Have you ever been interrupted by an ad while scrolling the internet? The answer is a resounding yes unless you’ve never been online before! Online ads and PPC marketing are a staple feature of the internet. And they’re there for a good reason.
Digital advertising is extremely lucrative. That makes having online ads of your own a great investment for your marketing. And in this article, you’ll learn why you need PPC marketing and how it works on Google Ads.
What Is PPC Marketing?
PPC(Pay-Per-Click) marketing is a type of online advertising where advertisers pay a fee every time an internet user clicks their ad. These are the ads that interrupt your social media scrolling.
You also see them displayed on the banners of different websites.
Most internet users dislike these ads because they’re interruptive, but they’re a marketer’s best friend.
You can use PPC ads to increase your website traffic and conversions.
The best thing is that learning PPC ads isn’t hard. You only need to learn how to run them on a single platform, like Google Ads. After that, you’ll have no trouble running PPC ads on other platforms, like Facebook and Instagram.
What Are the Benefits of PPC Marketing?
PPC ads are a great marketing channel for these three reasons.
1. You Can Instantly Drive Traffic to Your Website
If you’ve learned enough about PPC marketing, driving traffic to your website won’t take long. PPC ads give quick results, unlike other types of marketing, like SEO and email marketing.
So choosing PPC quickly gives you a large volume of website traffic.
2. Targeting Potential Customers Is Easy
Naturally, you only want members of your target audience to click on your ads. If you provide car repair and maintenance services, you don’t want people who don’t own cars to click your ads, right?
Ideally, you only want car owners with car troubles to click your ads.
PPC lets you do just that. PPC marketing offers extremely precise targeting options. So you can hyper-focus on who sees your ads and where.
3. You Can Easily Track PPC Marketing Progress
All PPC platforms, including Google Ads, provide a tracking pixel. A tracking pixel is a code connected to your ad that tracks user behavior with your ad.
You’ll get details like how likely users are to click your ads, what they do after visiting your website, and how likely they are to convert, etc.
The wealth of data that you’ll receive will make it easier to learn conversion costs and track progress.
4. You Can Easily Scale Your PPC Marketing Campaigns
All you have to do to receive more clicks from your PPC campaign is to invest more in your campaign. Increasing the money invested in your PPC campaign is all it takes to receive more clicks.
Compare this with SEO content marketing and other marketing channels. You have to invest money, time, and resources to receive results from SEO and other marketing channels.
Of course, that doesn’t mean you should blindly pump money into PPC. You should have a clear PPC strategy in place before making the investment. Also, beware of PPC Marketing Fraud.
But if your strategy succeeds, you only need to increase your PPC budget to scale higher.
The Role of PPC Marketing in Your Overall Marketing Strategy
PPC marketing’s greatest benefit is increasing your visibility at the right customer journey stages. Specifically, PPC ads are useful at the consideration stage when a buyer is about to make a buying decision.
At this stage, a high-quality PPC ad can convince a consumer to buy from you provided:
- The potential customer knows about your brand.
- You have a competitive product that satisfies their needs.
- Your website provides a good user experience.
- The closer you are to these criteria, the more likely you are to make a sale.
PPC Marketing and the Buying Process
Picture this for a moment.
You’re looking for a new dishwasher because your old one broke and you can’t repair it. You’re at the awareness stage of the buyer journey.
You’ve learned you have a problem but don’t know the solution.
So you search for dishwashers online to learn about which one you should buy. You’ll read product reviews and watch online review videos to inform your decision. This is the consideration stage.
You know what result you want but haven’t decided on a solution yet.
As you learn more, you’ll narrow down your choices. Maybe you want a dishwasher that’s made in America or comes with a long-term warranty, etc.
So you’ll filter out dishwashers made in other countries that have short-term warranties.
You’re getting closer and closer to a buying decision. It’s at this stage you’re hit with a PPC ad titled ‘Ramish’s Made in America dishwasher that comes with a long warranty.’ You buy.
You’ll buy it because the ad showed you what you wanted when you wanted it
Both steps are crucial.
Imagine if you were bombarded with a ‘Ramish’s Made in America dishwasher that comes with a long warranty’ and when you were just researching different dishwashers. You wouldn’t have bought it then.
You bought Ramish’s dishwasher only after you received an ad when you were ready to buy.
Wondering how the ad would show up in the first place? That’s where Google Ads comes in.
What Is Google Ads?
Google Ads (formerly Google AdWords) is the world’s largest advertising platform. It’s so dominant that most people think of Google Ads when they think about PPC marketing.
Campaign Types in Google Ads
Google ads has these six campaign types:
- Search
- Display
- Shopping
- Video
- Smart
- Discovery
Each campaign type has a different:
- Ad format
- Ad placement
- Targeting options.
1. Search Campaigns
Search campaign ads are the most common. A user sees a search campaign ad when they enter a search term that triggers the ad.
For example, searching ‘made in America dishwashers with long term warranty’ would trigger the Ramish dishwashers’ ad.
The idea is to show consumers a relevant ad as soon as they search for something related online.
2. Display Campaigns
Display campaign ads appear as a banner throughout the Google Display Network (GDN). Providing space for these ads is a great way to monetize traffic.
3. Shopping Campaigns
Shopping campaign ads/ Product Listing Ads let you promote your products directly on the Search Engine Results Page (SERPS) with images.
These are great for marketing popular products.
4. Video Campaigns
Have you ever been interrupted by ads while watching Youtube videos? Those are called video campaign ads. And while they’re not liked by most casual viewers, including myself, they’re still effective.
When executed correctly, video campaign ads can provide an excellent return on investment(ROI).
5. Smart Campaigns
Smart campaigns aren’t a separate ad format. Instead, they’re a different type of campaign management. Launching a smart campaign means Google’s algorithm does most of the work for you.
You’ll input data into Google. Their algorithm will then figure out the details, like who to target.
6. Discovery Campaigns
Discovery Campaigns are the latest campaign type in Google Ads. This type of ad pops up in Google Discover, an AI-generated mobile feed. Google Discover leverages AI to decide what content to show you.
For example, if you frequently search for trips to Machu Picchu, It’ll show you ads about cheap flights to Peru.
Maximizing ROI: PPC Marketing and Google Ads
Thankfully, the basics of PPC in Google Ads are extremely easy to understand. I’ll explain by focusing on search ads as an example.
1. The Auction System
You enter an auction every time your ad matches the criteria to appear in front of a target audience member.
Going back to our previous example, when you searched for American-made Dishwashers with long warranties, it triggered the criteria for my search ads.
But it also did that for my competitors.
So now, me and two competing dishwasher manufacturers all want your attention. But there’s only one ad slot. How do we decide which manufacturer gets your attention?
Google decides who wins the auction using this criteria:
- The bid: The maximum each bidder is willing to pay.
- Ad quality: Google assigns Quality Scores (QS) to ads according to their relevance, click-through rate, and landing page experience.
Google designed this system to award the best-quality ad and website the win, not whichever pays the most. That’s not to say your bid isn’t important. It is.
But crucially, it’s not the deciding factor.
Ideally, you want to build a high-quality website and employ high-quality ad and landing page copy to increase your chances of winning.
2. Campaign – Ad Group – Ad Hierarchy
Google Ads doesn’t let you create an ad right away. Each ad needs to be part of an ad group, which must be part of an ad campaign. This system lets advertisers efficiently manage their entire ad account.
These are the three metrics you’ll set up in Google Ads
- Campaign level: This consists of your campaign’s details like your objectives, campaign type, target audience, budget, etc.
- Ad group level: This includes your keywords and other targeting options.
- Ad level: The ad headlines, descriptions, URLs, and extensions you’ll use for the ad.
Ideally, build a solid campaign structure plan and commit to it.
3. Keyword Match Types for Search Ads
With search ads, you can employ different match types to decide what query will trigger your ads. These are the 4 main match types.
- Broad match: A match is anything deemed relevant, no matter any spelling variations or different word orders.
- Broad match modifier (BMM): A match is anything deemed relevant that contains keywords.
- Phrase match: A match is when a consumer searches for an exact word or phrase with any text before or after it.
- Exact match: A match must be identical to the keyword or a close permutation, like singular vs. plural.
Choosing the right match type is as important as choosing the right keywords. Combining the right keywords and match types is the only way to present the right ad to the right audience.
Each match type has its own advantages and disadvantages, too.
For example, Broach matches only work for massive businesses like Amazon that bid on millions of queries.
Exact matches provide excellent control over what you bid, but they have limited exposure.
You’ll have to choose the match type for you according to your needs and your audience’s behavior.
4. Excluding Specific Keywords and Placements
One of the best ways to optimize your PPC campaign is to improve the keywords and websites you bid on. Once your campaigns start, regularly check which sites and keywords the auction system bids on.
It’s not uncommon to find the auction system bidding on irrelevant or undesirable keywords.
You want to manually exclude these since they’re a waste of your resources.
The same principle applies to your display campaigns. You want to eliminate all undesirable placements. These are the ones where your ads are placed on sites where your target audience isn’t present.
Removing these placements will also save you money you can invest elsewhere.
PPC marketing is an excellent addition to your marketing campaign. It’s an easy-to-use and effective type of advertising. When done right it can give you a ROI of up to 200%.
Use the Power of PPC Marketing to Maximize Results
PPC marketing is an excellent addition to your marketing campaign. It’s an easy-to-use and effective type of advertising when done right. A good PPC campaign has a defined audience, relevant search terms, and an appropriate budget. Apply the lessons learned in this article about PPC marketing to maximize your campaign results.
Author: Ramish Kamal Syed | Editor: Syed Hamza Ali | SEO Editor: Muhammad Waqas Aslam