Pros & Cons of Pay Per Click Advertising
How to get tons of leads and traffic from PPC Advertising
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- What is PPC?
- Types of PPC Advertising
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- Search ads
- Display ads
- Remarketing ads
- Social Media ads
- Shopping ads
- Price Comparison ads
- Affiliate Marketing ads
- Google local services ads
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- Pros & Cons of PPC
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- Pros of PPC
- Cons of PPC
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- Takeaway
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What is PPC?
Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising it is type of online advertising when you pay every time a person browsing internet clicks on your ad. PPC is part of inbound marketing strategy, it allows you to target potential customers who are actively searching the web for the products or services similar to what your company is offering. It is opposite to traditional (outbound) marketing, when ads are featured on TV, Radio or in Newspapers and are targeting everyone on the other side of the media placement and majority of people reached are not directly interested in the products or services advertised. Certainly, that is a main reason why PPC ads are so cost effective.
Idea is simple, you only pay when potential consumers actually click on your ad (pay for clicks), and pay nothing when ad simply appears on their screen (impressions are free). Every time your ad appears in front of your customers’ eyes is called “ impression ” it can appear 1 or 1,000 times, but you do not pay anything unless they click on it. When search engine users are typing their search queries, your ads appear above the organic results on search engine results pages (SERP). And searcher decides whether to go with organic results or to click one of the ads.
Main advantages of PPC advertising are:
- relatively quick set up, from few hours to few days, depending on industry and scale
- offers flexible targeting options, location, demographics, age, household income etc. allowing you to target only your selected audience
- provides analytics to be able to evaluate performance and improve your ads accordingly.
While PPC campaigns are easy set up, they require ongoing management and analytics to get most results out of them. First let them run and collect date, secondly would need to analyze and optimize. Once you have data available, fine tune it with specific keywords. In addition, eliminate random clicks by utilizing strategic negative keywords and stop wasting your PPC budget.
Therefore in this article we will go over types of Pay Per Click ads, and what Pros and Cons they have. Will also explain how to get most traffic, leads, and conversions by continuously optimizing your ad campaigns and targeting customers that bring you sales.
Types of PPC advertising
Search ads. Search Ad marketing is one of the most common types of pay-per-click advertising. Search engines such as Google and Bing show your ads on top and bottom of their result pages to users who search for certain keywords. Those words or phrases they enter in search engine window are called search queries , and if search queries match keywords integrated in your PPC ad, it will trigger them to show up on result page. Firstly, you would need to create an ad with appealing, unique and concise description, incorporate relevant keywords and select the landing page on your site. Secondly, monitor and optimize it. Most importantly, you and only you decide how much you want to spend per day, week or month. In addition you also can put max CPC (cost-per-click) amount.
Display ads. Display ads is another type of PPC ads that allows you reach people who might be interested in your business. Display ads often called banner ads as they appear on search engine partner websites in a form of banners. Display ads can include image with call to action phrase or just display text ads that appear on different websites, selected to target particular audiences. Most effective display ads would include a combination of text and images and will be linked to a specific landing page on your website. However, display ads have a lower click-through rate than search ads. But can be useful for building brand awareness.
Social Media ads. Social media networks, such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn have high numbers of users who can be converted into your loyal customers. Social media ads are one of the most popular PPC ads, they can help increase website traffic and encourage conversions. Similarly, social ads are also important in developing awareness of your product or services. In addition, these ads can be set up to target specific groups, interests, demographics, etc.
Remarketing ads. Many potential customers will visit your site and check out your products or services but won’t make a purchase. They might need more time to compare prices and shop around, or look into alternative products and compare features. When this happens, instead of losing the lead, you are able to utilize remarketing ads to bring their attention back to your site and “help” them choose your product.
Remarketing ads are using cookies on a user’s browser to show them specific ads based on the pages of your site they visited and what products they viewed. For instance, if they looked at Nike snickers you had on sale, same Nikes will appear as a display ad on their screen while visiting one of thousands of affiliate websites. You can even increase your bids and impressions for those visitors who actually put those Nikes into their cart, but never cashed out.
Remarketing ads can be used as a part of
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- search advertising campaigns
- display advertising campaigns
- social media advertising campaigns
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Google shopping ads. Is another type of PPC advertising your business can utilize to get leads and increase sales. These ads appear in a carousel format above the main Google search results. It allows users to see the products and prices before they click on someone’s website. An effective way to promote your products on SERPs, but much more expensive than search ads.
Price comparison website ads . Price comparison websites gather and display prices and special offers from various providers. Most popular comparison websites are travel sites, for example: Kayak, Expedia, Priceline, that compare prices on hotels nights or airline tickets. This allows visitors to compare prices from multiple airlines and hotels all on one page, therefore client gets best deal instantly. After that, client makes a purchase directly on the price comparison website.
Affiliate Marketing ads. Affiliate marketing creates PPC ads for your products and services and places them on popular high trafficked sites, such as price comparison websites, search engines, special content sites etc. It is using slightly different payment model where you would pay percentage for every sale coming from clicking on those ads. You could manage affiliate marketing campaigns by yourself, but for best results it is recommended to use third party provider and affiliate networks, as those campaigns require ongoing management and optimization.
Google Local Service ads. It is one one of the most exclusive and powerful types of paid advertising, as nowadays customers are looking to find services locally. This advertising option is only open to following markets:
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If your business is under one of those categories, you just need to set up Google Local Services Ads account. Next insert your business info, download Local Services app and you can manage it from your phone. Your ads will appear on top of Google’s search results and customers would be able to call/text directly to your cell phone.
Advantages & Disadvantages of PPC advertising
PROS of Pay Per Click Ads:
- Targeted – you can choose your audience according to demographics such as age, location, language, device, income, etc. Certainly great way to target your prefered audience.
- Measurable – you can easily set up analytics and tracking for your site and PPC ad campaigns, which will reflect your exact ROI (return on investment) on each ad campaign, each click and whatever else you would like to track.
- Cost effective – since you only pay for PPC ads when customers are actually clicking and going to your website, it makes it most effective type of advertisement. In addition, you can select minimum and maximum daily spend for your ads to help you stay within your budget.
- Customizable – highly customizable, you can track your ad campaigns and see what works and brings most traffic to your site. After that, adjust bids, add keywords change targeting audiences age & location etc.
- Works Fast – when using PPC ads you can see results instantly. You don’t need to wait weeks and month to see your company appear on search engine result pages, since they are paid ads and not organic results, they will appear on the first page of search results immediately. Therefore, you need to be ready to take customers same day.
- PPC ads training available – there is plenty of online resources and material available on PPC ads. Google has their own free courses on helping you set up and manage your Google ad campaigns and YouTube has tons of free educational videos available as well.
CONS of Pay Per Click Ads:
- Clicks don’t always generate sales – there is no guarantee that customers who click on your ad will make a purchase on your website. Therefore, it is crucial to have attractive landing pages as a compliment to effective PPC ads.
- Skill is required – it is pretty easy to set up basic PPC ad campaign, but to set up an effective one, you will need to practice. Most importantly, remember about importance of keyword research as it requires time and effort. In addition, you can always consider hiring professionals. Many Digital Marketing Agencies specialize on PPC ads and can help you out.
- Wasted money – if you don’t monitor and track your PPC ad campaigns you can be losing money on every click from indifferent customers and those clicks & costs add up quickly. Make sure to track and optimize your ads weekly to get best return on every dollar spent.
- Time consuming – your PPC ads require constant attention, monitoring and optimization, if you are not ready to commit your time, consider hiring third party agency.
- Dirty Competition– in some highly competitive categories (plumbers in Manhattan NY) cost per click can reach over $50 per click, and dirty competitors can be clicking your ads. Certainly, low move but an effective one and would be wasting your marketing budget.
Takeaway
In conclusion, would like to highlight that most popular and effective PPC ads are Google search engine ads. Since Google dominates search engine market (almost 93% of searches worldwide), it makes sense to use Google Ads to promote your business. It does not matter how big or small your company is, but if you are looking to get more traffic, leads and sales – Google ads if the most effective and least expensive way to get it done. Further, read our Blog – Google is a King of PPC ads to get better idea on how to do it. After that, create your Google My Business profile, step-bystep guide here , it will literally put your business on Google maps and start appearing in local search results.
Vadym P 12/28/20