Right off the bat, I’d like to say that if you’re thinking that you will be able to everything about PPC marketing (Pay-Per-Click marketing) by just knowing the name, think again. There’s an ocean of information that you would have to consume to know how to run a successful PPC campaign.
But let’s first start with the basics.
There is no need to get overwhelmed here. Just have a goal of increasing your understanding of PPC marketing. And soon enough, you’ll be an expert running successful campaigns making thousands of dollars in no time.
Let’s jump right into it, shall we?
What is PPC?
Ever heard the phrase “You get what you pay for.”?
This is where that applies perfectly.
PPC is the online advertising strategy in which you get exactly what you pay.
And what is that?
You only pay when someone clicks on your ad. Hence the name Pay-Per-Click.
This is one of those advertising methods that has left the conventional methods tasting the dust. We will go into the reasons of that in a minute.
Compared to other methods of online advertising, PPC is by far the go-to method for more than 90% of the online advertisers. Again, the reason why they love it so much is because they only pay when people take some form of action on their ad.
Different Types of PPC (Only The Most Popular Ones)
Nowadays almost every social network has a PPC advertising section. So the only thing differentiating them from the others is their popularity.
But the top spot is taken by Google Adwords and Facebook Ads.
Google Adwords allows you run ads on private websites that you would’ve never come across in your entire lifetime. That’s not because they are not popular, it’s because you are not Google Adwords.
With Facebook Ads, you can create laser-focused ads toward your target audience.
What to sell a product to mothers between 35-40 who live in Manhattan? You got it.
But when it comes to search engine advertisement, Google isn’t the only player here. Bing has its own sweet version of PPC. They allow you to run ads on countless different search properties owned by Microsoft and their partners.
And then there’s the retargeting campaigns. These are the campaigns that bring in the visitors that have already visited your website. This is where the most amount of money is made.
When people see your stuff everywhere they go on the internet, they realize that you are a famous person with integrity. And that’s when they pull out their wallets.
How Much Does PPC Cost?
To give you a perfect answer, it depends on what type of PPC campaign you are trying to run and where.
If you are looking to run a campaign on Facebook, then you can start off with just $5/day. And once you see the campaign getting traction, you can slowly increase the daily budget.
But if you are going with Google Adwords, then you have to consider the demand for keywords that you will be targeting.
Keywords with higher demand have a higher cost per click.
Let’s say for instance that you want to run a campaign about car insurance. Your obvious choice of keyword would be “car insurance.” But that keyword has a very high demand, and it is possible that your cost per click would be very high as well.
But if you do some keyword research and target a related keyword with lower demand, like “St George car insurance” then you will have a significantly lower cost per click compared to “car insurance.”
Why is “car insurance” in such a high demand?
It’s simple. The demand for a particular keyword is calculated by the number of advertisers bidding on it. The more advertisers bidding on a particular keyword, the higher its demand will be.
Almost every ad network allows you to set a daily budget to make sure that you never let the campaigns run out of hand. So if you set your daily budget to $50, then once you’ve spent that much, the ad network will turn off your ads for the rest of the day.
What Are the Different Parts of PPC?
PPC is one of the biggest forms of advertisement on the internet. And it is pretty obvious that there are many components in it. So let’s see what they are:
-
The Campaign
Obviously, the campaign will come first. Without a campaign, you wouldn’t have anything. A campaign is something that you decide to advertise about. So if you want to advertise about sneakers, then it would be a sneaker campaign.
-
The Ad Group
An ad group is basically a group of ads that you are running for a particular campaign. If we take the sneakers example, you will be running a couple different ads for that campaign.
So all the ads that you will be running for the sneakers, will come under the ad group of sneakers.
-
Keywords
This is applicable if you are using Google Adwords. And it is crucial that you ensure that all the keywords that you choose are relevant to the ad that you are running.
Why?
Because Google will be using your keyword relevance to determine where they will be placing your ad. If you mess this up, you will just be throwing your money down the drain.
But the good news is, it is very hard to mess it up. To cheer up J
-
Ad Text
Obviously, you want your ad text to be something that catches the eye of the visitors and is attractive enough so that they take some form of action. Usually, this is where a professional copywriter comes into play.
But if you think you are good enough, then you can text out your own copy as well.
-
The Landing Page
This is where the magic happens. This is the page on your website where the visitors who click on your ad will come to. You want to make sure that it is relevant to the ad and also gives the visitors some incentive for clicking through.
The incentive makes sure that they like you and hopefully give you their email address, or purchase your product.
How Does Keyword Auctions Work?
I know this question might be lingering in the back of your head. About how people bid on keywords.
Different ad networks have different rules on auction, but most of them allow people to only bid on keywords during an open auction. This is different than those eBay auctions that you are used to.
You can even say that it is a bit complicated than that.
That’s mainly because your bid will determine where your ad will be placed.
But there’s some good news to it as well. You don’t need to have the fattest wallet in the room. Google also determines the quality of the ad and based on that as well, they can change the placement of your ad.
The higher the quality the better the placement.
There are a couple of things that Google takes into account while evaluating your ad quality. Some of them are keyword relevance, landing page relevance, the click-through rate of your ad (the number of people who click on your ad).
If you want to find out the overall rank of your ad, just multiply your bid with your quality score. So let’s say that your quality score is 10 and you bid $1 for a keyword, then your rank is 10X1=10
If your ad rank is higher than the ad rank of other advertisers who are bidding on the same keyword, then your ad will be placed on top.
You should also know that the actual amount you pay is different than what you bid. Usually, it is slightly lower.
Conclusion
In the end, I will say that if you are just starting out with PPC, then make sure that you are able to lose some money. Because you will definitely have some failed campaigns in the beginning.
An alternative would be to hire a professional PPC expert and let them handle everything. But I’m guessing that you want to do this on your own. So wait for my next article about how you can get started with Google Adwords.
Stay safe.
