Learn the Basics of Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Marketing
If you’ve heard a little bit about PPC marketing and are interested in learning more, or if you already know that you want to utilize Pay-Per-click (PPC) to sell your company but are unsure of where to begin! Then you have come to the right place .This session is the first in a series of guided courses called PPC University, which will teach you all you need to know about PPC in order to make it work for you.
Contents Table:
- What is Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Marketing?
- How does PPC advertising work?
- What is Google Ads?
- How PPC works in Google Ads
- How to do PPC with Google Ads
- PPC keyword research
- PPC campaign management
- How to get started with PPC
What is Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Marketing?
Pay-per-click, or PPC, is a digital advertising model in which an advertiser is charged a fee each time one of their adverts is clicked. In essence, you are purchasing targeted traffic to your website (or landing page, or application). The cost is little when Pay-Per-click (PPC) is operating well because the click is worth more than you paid for it. In the event that a $3 click generates a $300 sale, for instance, you have profited handsomely.
PPC advertisements can consist of text, photos, videos, or a mix of these and come in a variety of sizes and forms. They may show up on webpages, social media networks, search engines, and other places.
One of the most often used PPC models is search engine advertising, sometimes referred to as sponsored search or search engine marketing. When a user searches for a product or service connected to their business, it enables advertisers to bid for ad placement in the sponsored links of the search engine. For instance, if we place a bid on the term “google ads audit,” our free Google Ads Performance Grader advertisement might show up in the search engine results for that as well as a related query:
In a moment, more on search ads.
How does PPC advertising work?
Although PPC advertising varies in appearance depending on the platform, the overall procedure is as follows:
- Choose your campaign type based on your objective.
- Refine your settings and targeting (audiences, devices, locations, schedule, etc.).
- Provide your budget and bidding strategy.
- Input your destination URL (landing page).
- Build your ad.
Here’s an illustration of the budget phase using Google Ads.
The location, timing, and cost of a click on your advertisement are all decided algorithmically once it goes live. These factors include your budget, bid, campaign parameters, and the relevancy and quality of your advertisement.
All PPC advertising platforms reward marketers who develop credible, relevant pay-per-click campaigns with cheaper costs and better ad positioning since they want to maintain happy users.
Therefore, you must acquire the necessary skills if you want to optimize your PPC earnings.
Free guide PPC 101: The PPC Beginner’s Guide
What is Google Ads?
The most widely used PPC advertising network worldwide is Google Ads. Businesses can generate ads that show up on Google’s search engine and other Google properties by using the Google Ads platform.
Google selects a selection of winning ads to display on the search engine results page each time a query is made by looking through the pool of available ads.
A number of criteria are taken into consideration when selecting the “winners,” such as the magnitude of their keyword bids and the effectiveness and relevancy of their ad campaigns and keywords. In the part that follows, we’ll go over that.
How PPC works in Google Ads?
Advertisers select a group of keywords to target with their ad and bid on each one when they construct it. You are essentially telling Google that you want your ad to show up for searches that match or are linked to pet adoption if you bid on the keyword “pet adoption” (more on keyword match types here).
Which adverts show up for a given search is determined by Google using a series of formulae and an auction-style procedure. Your ad’s Quality Score, which ranges from one to ten depending on the relevancy of the ad to the term, the quality of the landing page, and your predicted click-through rate, will be displayed before your ad is put into the auction.
Your Ad Rank will then be calculated by multiplying your Quality Score by your maximum bid, which is the most amount you are ready to pay to click on that particular ad. The advertisements that display are the ones with the highest Ad Rank ratings.
With the help of this approach, successful advertising can contact prospective clients at a price that works for them. In essence, it’s similar to an auction. The Google Ads auction’s operation is demonstrated in the infographic below.
See our post on How Google Ads Work for additional information.
How to do PPC with Google Ads?
As Google is the most prominent search engine, it receives a lot of traffic, which means that your ads will receive the most impressions and clicks when you conduct PPC marketing using Google Ads. You can choose the keywords and match types that will determine how frequently your PPC ads show. Your PPC advertising campaign’s effectiveness is dependent on a variety of things, but you may accomplish a lot by doing the following actions:
- Bid on relevant keywords. creating appropriate ad wording, focused keyword groupings, and lists of pertinent PPC keywords.
- Focus on landing page quality. Make compelling, pertinent content and a call to action that are optimized for different search searches on landing pages.
- Improve your Quality Score. Google rates the relevancy and quality of your PPC ads, landing pages, and keywords, and this is known as your Quality Score. More ad clicks are generated at a reduced cost for advertisers with higher Quality Scores.
- Capture attention. Appealing ad language is essential, as is visually striking ad creative if you’re running display or social media advertisements.
How to do effective PPC keyword research?
Although keyword research for pay-per-click advertising can take a lot of time, it is crucial. Keywords are the foundation of any PPC campaign, and the most prosperous Google AdWords marketers constantly expand and improve their PPC keyword list. You could be losing out on hundreds of thousands of extremely relevant, long-tail, affordable, and lucrative keywords that could be bringing traffic to your website if you simply conduct keyword research once, during the creation of your initial campaign.
A good PPC keyword list should include the following, though you can view our complete guide to keyword research here:
- Relevant:It goes without saying that you shouldn’t pay for clicks that won’t result in a conversion. Therefore, you should bid on terms that are strongly associated with the products or services you sell.
- Exhaustive:Long-tail keywords should also be included in your keyword research, in addition to the most well-liked and often searched terms in your industry. Though they are less frequent and more specialized, together they make up the majority of traffic generated by searches. Furthermore, they are less costly since they face less competition.
- Expansive:PPC is an iterative process. You want to establish an atmosphere where your keyword list is always expanding and changing, as well as always improving and developing your campaigns.
Make sure to use our Free Keyword Tool to locate high-volume, industry-specific keywords for your PPC ads.
Use our Free Keyword Tool to find keywords for your PPC campaigns.
Managing your PPC campaigns:
After creating your new campaigns, you’ll need to keep an eye on them frequently to ensure their efficacy. In actuality, one of the biggest indicators of account performance is consistent activity. To improve your campaigns, you should be regularly assessing the account’s performance and making the following changes:
- Continuously add PPC keywords:Add keywords related to your business to increase the reach of your PPC advertising.
- Add negative keywords:In order to decrease wasteful spending and increase marketing relevancy, include non-converting terms as negative keywords.
- Review costly PPC keywords:Examine costly, ineffective keywords and, if need, turn them off.
- Refine landing pages:To increase conversion rates, adjust the landing page’s content and call to action to correspond with specific search queries. Don’t direct every visitor to the same page.
- Split ad groups:Divide your ad groups into smaller, more focused groups to increase click-through rate (CTR) and Quality Score. This will also help you build more focused landing pages and ad copy. Here is more information on account structure.
Get started with PPC:
Are you prepared to begin using PPC? Find out here how to create a Google Ads account.
To assist you focus on areas that need work if you already have a Google Ads account, we recommend using our Free Google Ads Performance Grader. You’ll get a customized report rating your account performance in nine important categories—such as click-through rate, Quality Score, and account activity—in less than 60 seconds.
Also, have a look at our digital marketing options if you need assistance managing your PPC advertisements.
