in the form of text, images, or videos.
- Twitter promoted accounts ads: These are promoted Twitter accounts that advertise a Twitter account and can be placed in the who to follow section of the platform.
- Twitter promoted trends ads: These ads promote the specified hashtag and appear at the top of the popular hashtags list.
- Twitter website cards ads: These include an image, a headline, and a short description of the website or landing page being promoted.
- Twitter app install cards ads: Ad cards that promote mobile apps feature an image, description, and title.
Twitter advertisers can target specific groups of users based on factors such as demographics, interests, and actions. Advertising on the Twitter platform can be purchased on either a cost-per-click (CPC) or a cost-per-engagement (CPE) basis. Whenever the ad is clicked on or engaged with by the user (such as, by retweeting or replying to it), the advertiser is charged.
If you need help setting up and managing your Twitter ads, schedule a free consultation with our team today.
LinkedIn Ads
LinkedIn ads let individuals and businesses promote their goods and services on the LinkedIn platform. These ads are often used to generate leads, generate brand awareness, and promote job openings.
Different types of ads you can run on LinkedIn include:
- LinkedIn sponsored content ads: These ads show up in users’ news feeds and look like regular posts. They can be text, images, or video posts.
- LinkedIn sponsored inmail ads: These messages are promoted directly to users’ inboxes.
- LinkedIn sponsored jobs ads: These ads point to job openings and promote them in the Jobs section of the platform.
- LinkedIn display ads: These are banner ads, usually located on the right-hand side of the platform, that can be targeted to specific audiences.
- LinkedIn dynamic ads: These are ads that develop personalized content automatically for each user depending on their past browsing.
LinkedIn is beneficial for advertising because companies can purchase ads that target specific audiences by demographics, job title, company size, industry, skillset, and behaviors. Campaigns are set up on a cost-per-click (CPC) or cost-per-thousand-impressions (CPM) basis, and the advertiser is charged every time the ad is viewed or clicked.
If you need help setting up and managing your LinkedIn ads, schedule a free consultation with our team today.
Unlocking The Potential Of PPC Marketing For Your Business Growth
In conclusion, pay-per-click or PPC marketing can be a powerful tool for businesses to reach their target audience, generate leads, increase sales, and ultimately grow their brand. By understanding the key benefits and strategies involved in PPC advertising, businesses can create effective campaigns that drive results. While PPC may seem intimidating at first, with the right approach and a willingness to experiment and adapt, it can be a valuable asset to any marketing strategy. By demystifying PPC and harnessing its power and potential, businesses can take their marketing efforts to new heights.
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