A Complete PPC Marketing Guide for Newbie Marketers

Pay-per-click (PPC) or cost-per-click is a marketing model used primarily for driving traffic to a website, landing page, or a product page. In PPC marketing, the advertiser pays the publisher based on the number of clicks, hence the name, paid-per-click marketing. PPC marketing is commonly used in first-tier search engines and can be utilized to achieve the following objectives.

• Increase website traffic
• Increase brand awareness
• Generate leads
• Drive sales

In a nutshell, PPC is a targeted form of marketing where users are shown ads relevant to their search query. For example, if a user searches for office tables, an advertiser can display an ad relevant to the search. In the image below, the products displayed under the "Sponsored" section are PPC ads.

Main Platforms

Google (Google Ads): If you use Google (who doesn't?), you must have seen ads for almost every search query you enter. Launched in Oct. 2000, Google is the biggest PPC ad network, and the most popular choice for companies starting from small local businesses to large Fortune 100 companies.

Microsoft Advertising: Another popular PPC platform, Microsoft advertising, displays ads on Microsoft and Yahoo networks. Bing network is the most popular Microsoft advertising platform, followed by Yahoo search.

Account Structure

Campaigns and Ad Groups

To begin a campaign, an advertiser chooses keyword themes. For example, if an advertiser wants to create a campaign with the theme "Office Tables," this theme will have certain subcategories, known as ad groups. These ad groups might include:

• office tables round
• office table small
• office tables walmart
• office tables for home

Each ad group may contain various theme variations, as well. For, eg, the ad group "office table small" may include the following keywords:

• small office tables
• small office tables cheap
• office table small brown
• small office table for sale

An Ad group, by definition, is a group of ads that contain similar targets. A campaign usually consists of more than one group, all linked to a common theme.

Keywords

A keyword is a word or a group of words that are of considerable significance to the target audience and describes the overall theme of your content. For example, if the primary keyword of an ad is "sports shoes," it indicates that the content is based or around sports shoes. Keywords are categorized into seven different types.

1. Exact: The results will be displayed if the query is typed "exactly" similar to the keyword
2. Exact (Close Variant): The results will be displayed if the query is typed "exactly" identical to the keyword, but can include some other variants or misspellings
3. Phrase: For a group of keywords, the results will be displayed if the query is entered in the correct order
4. Phrase (Close Variant): For a group of keywords, the results will be displayed if the query is entered either in the right order or with some additional terms or misspellings.
5. Broad: The results will be displayed even if the query is entered in any order
6. Modified Broad: The results will be displayed if the query is typed in any order, but with a 'plus' sign
7. Broad (Session-Based): A form of broad search in which the results displayed will also include suggestions from the search queries of the current session.

This table shows the match type, keywords, and search query for the keyword "office tables." 

Negative Keywords

Along with adding positive keywords that represent your ad, you can add negative keywords to avoid unwanted traffic. For example, people searching for "cheap office tables" are not willing to pay for good quality tables. By adding the word "cheap" as a negative keyword, you can avoid unqualified traffic from coming across your ad.

Audiences

An audience is a group of people that have similar actions. For example, if a lot of people abandon shopping carts, they can be considered as an audience. Audience segmentation is a form of remarketing in which instead of targeting specific keywords, you can target particular audiences. Different groups of audiences can be targeted in different ways, as mentioned in the image below.

Ad Copy

Expanded Text Ads

Once the ad groups are created, and the keywords are selected, you can start writing the ad. An ad includes:

• targeted keyword theme
• value propositions
• a call to action

The ads should be crisp and precise, and should not contain excessive capitalization, misleading statements, or punctuation. As a general rule, you can follow the following ad structure:

• Headline 1: Not more than 30characters
• Headline 2: Not more than 30 characters
• Description Line: Not more than 80 characters
• Path 1: Not more than 15 characters
• Path 2: Not more than 15 characters

Here is an excellent example of an “office tables” text ad.

Product Listing Ads (PLAs)

Popularly used in e-commerce listings, PLAs are small, square units that contain the image, title, and price of the product. Google Product Feeds and Microsoft Product Ads are commonly used for product listings. Here is an example of PLAs for the search query "office tables."

Image Ads

You can run display network campaigns that employ image ads. Image ads are shown on various websites on the display network. You can create a responsive ad that can adjust its size automatically depending on where it is displayed.

Settings

Campaign Types

PPC campaigns are of four types:

• Search Network Campaign
• Display Network Campaign
• Search Network with Display Opt-In Campaign
• Product Listing Ads

Device Targeting

You can choose the devices you want your ads to be displayed. You can either choose all the devices or select among the following devices:

• Desktops/Laptops
• Tablets
• Tablets

Location Targeting

PPC ads can be as broad as targeting the entire world, or as narrow as targeting to the zip code level. In PPC advertising, you get various options to choose the desired location where you want your ads to be displayed.

Ad Scheduling

In PPC advertising, you get the option to run ads only at the desired timeframe. For example, if you are advertising for a local business, you can select the schedule to display the ads only during business hours.

Budget

All the individual campaigns have a daily budget, which you can set according to your account goals.

Delivery Method

In PPC advertising, there are two types of delivery methods.

1. Standard: Show ads evenly throughout the day

2. Accelerated: Show ads until the budget is depleted

Ad Delivery

Google Ads offers two options for ad delivery

1. Optimize: Optimized to produce higher click volume

2. Rotate indefinitely: Delivered evenly into the ad auction, not optimized towards any goal

Technical PPC

Conversion Tracking

Advertisers can create conversion goals to evaluate account performance. Both Google and Bing ad networks provide code snippets to track conversions by showing the number of impressions on the 'Thank You" page.

Google Analytics

A Google Ads account can be linked to the Google Analytics account. Using Google Analytics is highly recommended as it offers a complete picture of how the ads are performing: conversions, bounce backs, demographics, etc.

Google Merchant Center

Google Ads account needs to be connected to the Google Merchant Center account for running Google Shopping campaigns, or PLAs.

Remarketing

You can use remarketing tags to show your ads to people who have visited your website before.

Ad Extensions

Ad Extensions are external links added to an ad that show additional information and actions, thereby enhancing the quality of a basic PPC ad. Common ad extensions include:

• Sitelink Extensions
• Location Extensions
• Call Extensions
• App Extensions
• Consumer Ratings Annotations
• Seller Ratings Extensions

The image below gives an example of Sitelink extension.

Tools

The world of internet marketing is based on tools. PPC is one of the favorite marketing strategies for both advertisers and publishers. Therefore, all search engine ad networks provide a bunch of tools to plan, execute, and monitor ad campaigns. Some useful PPC marketing tools offered by Google are:

• Change History
• Keyword Planner
• Display Planner
• Ad Preview and Diagnostics
• Opportunities
• Labels
• Automated Rules

Shared Library

Google provides a tool called the Shared Library that allows you to manage changes across multiple campaigns. Shared Library allows you to make modifications in:

• Audience Manager
• Portfolio bid strategies
• Negative keywords list
• Shared budgets
• Placement execution lists

Reporting

Reports are essential for understanding and analyzing the performance of ad campaigns. PPC reports can be used to figure out the shortcomings and make necessary changes in the ad campaigns. Different types of reports Google provides are:

• Search Query Reports (SQRs)
• Placement Reports
• Auction Insights Report
• Segmentation Options

Display Network

As mentioned earlier, display network advertising is an excellent way to drive a massive amount of traffic to your target page. Although cost-per-click in the display network is low, the traffic is also less qualified and relevant. However, there are a few display network targeting options to test for getting maximum results. These options include:

• Targeting Options
• Display Keywords
• Placements
• Topics
• Interests
• Demographics
• Age
• Parental Status
• Ad Options: Text, Image, Responsive

Remarketing

Remarketing is used to target visitors that have already visited your website but did not take any action. In remarketing, different marketing strategies are used to convert visitors. Some standard remarketing practices include:

• Basic Remarketing 
• Dynamic Remarketing
• Remarketing Lists For Search Ads (RLSA)

Dynamic Search Ads

Dynamic Search Ads (DSAs) are created dynamically by using the content on your website. If you have a section on your website about office tables and someone searches for office tables, the user will be shown a dynamically generated ad that redirects to the most relevant page on your website.

Conclusion

This guide covers everything you need to understand for commencing PPC advertising. However, one thing you should consider is that PPC marketing is all about testing and learning. The more you experiment with different features and strategies, the better you get at PPC marketing.