Paid Ads

What Is PPC?

Paid Click Marketing or Paid Search Marketing is paying for your ads to show up in a search results page (SERP). In a Google SERP, the PPC results run vertically down the right-hand column. The campaign and the ads are created based on keyword research. The ad positioning is determined by a bidding process, but the highest bidder doesn’t necessarily get the top slot, it is also based on quality score, which Google determines by page relevance. All the big search engines offer paid search programs. Google has AdWords, Yahoo! has Search Marketing and Bing offers Microsoft adCenter. A complete paid search campaign needs to utilize all three.

The Value Of Paid Search

The beauty of a paid search campaign is that you only pay when someone clicks on your ad. The user is only seeing an ad that directly relates to his query. PPC is the definition of immediate gratification. Within hours or even minutes of you enabling your first campaign, you are able to determine which keywords, or keyword phrases are, or are not, sending traffic to the relevant landing page. In each pay per click advertising campaign you cater your keywords and your ad text to which phase the user is in, in the buying funnel. Whether in the awareness stage, the interest stage, the learning stage, the shopping stage, or ultimately, the buying stage, you fine tune your keywords and your ad text and send the user to the appropriate landing page, hopefully to make the conversion (purchase, sign up, subscribe or register).

You are not looking for Internet traffic, just for traffic. You only want the traffic from users that are interested in what your website has to offer. Traffic, for traffic sake does nothing more than eat bandwidth. The goal of a paid search campaign is to bring qualified visitors to our site. That is why so much effort is put into keyword research. You need to discover what keywords and keyword phrases your potential customers are using in their search queries.

After a searcher has typed in their query and hit Search, the search engine will display a set of organic results and paid advertisements. A quick scan immediately takes place and if there is nothing that catches the interest of the searcher, they quickly hit the Back button, and you’ve missed an opportunity. These brief few seconds are the difference between getting a shot at a customer or not.

At that moment your ad needs to stand up and scream, “I have the answer you’re looking for! Click me now, and I’ll show you the answer!”

In the case of Google AdWords, you only have 95 characters to grab the searcher, so every word has to count. Your headline has to grab them and the ad has to persuade them that you have the answer to their question. This is why the initial keyword research is so important. The keywords, headline and ad text must all be in sync.

With regard to keyword testing; PPC adds to your research, giving you factual, first-hand information about what words or phrases searchers are using to come to your site. You analyze all the data with a program like Google Analytics that gives you metrics of user actions. It can tell you what keywords brought them to the site, what pages they accessed, how long they remained on the domain, if they converted, and many other useful bits of information. This data can then be applied to your SEO, in fact your entire Search Engine Marketing campaign, to enhance your rankings in organic search and qualified traffic, in general.

When you combine both Search Engine Optimization and Pay Per Click in you marketing strategy, you are creating a powerful campaign. Research shows that if you hold the top position in organic search and paid search the CTR (click through rate) increases exponentially.

Facebook Ads

The beauty of Facebook Ads is that they are truly personally targeted. Facebook has over 2 billion users each month. That’s a lot of potential people to see what you are selling. And, you get to choose your audience.

Facebook Ads are affordable for every budget, so there is no reason that every business can’t put together a successful advertising/marketing campaign.