Unlocking the Power of Paid Search: Why your business needs PPC Advertising?
Katelyn Mueller
Western Washington University Alumni BA Business Marketing major & Analytics minor | Tax Intern at Moss Adams
Paid search, often referred to as pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, is a sophisticated online marketing strategy that entails compensating search engines to prominently showcase your business website on their search engine results pages (SERPs) when users input specific keywords or phrases in their search queries. In this case, your self-designed advertisements are strategically positioned within the SERPs to guide users to your website.?
This model of online marketing where businesses and advertisers can bid on specific keywords or search terms relevant to their products or services operates in a way to promote the movement of traffic to a website or online platform through search engine results or various advertising networks & platforms.?
Payment structure
The payment structure typically hinges on either “Cost Per Click” (CPC), where you are charged based on the number of clicks your advertisement received, or “Cost Per Impression” (CPM), where you pay based on the number of times your ad is displayed. This method is informally referred to as pay-per-click advertising, and it provides an avenue to secure placement in sponsored search listings.?
It’s important to note that search engine result pages comprise both paid and organic listings, though they appear in distinct sections. For instance, the most dominant search engine, Google, positions paid listings at the top and bottom of the results pages.?
Implementing Paid Advertising & How Paid Search Works
Viability and click-through rates (CTR) are pivotal elements in the realm of online marketing, particularly in the context of paid and organic search listings. Paid search strategies grant immediate access to visibility, thus ensuring that your business website prominently displays in the search engine result pages (SERPs) when users trigger specific keywords. The visibility is achieved through the process of strategically positioned paid ads at both the top and bottom of SERPs. On the other hand, organic search visibility hinges on the gradual process of optimizing your website for search engines with efforts to naturally climb the rankings, promising long-term sustainability once high rankings are attained. Click-through rates represent the percentage of users who click on your ad or listing after seeing it in the SERPs and is a critical metric in gauging the effectiveness of these listings. In a paid search, CTR can be influenced by ad position, quality of ad copy, keyword relevance, and industry competitiveness whereas in organic search, CTR is seen to vary based on factors like meta descriptions, page titles, and user intent. However, both strategies are essential to understanding & and utilizing as they can enhance the performance of your digital marketing efforts. In supporting these efforts, it’s crucial to comprehend how user behavior and ad positioning affect CTR. Paid ads that appear at the top of SERPs and well-optimized organic results on the first page generally receive higher CTR. While supporting these pivotal elements in the realm of online marketing, consider branching to a compelling ad copy, conducting A/B testing, and utilizing relevant keywords to boost CTR. As an integral part of your PPC and SEO strategies for a more successful online presence, the insights of optimizing visibility and CTR will help maximize the efficacy of your online marketing and help your business understand the importance of these metrics in relation to your strategies.
Three Key Elements
A paid search advertisement campaign typically comprises of three key elements: keywords, the ads, and the landing pages. A business can go about using PPC advertising by first defining a clear and measurable goal for its PPC campaign. In this step, understanding what you want to achieve, possibly such as increasing website traffic or boosting online sales, will be critical as this leads to conducting research on comprehensive keywords which will identify the most relevant and effective keywords for your business.
Discovering keywords that will likely be utilized by potential customers to use in their search queries will aid in realizing success. In paid search, you need to ensure that you are bidding on the correct keywords, this is why confronting in paid search keyword research, grouping and organization, identifying negative keywords and bid optimization are critical within the process. From here, choosing a PPC platform such as Google Ads, Microsoft Advertising and social media advertising platforms will help align you with your target audience and aid in creating a compelling ad copy that clearly communicates your value proposition and encourages users to take action.
The PPC campaign will be affected by your business's bidding strategy, whether it is manual bidding, automated bidding, or a combination of the two. Well-crafted and dedicated landing pages will provide a seamless and relevant user experience and will push the intent of your ads. When launching your campaign, you can monitor it closely and ensure it's performing as expected. Through monitoring and analyzing you too may decide to run tests including A/B testing to refine your ad copy and landing pages to best work for your audience.
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Why utilize PPC Advertising?
Paid advertising can kick-start your growth quickly and efficiently working towards a faster way of driving traffic and revenue. Although SEO is acknowledged as highly effective in generating long-term sustainable growth, this marketing strategy can grow business exponentially. As conversions are the king and sending traffic only covers half the job, incorporating a well-thought strategic marketing strategy will lead to greater success. Let's break down some key components as to why your business should incorporate paid advertising:
Paid search advertising can significantly contribute to achieving a wide range of business goals, from lead generation to e-commerce sales, and brand awareness/exposure thus providing a means to align traffic to your website with specific business objectives and end goals. From the State of PPC 2019/2020, it was recorded that 77% of marketers were set in motion to increase their spending on Google Ads over the next 12 months, thus illustrating the effect that paid advertising can provide for your business. This form of advertising is seen as a versatile tool for enhancing various aspects of your sales funnel and the route that is taken from leads of engagement to paying customers.?
Advertisers can easily track metrics like clicks, impressions, and conversions through platforms like Google Ads and Google Analytics to align their statistics with their predefined business goals. Within this marketing, obtaining transparent insight on high-level ad performance allows an easy digest on the performance of your campaigns, setting this apart from other advertising channels.?
PPC marketing doesn’t require extensive time or effort, making it suitable for beginners to the paid search landscape. With this ease of accessibility, you can quickly get up and running with minor optimization and even a low budget to begin with. Unlike SEO, PPC does not require significant attention and time, this form of advertising has the advantage of quickly generating traffic and positioning and allows an easy entrance into digital marketing strategies.?
Paid search allows businesses to target a broad audience beyond an existing customer base and enables you to reach a wider net compared to other channels like organic, social, or email advertising. Furthermore, the entire process from research to campaign creation or build-out, and key performance tracking (KPIs) can be managed.?Consider this: search ads increase brand awareness by 80 percent, and 50 percent of all visitors who find your site via a paid ad are more likely to make a purchase. Using data, keywords, and custom messaging allows a broad audience to interact through nontraditional broadcasting.
Successful PPC Advertising
In 2009, Alec Brownstein, a senior copywriter seeking a new job, devised an ingenious strategy to catch the attention of New York's top creative directors. Recognizing that people often utilize Google to search their own name, Brownstein targeted five specific directors through Google AdWords and by bidding on their names, he secured clicks for a mere 13 cents each, directing interested audiences to his website. This unconventional approach yielded exceptional results for Alec Brownstein was invited to interview with four of the directors (which later led to job offers) as well as pulling off the whole campaign for a flat 6 dollars. This case exemplifies creativity and resourcefulness in the pursuit of professional opportunities and the power that PPC advertising holds.
If you haven’t yet incorporated PPC advertising into your marketing strategy, the time is ripe to embrace this invaluable tool, as your competitors are almost certainly leveraging its potential to gain an advantage in the digital landscape. Paid search serves as a formidable asset enabling businesses' ability to boost online visibility and will serve as a powerful tool in scenarios where businesses may struggle to attain high rankings in organic search results.?Paid advertising will set you apart with the potential of increased leads and sales as it is a potent tool for driving high-quality traffic to your website and assisting in the increase of conversion rates while holding high accountability, minimal guesswork, and scalability. Having a strong understanding of paid search operations and strategies is essential for running a successful campaign to ensure consistent and effective management.