PPC – Can you afford to ignore it?

Before you start any PPC (pay per click) campaigns, it’s vital that you understand why PPC exists and how Google has become the brand that it is today.

Starting right at the beginning – Google’s very existence is that it acts as a place of resource. By that I mean, people “google” pretty much everything – places to visit, things to buy etc. with the expectation that Google will return a bunch of results exactly related to what they need.

So, the better the answers Google returns to search engine users, the better the users experience – which will ultimately result in users repeatedly turning to Google for everyday needs. To give you even more background, the name Google is actually born from the word “Googol”, which by definition means “number one followed by 100 zeros” – an infinite number of answers to your queries.

So with that ethos in mind, it’s critical that you always remember to ask yourself at every stage of your PPC campaign – “is this relevant and useful to the user?”

The next question you should be asking yourself is whether you can afford to ignore PPC.

To anyone with an online presence of some sort, the answer to this is more than likely going to be “No – I can’t afford to ignore it.” There are lots of reasons for this, but let me break it down into just three:

It’s Relevant – you serve bespoke yet compelling ads to your exact audience, in your exact target locations at the exact times of day that matter to you – remove any wastage marketing, reducing your costs.

It’s Immediate – unlike other channels that can take months to see any impact, PPC ads can serve within minutes of creation, driving instant traffic and return on investment. Equally, if things aren’t working out, you can immediately turn ads or keywords off to prevent any further wastage of spend.

It’s Measurable – track every single penny you spend against every single pound you make / enquiry you receive etc. Very few channels can deliver such an accurate ROI, making PPC an extremely attractive channel for avid number crunchers.

So, now I have your attention and you’re interested in PPC but don’t really know where to begin or you need some ideas to kick-start your campaigns?

Take a read of my top tips below;

1. If you don’t have one already – get yourself a Google AdWords account.

Google AdWords equates to almost 80% of the UK PPC market, so if there is any opportunity for you online, chances are it’s going to be here. It also has some really cool tools in it as well for you to explore such as Insights reports and Keyword Planner. If you’ve already got a Google AdWords account, why not try Bing Ads? We’ve seen some incredible results from Bing Ads campaigns, especially now that Bing recently celebrated hitting 20% of UK PPC market.

2. Focus on the locations you target.

This is especially important if you are a smaller business looking at taking your first steps into PPC. Very often, businesses try and “bite off more than they can chew” e.g. targeting the whole of the UK means that their ads are competing against national businesses, when actually focusing on particular areas can help you to identify pockets of opportunity. Once you’ve gained momentum and are seeing a positive return on investment, then look at growing your location targeting.

3. Create a brand campaign.

When we talk about a brand campaign, we are talking about searches online for your business name. In Q1 2017 alone, competing advertisers poached 49 million brand visits. If you consider that people searching for your business name are effectively loyal or returning customers, having them poached when they are most likely to convert is not ideal – especially to a rival competitor.

It’s a relatively low cost solution and often returns huge return on investment. My advice to you is – test it to begin with and measure the impact. In some cases, PPC brand campaigns may cannibalize other digital channel performance, such as organic. However, more often than not, the incremental value gained from a brand campaign is more than the investment needed.

4. Try to maintain synergy between PPC and other channels.

Take iThinkMedia for example – we often provide a spread of SEO, PPC, Content and PR solutions to our clients. This means that it’s extremely important that we adapt, adjust and tweak the learnings that we find along the way from each channel collectively and not in silo, to ensure that our clients end results are the best they can be. There are lots of synergy examples to trial, but here are a few to trigger some ideas.

• Test Call To Actions in PPC ads to help identify optimum Title and Meta tag messages.

• Use PPC to fill any gaps you may have in your organic rankings.

• Optimise your Google My Business profile content so that address, phone number and review extensions can be added to your PPC ads to boost results page “real estate”.

5. Use PPC to amplify your content

You’ve created beautiful content that you are super proud of but you’re not getting any traction online because you’ve only got a small number of followers or your brand is small? Why not utilise the power of PPC and broadcast your content to a new, wider audience through content amplification? Use tactical PPC targeting methods to attract commuters on their mobile phones, boost posts on facebook or even use your content to grow your social media following.

If you have any questions or would like further information regarding PPC and how it can benefit your business do get in touch.

We look forward to hosting our next event!