The world of marketing is always changing and evolving, which means that the strategies used to work for marketing your business may not be as effective anymore. As a result, it’s important to always be on the lookout for new and innovative ways to market your business.
One of the most effective marketing strategies today is pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. PPC is a type of online advertising that allows you to pay for each click on your ad, rather than paying for the ad itself.
PPC can be an extremely effective way to market your business, but it’s important to understand how it works before you jump in. This guide will give you everything you need to know about PPC so that you can make the most of this marketing strategy.
But before we dive into PPC strategy, do you know the fact that only 45% of businesses use PPC? For the rest of them, it’s still a complex topic to cover. To grow and thrive in this online marketing world, your business needs to be visible in front of your target audience.
The goal of any PPC campaign is to generate leads, sales, or both. However, before you can achieve this goal, you need to create ads that are relevant to your target audience and that will grab their attention.
In this guide, we will explore in detail everything that you need to know about PPC, from its definition and history to how it works and why you should use it.
What is PPC Advertising?
PPC stands for pay-per-click. It is a type of online advertising in which businesses pay a fee each time one of their ads is clicked. The amount that they pay is determined by how much they are willing to bid for the keyword that their ad appears for.
Pay Per Click allows you to specifically target your audience with ads that are relevant to them, which increases the chances that they will click on your ad.
PPC is a very effective way to drive traffic to your website and generate leads or sales. In fact, studies have shown that PPC can be up to five times more effective than other traditional marketing methods, such as print ads or television commercials.
How Does PPC Advertising Work?
PPC is an auction-based system, which means that businesses compete against each other to have their ad appear for a certain keyword. The business that is willing to pay the most for the keyword will have its ad appear first.
When a user searches for a keyword that is being auctioned, the ads will appear in a specific order on the search engine results page (SERP). The ad that appears first is known as the first-place ad, and the ad that appears last is known as the last-place ad.
The position of an ad on the SERP will have a direct impact on its click-through rate (CTR), which is the percentage of people who click on an ad. The higher up an ad is on the SERP, the more likely people are to click on it.
PPC terms and definitions
There are various terms and definitions that you need to know in order to understand how PPC marketing works.
- CPC (cost-per-click): This is the amount that you pay each time someone clicks on your ad.
- CPM (cost-per-mille): This is the amount that you pay each time your ad is shown 1000 times.
- CTR (click-through rate): This is the percentage of people who click on your ad after seeing it.
- PPC platform: This is the software that you use to manage your PPC campaigns, such as Google Ads or Bing Ads.
- Keyword: This is a word or phrase that people search for on a search engine, which triggers your ad to appear.
- Bid: This is the amount that you are willing to pay for a keyword.
- Ad group: This is a collection of keywords and ads that are related to each other.
- Ad rotation: This is the process of showing different ads to different people in order to test which ones are the most effective.
- Ad extensions: These are additional pieces of information that you can add to your ads, such as your phone number or website address.
- Quality score: This is a number that Google assigns to your ad, which is based on its relevance and CTR.
Best PPC Advertising Platforms
Many new marketers think PPC is only available on Google. However, there are actually many PPC platforms that you can use to advertise your business.
You should know about the top 3 pay per click advertising platforms:
- Google Ads.
- Bing Ads.
- Facebook Ads.
