The Intersection of PPC and Inbound Marketing

Gone are the days of looking to clicks as the almighty, make-or-break metric behind our digital marketing efforts. At the same time, clicks are still the first step toward any meaningful engagement online.

Internet "hubs" that recognize and accommodate those needs are social and search platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Google and Bing, respectively.

But, before I go too deep into the intersection of PPC and Inbound Marketing (which is why you're here, right?), let's briefly take things back to basics ...

What is PPC, really?

PPC simply stands for Pay-per-Click.

You create an ad, post or tweet and pay a digital channel to show that ad to people you choose through keyword, demographic and in-market targeting.

Facebook and Twitter both have beautifully built-out PPC platforms, which have made each network billionsyear-over-year. Have something to say to your current fan-base and beyond? In all likelihood, you'll probably have to pay a little to get the kind of exposure you could've gotten for free a few years ago.

Similarly, the search engine ad platforms from companies like Google and Bing offer brands unique opportunities to be seen by the right people at the right time, get their foot in the door and potentially create new customers.

The Role of PPC in Inbound Marketing

We can't ignore the range of ways brands can use PPC to augment their Inbound Marketing strategies — everything from short-term campaign promotion on social networks to ad-copy A/B testing on Google Adwords — but, for the purposes of this article, we'll mostly be focusing on using PPC for content delivery & Keyword Research.

In this context, using PPC in Inbound Marketing is a means to both build new audiences while testing  different content and messaging types, offers and keywords.

Let's be frank ... PPC is not the secret sauce that'll blow anyone's Inbound Marketing strategy out of the water, but for a lot of brands, it can quickly be integrated in nearly any digital marketing strategy.

Advantages and Disadvantages of PPC Ads

Advantages of PPC

One of the best advantages of PPC is speed. You can test almost any variance quickly.

• It's consistent. Targeting metrics in every PPC suite allow you to attract controllable, qualified prospects to your content.
• Advertisers have the ability to test and track marketing strategies quickly and, often, cheaply, unlike organic SEO techniques, which can often take weeks to garner visible, measurable results. Depending on your targets, budget and network, PPC can deliver actionable data within hours.
• PPC gives marketers the ability to track ROI to the penny.
• Social Ads create opportunities to test content within targeted audience segments.

Disadvantages of PPC

• Your target keywords could be prohibitively expensive.
• You can lose a lot of money if you don't closely manage budgets.
• PPC requires a lot of time for tests and tweaks.
• On average, PPC requires action beyond simply creating a "clickable ad" to close a lead. Your PPC prospects will probably need some convincing before moving down your sales funnel.
• The biggest disadvantage (for most businesses) of relying on PPC in any marketing strategy is budget. Obviously, any business that can spend $5,000 a month on PPC has a distinct advantage over their competitors with smaller budgets.

Along those lines, if your products demand high ticket prices, or if you have a long customer cycle, PPC may present more opportunity.

The Two-Fold Reason for Integrating PPC into Inbound Marketing:

Content Delivery & Building an Audience

In a perfect world, brands wouldn't need to touch PPC with a 10-ft. pole. Alas, the world is NOT perfect, and people still need to find ways to get their content in front of potential customers — even if they haven't had the chance to organically build up a list of subscribers, or a dedicated social media following.

Enter, PPC — for this article, we'll start with our favorite kind: Social Advertising.

Social Ads have grown up a lot in the last couple years. New targeting, remarketing and segmenting options allow brands with engaging content to both grow their social followings as well as generate leads (for CHEAP) on popular social channels like Facebook and Twitter.

Content, downloadables, direct purchase — whatever you're using to entice engagement, there's a way to optimize your social ads to reach highly-targeted audiences. 

Outside of social media, brands can also turn to more traditional search engine PPC to deliver content and build their audiences.

If you can lock on to a couple of highly-searched SERP's your content directly answers, then you can target that phrase and show your ads to searchers. Once they click, you can take them to a strategic landing page (or even a specific blog page), bringing them directly into your sales funnel.

Leveraging search engine PPC tactics can be especially useful if there's no way you can effectively rank organically for a certain SERP in the near future, but you still know your content could help people and/or generate leads for your business.

It can also complement your SEO strategy if you use PPC to test organic keywords that you'd like to rank for. Choose your test keywords/phrases and if you see a response from your ads, you can assume that eventually ranking organically for that keyword or phrase will bring users to your website (since people trust organic rankings more than ads).

Since SEO takes time to organically rank your content, you'll be able to ensure you aren't wasting time on ineffective target keywords!

Understanding PPC Prospects

There's usually a difference between prospects who land on your pages from paid ad sources and prospects who come from organic searches.

Pro Tip: unless you're sure your targeting and message are spot-on, you’ll want to assume a PPC prospect needs more convincing than an organic prospect.

According to Hubspot, PPC is a form of “interruption marketing,” since people aren’t looking to ads for their solutions. At the same time, if a user chooses to click on your PPC campaigns, they're implicitly giving you permission to market to them. The takeaway? Your content needs to rock in order to connect with prospects.

To further complicate things, within your PPC prospects, there's another divide depending on which platform you're using to reach them: search engines or social ads.

Naturally, you’ll have to expect a longer nurturing cycle to “warm up” prospects coming from social ads. That is unless you're targeting specific keywords and using in-market segments.

With search engine PPC, you can usually assume your prospects are actively looking for something.

Pro Tip: Different keywords also determine the level of intent. Someone who searches “prices of NYC exterminators” vs. someone who types in “top rated NYC exterminators,” for example, could be more price-sensitive than the latter. Adjust your ad and landing page copy accordingly!

Tips for Getting Started

Start small.

This is the main mistake most businesses make. They decide to allocate a certain budget, and blow that entire amount on the first run. With both search engine and social PPC, start with a small amount to test different ad setups and increase the budget when you see ROI.

Set a budget limit.

This further protects you from wasted ad spend. Set a lifetime budget (or daily) budget in case your clicks start getting out of control.

Social Ads: Research your target audience and post ofen.

Go to forums and understand the language of your target personas. Understand their pain points, desires, anything that makes them tick, and put your messaging in the context of what they're looking for online.

With social ads and promoted posts, your targeting is the most important factor behind messaging. Platforms like Facebook and Twitter have powerful tools when it comes to targeting a specific group of people, so don't be afraid to use them! Get specific.

Pro Tip: Post often! If you're trying to build your audience and exposure, then keep track of which tweets and/or Facebook posts perform them best and promote THOSE first!

Search Engine Ads: Create a keyword list.

With Google Adwords and Bing Ads, it's important to understand keywords and the buying intent of those keywords. Create a living, breathing document to track your keyword successes and failures (if you have the time), and don't be afraid to test new techniques often. There's a saying around our office that perfectly speaks to this: 

"You don't know what you don't know." 

{This article originally appeared on RedstitchDigital.com on 9/21/15.}