Understanding Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising

Pay Per Click or PPC advertising is one of the fastest growing segments of online marketing. Pay Per Click advertising is a keyword-based advertising technique where advertisers pay for placement or pay for the ranking their ads in search engine result pages (SERPs). PPC advertising is a highly cost-effective way to attract highly targeted website traffic. Paid search or PPC advertising is expected to become a $61 billion industry by 2016.

Why Invest in Pay Per Click Advertising?

PPC advertising is simple, easy and produces results quickly. One of the key factors in the popularity of PPC advertising is its simplicity. Anyone with some understanding of online marketing can create a PPC campaign and get it up and running in less than 15 minutes. Google AdWords and Bing Ads, both work in a similar way so there isn’t much of a learning curve from one platform to another. Although it is fairly simple to set up and run a campaign, getting the best out of it usually requires professional help. For example, in the early days of PPC advertising, highest bidder always received the top spot for a keyword but that’s not the case anymore. The current trend indicates that other factors such as quality scores, brand awareness, click thru rates or CTRs and quality of your landing page content play a crucial role in PPC ad auction process.

How to Create Effective PPC Campaigns

Finding the Right Keywords

A Good keyword dataset is the heart and soul of any PPC campaign. Your keyword selection will have a significant impact on your CPC, CTR and overall ROI. A poorly compile keyword list is not only going to cost you money, it will also trigger poor quality score flags that will make it almost impossible to continue to run your PPC campaign at a reasonable cost. A PPC professional agency can create a concise and useful keyword dataset that will generate targeted traffic to your website. PPC professionals usually manage your campaign on a monthly retainer basis and monitor your results, CTR, quality score and overall health of your PPC campaign.

Writing Good PPC Ads

A good PPC campaign requires not only good writing skills but a good understanding of the target market. PPC professionals can help write an ad that is a true reflection of your products and services. If your PPC ads deliver what they promise, your conversion rate will go up as your campaign will engage more visitors when they arrive on your landing page(s). In contrast, if your PPC ads do not match the content on your landing page(s), you’re likely to suffer from a poor quality score and you will end up with a campaign that is very expensive to run.

Good Targeting and Timing

A good targeting scheme is essential for any PPC campaign. For example, if you offer local plumbing services in New York area, your ads are not going to generate any sales if they are running in LA market. You need to understand who your customers are and where to find them. A PPC Management Agency can set up a proper geographical area to target and maximize your ROI. The timing of your ads is also critical. For example, if you expect most of your customers to be online in the evening, there is no need to run your campaign in the morning or all day long. PPC professionals also have industry-specific knowledge and experience from their past work and can offer recommendations.

Do I Need Professional Help with PPC Advertising?

While PPC can quickly generate sales and profits, it can also run through your advertising budget fast. Click fraud remains a big problem and according to Google’s own admission, the company reported that about 15% to 20% of its advertising clicks were fraudulent. Cost Per Click or CPC continue to get more expensive so it is crucial that you know what you’re doing before running a PPC campaign that can cost you thousands of dollars in a very short time. In summary, it makes sense to hire a PPC professional on a monthly basis if you’re going to be spending at least US$1,000 or more each month. For smaller budgets, you can hire a professional PPC agency to create and set up your campaigns. Good PPC professionals are not cheap and can easily cost as much as 20% of your monthly budget. However, this money is well worth spending because professional PPC help can save you thousands of dollars in long-run while delivering solid measurable results. At Amplimark, we invite you to get to know our agency first, through free consultation or meeting, to ensure that you get your money’s worth. With Google AdWords certified professionals on staff, we can help you get highly targeted traffic via paid search. Call us today at (515) 225-6438 or contact us online to schedule your free in-depth consultation.