What is PPC Advertising and How Can It Help You?

PPC is short for Pay-Per-Click. Many businesses, especially those on a smaller scale, go for this method of reaching targeted audiences online. These businesses pays a particular publisher every time their ads are being clocked on. If you are just starting out your business and you need to maintain your income flow, this advertising model can be good for you.?

Also known as CPC, Cost-Per-Click, this advertising model is offered primarily by google [and other search engines], and social networks (e.g., Facebook). Not to sound generic, Facebook Ads, Google Ads, and Twitter Ads are the most popular platforms used for PPC advertising.

In this article, we are going to look into how PPC advertising can help your business and brand grow as expected. Let's dive in.?

How Does PPC Advertising Work?

When advertisers have a particular keyword or phrase in mind, they bid for those keywords and phrases. For a fee, they create ads that surround that particular phrase or keywords. Anytime someone [potential buyer] clicks on their ads, the advertisers pay a fee.?

These ads are displayed on Google's SERPs and other sites. The aim of doing this is either to drive in more sales or generate as many leads as possible.

Pay-Per-Click Models

1. Flat-Rate Model

This type of model is quite popular amongst advertisers. In the flat-rate ad model, the publisher and advertiser agree on a fixed amount to be paid by the latter if anyone clicks into their ads.?

This method gives significant success when visual elements, text and a call to action is used on the ad banner. As earlier said, the advertiser would have to pay a fixed fee for a set number of clicks or impressions.

2. Bid-Based Model

As the name implies, advertisers would have to compete against one another by placing a bid on specific keywords or phrases that their target audience are known for/with.?

When you search for certain keywords, search engines like Google display ads based on how much companies are willing to pay and how closely the ad matches what you are searching for. Just like how it is done in real-life scenarios, the ad with the highest bid and best match usually takes home the bag, coming first on the result page. This model is popular for search engine ads because it’s targeted and can be quite powerful.

Types of PPC Advertising We Have

1. Display Ads: Display advertising, aka Display marketing, includes banners, texts, images, audio and video. Unlike the traditional offline means of advertising, display ads can instantly get actions from its prospective customers. With this type of advertising, users can be directed to the advertiser's site, where they move down the path of conversation to a sale. In other words, they promote brand visibility and awareness and they increase customer ‘s reach.?

2. Search Ads: This is a good marketing strategy where your online ads are placed and appear in search engine results. It is popularly known as Google advertising. By using the right keywords and key phrases, your target audience can easily search for those specifics, increasing the chance of starting a sales conversation.?

3. Video Ads: This type of PPC advertising is also effective in reaching a target audience across your industry/niche. With video ads, you can captivate your audience immediately through video. This kind of ad is mainly done on YouTube. When strategically done right, your video ads can drive conversions exponentially more than your standard static image ads or text ads.

4. Remarketing/Retargeting Ads: As the name suggests, you will be able to remind users who had once visited your website what you can offer them. The audience you would be targeting this time around are those who had previously visited your website but it never converted to a sale. The benefit of these ads is their high potential to convert bounced website visitors.?

5. Social Media Ads: These ads are mostly done on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. They make use of detailed user data for precise targeting. In social media ads, your audience is known based on interests, brand awareness, and lead generation.?

How Does PPC Advertising Work With Google Ads?

OK, let's further explain what Google Ads really is when talking about PPC marketing. When you finally decide to create your Ad, you will need to choose a set of keywords your audience makes use of and bid on each of those keywords. Let's say, for example, you place a bid on the keyword “carbon fiber.” This is telling Google that you want your ad to appear to people who search for that keyword or whose search terms match that keyword/product.?

With Google's algorithm, your ad can either be shown first on the result page or last. Google's auction system makes all the decisions you need, for you, that is., if your ads fall within the auction amount.?

Google would give your ads a Quality Score between 1 and 10, based on some requirements like how relevant your ad is to the keyword, how likely people are to click it, and how good your landing page is.

Then, Google multiplies your Quality Score by the highest amount you're willing to pay for a click (your bid). This gives your ad an "Ad Rank." Ads with the highest Ad Rank get shown.

This way, advertisers like you can reach customers while sticking to a budget. It’s like an auction but for ads.?

How to Carry Out A Perfect PPC Keyword Research

We now know that bidding with the right keywords/keyphrase would get you high chance on the Google Search Result Page. But how do we get the right keywords to use??

Finding the right keywords to use can be important and yet time-consuming. But one thing to keep your head in the game is that the most successful Google Ads advertisers achieve this by growing and refining their PPC Keyword list.?

That said, let's take a look at some key steps you can take in PPC keyword research:

Understand your target audience:

Before you create and set up your Google Ads account, you should have clearly identified who your ideal customer is and what language they use when searching online.?

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Brainstorm initial keywords:

Make a list of relevant keywords based on your product/service, including broad, related, and long-tail variations.

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Use keyword research tools:

To help with your brainstorming, you can make use of PPC keyword research tools like Google Keyword Planner, SEMrush, Ahrefs, or similar to discover search volume, competition level, and related keywords.?

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Analyze competitor keywords:

Research your competitors' PPC campaigns to identify keywords they are targeting and potentially uncover gaps in your strategy.?

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Consider search intent:

Evaluate the intent behind each keyword (informational, navigational, transactional) to ensure your ads align with what users are looking for.?

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Prioritize long-tail keywords:

Focus on longer, more specific keyword phrases with lower competition but high conversion potential.?

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Categorize keywords:

Group keywords into logical ad groups based on their relevance and search intent.?

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Negative keyword strategy:

Include negative keywords to prevent your ads from showing for irrelevant searches. Negative keywords help you focus on keywords that are important to your customers. By removing irrelevant search terms, you can increase your return on investment (ROI).

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Monitor and refine:

Regularly track your PPC campaign performance and adjust your keyword strategy based on data insights.?

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Reuse the same strategy for others:

Now, if you have other ad campaigns, you can repeat the process again and create a new Ad Group for those new categories of keywords.

Exact Match Vs. Phrase Match Vs. Broad Match Vs. Negative Match

Depending on what you're selling or promoting, you might want to be really specific with the keywords you choose, or you might want to let Google handle some of the keyword research for you. This is where "match types" come into play in pay-per-click (PPC) advertising.

When you add keywords to your campaign, you can pick from these options:

- Exact Match: Google will only show your ad if someone searches for the exact keyword you entered or very close versions, like small spelling errors or different word order. For example, if your keyword is "women’s boots," your ad might also show up for "boots women."

Phrase Match: Your ad will show up for searches that include your keyword, even if there are slight variations. So if you’re targeting "women’s boots," your ad could also appear for searches like "best women’s boots."

Negative Keywords: These are keywords you tell Google not to show your ad for. For instance, if you're advertising women's boots but don’t want your ad to appear in searches for "men’s boots" or "free boots," you’d add those as negative keywords.

This way, you can control which searches trigger your ads and which don’t, making sure you target the right audience.

Conclusion

Following the right strategy and carrying out effective keyword research is sure to reduce the cost of PPC advertising, and in turn, your ads will continually give you the success your brand really craves for.?

And if you’d like help running your PPC ads, contact us now to get started right away.