PPC or Pay-per-click is a digital advertising model that helps drive instant traffic to a particular website. In this model, the person running PPC pays the publisher such as Google, website owner, etc every time someone clicks on their ads.
What is the Purpose of PPC?
The sole purpose of implementing a PPC strategy is to either lead visitors to a landing page to gather leads or to increase the click-through-rate.
It is important to note that various factors help assess the cost-effectiveness and ROI of the paid ads or PPC. Cost per impression (CPM) and cost per order are just a few examples.
Talking about Cost Per Thousand Impressions (CPM), you will only be paying for every 1000 impressions your ad receives. However, pay-per-click is more effective than CPM has it helps to understand how effective the ad or the ad campaign was.
Why Is PPC Better Than Other Paid Ads Model?
Clicks help you to measure the interest and attention of the audience. If your sole purpose is to simply lead traffic to a landing page or to get more clicks on the ad, then PPC will be your best bet.
However, it is crucial that you maintain the quality of the ad copy and carefully decide the placement of the ad. As both these factors majorly affect the CTR (click-through-rates) and determine the total PPC cost.
Cost-per-click (CPC)
The CPC can be easily calculated by dividing the total cost of the ad by the total number of clicks it generated.
Here’s the basic formula:
Cost-per-click ($) = Total advertising cost ($) / Number of clicks received (#)
Different PPC Models
Flat-rate PPC
In this PPC model, you as an advertiser will make a deal with the publisher such as Search Engine, to decide a fixed amount that you’ll pay per click.
In most cases, the publisher will already have a rate that lists the cost-per-click that you will incur. This rate is affected by different factors such as the competition of the keyword. This factor is based on how many websites are using a particular keyword to drive traffic.
Another important factor influencing the rate is the content on your web page. For example, if your content attracts more valuable customers then the cost for that click-through will be more.
However, in many cases, you as an advertiser can try negotiating the cost per click and get lower rates. You can do it by committing to a long-term and high-value contract.
Bid-based PPC
This model is a more cost-saving way of displaying your ads. And it is best suited for you if you’re still not sure which keywords you want to target or have a low budget for PPC.
In bid-based PPC, you compete with other advertisers who’re targeting the same keyword as you. Each advertiser bids the maximum amount of money he is willing to pay for a specific ad spot, based on a particular keyword.
The auction for ad spots is held privately and proceeds automatically as the users start clicking on the ads.
If there are multiple spots, then there can be multiple winners for them. And usually, the highest bidder gets the top spot. But this is also affected by different factors, such as the quality of the ad and the number of clicks.
How To Develop Your PPC Strategy?
Developing a successful PPC strategy starts from strategizing your goals. There are five most common PPC goals that advertisers usually use.
- Brand awareness
- Product and brand consideration
- Leads
- Sales
- Repeat sales
Let’s learn about them and find out what you can do to accomplish each of them.
Brand Awareness
PPC is one of the most preferred methods to raise awareness about a new product or the whole brand. This is the starting phase where you’d want to maximize your new product’s or brand’s visibility to a highly relevant audience.
The clicks you receive will help your campaign to go into the consideration phase.
Display Ads
You can use PPC display ads effectively by targeting on-topic. Use keywords, topics, relevant placements of the ads, or a combination of them. It is a general targeting strategy but can help you wider your reach.
Search Campaigns
Similarly, you can leverage search campaigns to target generic keywords. This can be an effective strategy to increase your brand awareness.
For example, if your business sells gym equipment, then bidding on keywords such as “gym gears” can help you increase awareness about your brand and products.
However, the downside to this strategy is that you might see higher CPCs and in many instances, irrelevant click-throughs.
So, what’s the best approach to it? You can try using smart keyword match types such as an exact match or use negative keywords.
Social Media Advertising
Apart from Google Adwords, running ads on Social Media platforms (Social media PPC ads) is an effective option for spreading your brand awareness.
Product & Brand Consideration
People in this phase are generally potential customers who are considering and researching to make a purchase. This is a great time for you to reintroduce your brand or product with a more detailed targeting, incorporating a clearer, and stronger CTA (call-to-action) in the ad copy.
When users enter the consideration phase, their searches are typically more detailed and specific. Their search queries might include brand names, product names, or a combination of both. They might research, compare, and/or read reviews.
Their search queries might look like this ‘Samsung 43” TV’ or ‘LG 43” tv’. This will be a great time to remarket your brand or product using responsive display ads that have an alluring banner. This will help to lead the consumer back to the product they previously checked out.
Another great way to target your potential customers is by using the in-market list. This list is composed of the users which the algorithm sees as ready-to-buy customers. How? By analyzing their online behavior and actions.
Leads
In most instances, you might not be able to crack a deal and sell instantly online. It calls for a lead generation strategy. Because with leads, you can follow up with potential customers and engage them in a conversation, which might lead to a sale.
Calls-to-action might be:
- Request a demo
- Get a free consultation
- Free trial
All these CTAs help to attract the users to fill the form, call, or book an online appointment. However, this can only help you to collect leads but how it is followed-up, differs from business to business.
With leads, you have relevant information which you can leverage for customer match PPC campaigns.
Sales
Prospective customers who are all set to purchase will tend to use very specific keywords in their search queries, which indicates higher intent of buying.
The search queries can include the following things:
- Model numbers
- Shipping information
- Discounts
- Coupons
- Financing
The best way to use this opportunity is by running separate campaigns that highlight offers, guarantees, warranty information, or your return policy.
It will help to build trust among your potential customers towards your business. And the probability of sales is increased.
For this phase, leverage cart abandonment ads, remarketing ads, and take complete use of your ad copy and ad extensions.
Remarketing Campaigns
It is crucial that you carefully set up your remarketing campaigns. Otherwise, the ads will still be visible to customers who have already made a purchase.
To do this, create a purchasers list and exclude this list from the campaign. Keep this list handy because you’ll be needing it in the next phase – Repeat Sales.
Repeat Sales
PPC is a powerful tool to earn repeat sales in case your product or service requires maintenance, upgrades, or any other cross-selling or up-selling.
Before you sit down to develop your repeat sales approach, ask yourself a few questions:
- What is the lifespan of the product? Or when will it need to be replaced?
- Is there a better model or version of the product coming out soon?
- Do customers buy multiples or singles?
- Do you see any opportunities to cross-sell complementary products?
- What will influence the customer to buy from you again? Is it brand loyalty? Fast delivery? The exceptional quality or features?
After developing an ad copy based on some questions as above, you can use PPC remarketing and customer match to re-engage and resale to your older customers.
Remember, by leveraging your USP or what would motivate your customers to buy from you again, you have higher chances of re-sale. Just like in the Sales phase, you can also use different coupons or discounts to motivate your customers even further.
Conclusion
While developing a solid PPC campaign, include different goals that are designed to lead the customers further down the sales funnel.
You can get organized by using a chart that contains goals, keywords, themes, key messaging, and landing pages. It will help you to manage everything and ensure that everything is covered.
Post-launch, it is helpful to review the results, decide how you can further optimize the ads, and allot budgets accordingly. Use the “Attribution” section of Google Analytics or PPC platform to check out campaign paths and assisted conversions. It will guide you to move forward with a successful campaign.