Understanding PPC digital marketing services, how it works and creating campaigns is only just the surface of how vast it really is.

Whether you’ve been around for decades or just started your business today, PPC can give you an edge from your competition and help your business grow. It brings a wealth of benefits and is also relatively easy to start with.

But for someone who has never dealt with or knows PPC, it can be a daunting process. You have to master new terminologies, learn about an unfamiliar advertising network, and go over the growing pains of campaign optimisation through a trial and error process.

Sound overwhelming? But it does not have to be. Even small business owners with little to zero knowledge about PPC can learn how to build and optimise a profitable campaign.

This guide will let you know all there is to know about PPC and how to get started.

So, let’s get the ball rolling!

Section I – An Introduction to Pay-Per-Click Advertising

This section explores the foundations of Pay-Per-Click Advertising, covering the basics from its definition down to the nitty-gritty of creating successful PPC campaigns.

Let’s start with the most obvious question:

What is PPC (Pay-Per-Click)?

PPC, or the abbreviated name for Pay-Per-Click, is a form of advertising designed to drive traffic to websites. Businesses use this online advertising model to have their website appear on the search engine results pages (SERP) when a user searches for a specific keyword or phrase. And every time people click on your ad, you will get charged, hence its name Pay-Per-Click.

PPC Terms and Its Definitions

A marketing channel always has its jargon and acronyms. PPC is no different!

If you’re planning to penetrate the paid advertising space, you’re going to have to learn a few terms. We reviewed the main elements of Pay-Per-Click campaigns and listed search terms spanning from broad to something more specific.

• Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

The main goal of digital advertising is for target keywords to rank on search engine results pages (SERPs), which can be done in many ways. One solution is through Search Engine Marketing (also called SEM). It pertains to paid or unpaid digital marketing activities done on search engines, such as Google or Bing.

It’s an umbrella term encompassing search engine optimisation and paid advertising that rank keywords on SERPs. However, PPC is not just for search engines — there are also paid ads for social media (note: Facebook Ads).

• Cost-Per-Click (CPC)

Cost-Per-Click refers to the amount you pay for each click on your ads. These “clicks” on your pay-per-click (PPC) ads represent a visit or interaction from a user searching for something you offer. And this “interaction” is what you’re paying for.

The formula below lets you determine the price you’ll be paying for each click:

Let’s run over some of the terms included in the equation, so you’ll know what you’re paying for:

• Ad Rank

The value of your “Ad Rank” determines how your ads are positioned on the SERPs. You calculate it by using this formula: Maximum Bid Quality Score.

• Quality Score

This is a score search engines give your ad according to your click-through rate. It’s measured based on the average CTR of the ads within that position. Moreover, other factors include the relevance of your keywords, landing page quality, and past performance on the search engine result page (SERP). 

• Maximum Bid

The maximum amount you’d pay every time someone clicks on your ads. CPC can be set to manual, where you decide your ads’ maximum bid or enhanced, where search engines will be the ones to adjust your bid in reference to your goals.

Included in enhanced options are bid strategies adjusting your bids according to clicks or conversions automatically.

• Cost per Mille (CPM)

Cost per thousand, also known as CPM, is the price per a thousand impressions. Most frequently, it’s used for paid display or social ads.

• Click-Through Rate (CTR)

This is the ratio of the total clicks on your ad against your total impressions. It is used to measure your pay-per-click marketing campaigns’ performance.

• Campaign

These are a set of ad groups sharing a budget, location, language, distribution for Google’s network, and other settings. A campaign is used for organising categories of your products and services. In setting up PPC ads, think of your campaign as the central idea of your strategy that you want to convey through your advertisements.

• Ad Group

An ad group is one or more ads sharing similar targets in one group. You can use this in organising your ads into a common theme. A good example is to have separate ad groups of the different types of products or services you offer.

If you’re selling snacks, desserts, and beverages on your website, see how it’s made into ad groups:

The table above contains a keyword list that focuses on a product you’re selling. Keyword lists within ad groups will tell the system to display ads for these products only on searches related to them.

• Keywords

Ads in your ad groups will target a set of keywords or phrases. These keywords convey to search engines which search terms or phrases you’d want your advertisements to appear on the SERPs. After determining which set of relevant keywords perform best, you can set the max CPC for these specific keywords.

• Ad Text

Text ads are what appear above and below on the Search Network of Google. It contains three parts: the headline, a display URL, and brief description text. 

• Landing Page

It’s the most critical piece of your PPC marketing strategy. It’s where users are directed once they’ve clicked your ad. Whether it’s your homepage, a dedicated webpage, or somewhere else, make sure you follow the best practices for maximised conversions.

Why You Should Use PPC Advertising

Digital marketing is still evolving and has been continuously fueling more and more competitive markets. Social media is also a hard nut to crack. Organic traffic has been slowing down to a steady level because of intense market competition. Companies are having less joy reaching their audience on free platforms. This is where PPC comes in and steals the limelight.

If you’re planning on joining the wagon, get to know the benefits of using PPC as a marketing channel for your business. Here’s what you should know:

Nine Benefits of Pay-Per-Click

The following reasons will show you why Pay-Per-Click advertising is an excellent investment-wise decision that will help grow your business: 

• It’s cost-effective.

In PPC, you can control how much money you want to spend. Considering that you’re only paying when a user clicks the link directing to your landing webpage (with a higher probability of conversion), you’re surely going to get your money’s worth.

• Produces fast results.

Organic ranking is one of the greatest digital marketing strategies, but it could intermittently take months or even years to reach the SERPs’ first page.

A startup or small business doesn’t necessarily have the leisure of waiting around for the results to kick in.

That is where Pay-Per-Click advertising takes over.

Optimised PPC ads can quickly put you on top of the SERP within hours of launching your campaigns.

Perhaps one of the reasons it’s popular with marketers is that it produces fast results. Once the ads are live, provided that you’re qualified to join the auction and you’re bidding high enough, your ads will start to appear (and receive clicks as long as the volume’s there) quickly.

• Can easily control and test PPC ads.

With PPC ads, you have complete control of the keywords you wish to target, the ad placement and, most importantly, the budget. You can split test your ads to determine the best one producing the highest return and then scale the ones that do well.

• Allows you to target your ideal customers.

PPC lets you skip right past your cold audience and target those who are ready to buy.

Bid on relevant keywords that a solution-aware persona will search for. More than the keywords, there are also targeting options for demographics and your past online activity.

Another excellent way of using PPC ads is creating retargeting campaigns that target visitors who did not purchase after they got directed to your site.

• Is less affected by algorithm changes.

With Google’s consistent algorithm changes and numerous ranking factors, it’s volatile to get organic traffic from search engines in contrast with PPC advertising.

You won’t have to fret about your paid ads being affected by algorithm changes; instead, you can focus on monitoring how your campaigns are performing.

• Helps you rank even with low domain ratings.

It’s tough for business websites with a low domain authority to dominate search engines. Let alone enter the first page of the SERPs, with keywords becoming more and more competitive.

However, PPC advertising can rank you higher for keywords your target audiences are searching for, regardless of your domain rating. 

• Multiple ad formats are available.

Are you running an eCommerce store? Shopping ads will display your products in an ideal position on the SERPs.

Been wanting to convert those abandoned carts? Make use of display marketing to present your offers and stimulate the desired action.

There’s a whole range of PPC ad formats, and all of these can be utilised to drive results for businesses.

• Data from PPC ads can improve your SEO strategy.

Don’t abandon your search engine optimisation (SEO) activities. Your PPC advertising strategy must complement it, not replace it.

What is a Pay-Per-Click Campaign?

It’s a clear-cut advertising strategy with one specific goal set out to achieve — conversion. The most prevalent goals of conversion are generating leads and getting them to make a purchase.

First off, advertisers select keywords and produce ads using these keywords. These keywords are chosen to ensure the ads will perform well and show up on the SERP. When users search for keyword terms similar to what you’re offering, your ads will then get displayed. That’s when advertising platforms enter the scene.

An advertising platform is a dedicated system where you create, launch, and promote ads to specific targeted audiences. Below are the best PPC platforms your business can choose from.

The Main PPC Platforms

Now that you know the basics, your next question may be: Where do I advertise?

A good advertising platform is effective, accessible and, most importantly, has immense traffic. Other aspects you have to consider in choosing a platform for your business are the availability of keywords, where your audience spend most of their time and, of course, your ad budget.

However, if we’re talking about Pay-Per-Click, two main ad platforms advertisers usually think of are Google Ads and Bing Ads.

Google Ads

How often do you hear someone say, “Let me Google that?” Most likely, so many times you’ve lost count and no doubt the reason why Google Ads is the leading platform of paid advertising.

Google Ads (formerly Google AdWords) is an advertising platform that runs search and shopping ads on Google, Gmail ads, video ads on YouTube, and Google display ads on Google Display Network (GDN).

According to Internet Live Stats, Google processes approximately over 90,000 searches every second. This gives you ample opportunity to target search terms that’ll spur your target audience to click. However, keywords have become more saturated on this platform, which means greater ad spending for you.

By far, it’s the most known PPC platform, offering a good deal of opportunities for businesses of pretty much all industries.

Bing Ads

Bing Ads (or Microsoft Advertising), while overshadowed by Google, works similar to Google Ads. This platform doesn’t only let you run ads on Bing but also on Yahoo and AOL.

It’s an excellent option for small and medium businesses or if you’re operating from Google-free areas such as China, Japan, and other countries in Eastern Asia.

The perks of this platform against Google Ads is the slightly lowered CPC at the cost of, of course, a larger target audience.

Other Ad Networks

It’s not only Google Ads and Bing Ads that can provide business growth. There are also other ad networks, like:

• Facebook Ads
• AdRoll
• Revcontent
• LinkedIn Ads
• Instagram Ads
• Twitter Ads
• YouTube Ads
• Amazon Ads
• Bidvertiser
• AdBlade
• AdRecover
• BuySellAds
• Advertiser.com

We mainly covered the two main platforms. If you’re looking to expand your business on other platforms than Google Ads and Bing Ads, the platforms listed above are the best options to look into.

PPC Ad Auctions – How do they work?

When users perform searches and search engines determine commercial intent, ad auctions take place as soon as they submit the query. Search engines use these factors to assess ad positions:

• Eligibility of the account to join the auction.
• The placement of which qualified ads will appear on the SERPs.
• How much advertisers are willing to pay once their ads are clicked.

The first influencing factor of how ads are ranked in the auction is how much advertisers are willing to pay when users click on their ad. Or, in PPC terms, what’s known as maximum bid (also called maximum CPC). Advertisers set their max CPC for individual keywords or ad groups (a group of related keywords) to grasp how much will be used in the campaign budget.

However, this does not imply how much advertisers are going to pay. It’s only the maximum.

Another influencing factor is the Quality Score (QS). It’s a metric from Google consisting of these contributing factors, including:

• The expected click-through rate (CTR) of an ad.
• The ad’s relevance to the user’s query.
• The landing page experience.

We’ll delve deeper into Quality Score in a little while.

On the flip side, the ad position is defined by the Ad Rank, which is determined in simple terms as:

The actual formula is a lot more elaborate, but this is an easier way of explaining it for general understanding.

SEO vs PPC – Which is Better?

Businesses often consider SEO and PPC as two channels that work similarly in driving traffic from search engines.

Notwithstanding the fact that they both help you appear on and get clicks from search engines, SEO and PPC are two distinct digital marketing channels.

Let’s consider their key differences:

• Search Engine Optimisation is optimising your website for the purpose of ranking high and gaining organic (free) traffic off of search engines.
• Pay-Per-Click, on the other hand, refers to businesses paying a cost for each click on their ads.

Both strategies require the use of keywords. While SEO involves content creation around highly relevant and popular keywords, PPC makes use of ads and landing pages targeting specific search terms.

Although they are linked in some way, both have their different advantages and disadvantages.

SEO Pros and Cons

• + Helps in building trust and rapport with your audience.
• + Better for establishing brand awareness and online reputation.
• + Brings great return on investment (ROI) over time.
• – It’s a lot of effort and takes time for the result to take effect.

PPC Pros and Cons

• + Has a refined and upfront customer targeting option.
• + Better for bringing brand visibility through search results.
• + Produces faster results than an organic strategy.
• – It’s costly, especially if you’re not well-versed and have no knowledge about it.
• – Doesn’t have a long-term benefit since traffic diminishes as soon as the PPC campaign is turned off.

SEO is highly effective and has been around for a long time. It’s very time consuming and takes a lot of effort and patience. However, it does bring great results once done correctly.

Despite their differences, these two aren’t competing channels. They’re strategies that are parts of a larger digital marketing mix. You get the best results and achieve success online when you align them together.

As much as possible, avoid the comparison and see both of them as vital parts of driving your business’s digital growth.

If you don’t have the time and skills, you can hire a PPC agency to help you.

Is SEM the Same as PPC?

Both Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Pay-Per-Click (PPC) promote through search engines, so there are tendencies of using them interchangeably.

PPC advertising is the type of ads you see displayed on top of search results pages. While SEM is an umbrella term and encompasses a much broader area, covering other marketing promotions via search engines.

SEM includes organic and paid marketing strategies. Its ultimate goal is increasing your brand’s visibility on major search engines, including techniques like search engine optimisation (SEO) and, obviously, pay-per-click marketing.

On the flip side, PPC is a paid online advertising strategy where you only pay each time a user clicks on your ad.

PPC vs CPC – Finding The Difference

PPC and CPC are far from being the same thing. Technically, PPC is a type of digital marketing strategy that involves paying for ads. CPC, also known as cost-per-click, is the amount of money businesses are willing to expend on a single click on their ads.

CPC acts as the bid in the “ad auction” that will determine an ad’s placement on the SERPs. As you would expect, the higher the bid, the better the ad is placed. Furthermore, you set your CPC at the highest price you’re willing to pay when someone clicks on your ad.

How to Determine Your CPC

Your cost-per-click is always not more than or equal to your max bid, as it’s average or the mean of bids over some time in comparison with a series of competitors. Due to the manner of how Google runs its ad auctions, your actual CPC is significantly influenced by you and your nearest competition’s ad rank, quality score, and maximum bid.

  The Google Ads Auction: Max Bid, Quality Score, and Ad Rank all affect CPC (via WordStream)

Average Cost-Per-Click in Google Ads

According to WordStream, the average CPC differs by business type and industry. Also, the average CPC throughout all industries is about $2.69 on the search network and $0.63 on the display network.

Below, you can see the standard average CPC for most common industries in search and display networks on Google Ads:

Google Ads Industry Benchmarks: CPC Across Industries (via WordStream) 

Why is Cost-Per-Click Important in Search Advertising?

It’s significant because it’s the number that determines your PPC campaigns’ financial success and the amount Google Ads will price for you. You have to weigh the cost and value of your cost per click. Considering the overall return of your paid search campaigns can be assessed by the cost of the clicks and the quality of traffic you’re getting.

PPC Campaign Objectives to Maximise Your ROI

You can launch numbers and numbers of PPC campaigns, apiece having a different strategy. Even so, these are the main objectives that get the most out of your PPC ads: 

• Reducing average cost per click whilst maintaining value.

PPC can be a bit pricey. Thus, you have to carefully watch your budget to make sure you’re not overspending. So how do you reduce the average cost you’re paying and sustain (better yet, improve) the quality of traffic you’re getting? There are three ways:

• Raising your QS (Quality Score)

There’s an automated system within Google offering price discounts to well-administered campaigns with a high QS. As reported by WordStream, accounts with a QS of 6 or higher (currently, 5 is considered the average score) are given a 16–50% discount in CPC, while accounts with a QS of 4 or lower see a 25–400% rise in CPC.

• Expanding your reach

Finding new, relevant and quality clicks improves the allocation of your budget substantially. To achieve this, you have to discover new PPC keyword terms and better ad opportunities. Simultaneously, you have to eliminate overpriced and unrelated clicks from your campaigns.

• Refining your reach

Designating negative keywords help in controlling your average CPC by removing traffic that are unlikely to convert as paying customers. So make sure to remove these searchers when you’re adding new keywords.

• Increasing your return on ad spend (ROAS).

What’s the point of investing in paid search ads if you’re not getting anything back? Businesses turn to PPC because they expect to convert their prospects and to make earnings. Here are some considerations if you are looking to increase your profit:

• Device Targeting – Review the current data you have and analyse which devices guarantee great returns, then make adjustments to your bids and target those devices accordingly.

• Time Targeting – There may be certain times or days where your customers are more active. By adjusting your bids and targeting these peak times, you can maximise your gains and reduce wasted time.
• Location Targeting – This helps in ruling out certain areas you aren’t servicing and increase the probability of your conversion rate in areas where you physically are

• Boosting your ROI (Return on Investment).

A positive return on investment (ROI) is fundamentally important for paid search advertising’s success.

ROI exceeds everything purely financial, unlike ROAS. For instance, an improved Quality Score and a well-performing ad are already promising signs of a good ROI.

Quality Score (QS) is directly related to Google Ads’ ROI. If you score 7 or much higher, Google Ads offers discounted prices for your average CPC. By creating better and compelling ads that convert way more, you improve your Quality Score (QS) and economise on campaign costs.

Taking that into account, focusing on maximising your ROI invariably involves a great deal of work on your QS.

Building a Pay-Per-Click Campaign

Now that we’ve discussed the benefits and several of the key terms and their definitions, the next thing we’re going to address is how to craft an effective PPC campaign using an advertising platform like Google Ads.

It’s not necessary that you follow the step-by-step, but you have to work through each item to make sure you’re creating quality marketing campaigns.

• Setting Parameters

We know we stated above that it’s not necessary to do things in this order. However, it’s still essential to carry out this step first and foremost, lest you risk creating an ineffective ad.

Think of your campaigns the same way as your business goals. Analyse how they contribute to achieving those goals. Then, deliberate what you want your ads to accomplish. Whether it’s increasing your online traffic, sales, brand recognition, or whatever goal it is – and the amount you’re willing to spend achieving that goal.

On that note, you have to take into account these things:

• Who you’re targeting with your ad.
• The overall theme of your marketing campaign.
• How you’ll be measuring its performance and success.
• Type of Google paid search marketing campaign you’re going to run.

• Selecting Your Campaign Goals

Campaign goals help ease decision-making in creating and setting up your ad campaigns by recommending special features and settings designed to help your campaigns succeed.

When you set up a campaign, you can also select a goal. The goal you will be choosing, however, must align with the main objective you want to achieve from your campaign. For instance, after a user views your ad, you want them to visit your website, choosing the “Web Traffic” goal is best.

Selecting a goal gives you a guide to features and settings that’ll help you obtain results most important to your brand.

Here’s are the most common goals and when to use them:

• Brand Awareness and Reach, if you’re planning on:

• • Reaching a large audience whilst efficiently making use of your brand.
  • Increasing awareness of your brand’s products or services.
  • Increasing awareness only amongst your relevant audience.
  • Introducing users to your newly released products or when you’re expanding the business to a new area.
  • Utilising various ad formats to make users recognise your brand.

• Lead Generation, if you’re planning on:

• • Encouraging existing customers to communicate their interest in your products or services by providing their contact information or subscribing to your newsletter.

• Product and Brand Consideration, if you’re planning on:

• • Encouraging prospects to take your brand or products into consideration when they’re looking or shopping for specific products or services.
  • Interacting with audiences who have expressed interest in your brand.
  • Urging audiences to consider your brand in the future.

• Sales, if you’re planning on:

• • Driving sales or conversions via online, in-app, phone, or in-store.
  • Driving sales or conversions from potential customers or clients ready to take action.
  • Engaging customers who’ve already made contact with you or are close to deciding on making a purchase.

• Website Traffic, if you’re planning on:

• • Driving potential customers to visit your website.

• Choosing the Right Campaign Type

It’s not just about the “where” you advertise; you also have to think about the “how”. There are types of PPC campaigns, and what you end up choosing depends on your business’s marketing goals, brand strategy, and the amount of time you can put in.

That’s not to say you can’t combine one type from the other. Advertising means consistently experimenting and innovating ways of promoting your brand.

In this section, we’ll be discussing the different campaign types and what type fits different advertising needs:

• Search Campaigns – These are the text ads you see displayed on search results that reach users researching similar products and services on Google. They’re great for generating sales, leads, or traffic as they show the ads to users searching for what you’re offering.
• Display Campaigns – This type lets you reach your audience with visually compelling advertisements as they’re browsing over websites, applications, and even on YouTube. They’re great for expanding your reach and staying on your audience’s minds beyond a single Google search.
• Video Campaigns – This type displays your video ads on Google-owned properties, like YouTube and onto other websites. Some video ads are great for boosting brand recognition and the general awareness of your brand. At the same time, other video ads are created for driving conversions or spurring people to shop on your website.
• Shopping Campaigns – They are product listings you see being displayed on Google’s Shopping tab. This type is ideal for retailers looking to sell their product inventory. You can also make use of the “local inventory ads” for promoting products that are available in your physical store.
• App Campaigns – This type helps in finding new app users and increasing the revenue inside your app. App campaigns use information from your application and automatically optimise ads over 3 million websites and applications like Search, Play, YouTube and many more.
• Local Campaigns – This type helps in bringing prospective customers or clients to a physical store or venue. Ads are automatically optimised to be displayed over Search, Google Maps, Display, and YouTube.
• Smart Campaigns – This type is the easiest in automating your ad campaigns and getting them up and running. Just enter your business’s information, create some ads, and Google will find the best targeting that’s worth your time and money.
• Discovery Campaigns – This type lets businesses deliver highly visual, personalised ad experiences to audiences who are ready to engage with their brand with a single campaign.
• Hotel Campaigns – This type allows bidding for hotel ads displayed on search results when travellers search for hotels on Google Search or Google Maps. They come as a hotel booking module showing hotel photos, prices, amenities, and a URL for booking.
• Call Campaigns – This type can get you to set up call campaigns that urge prospects to call in with just a click or a tap on your ad. They are fine-tuned to show up only on devices capable of making calls. There’s also a setting where you only show your ads when your business takes calls.

• Performing Keyword Research

A successful paid search campaign isn’t launched blindly. The paramount to generating a high return your investment from this strategy is spending your time researching to understand:

• Which keywords should you place your bid on, and how much will this cost you?
• What are your competitors running their ads on, and what message are they trying to get across?

You can determine the best and appropriate keywords to use for your campaigns using keyword search tools. What you need to do is input a starting keyword. From there, you are served with a whole lot of relevant keywords to use in building your campaign.

Some tools have a feature that will help you capture your competitor’s insights. You can analyse what they are doing, break down their strategy, and understand how much their PPC expenditures and the number of traffic they are generating.

Seeing what ads other brands are running also helps you in writing compelling ad copies that will stand out and are distinct from your competitors.

It’s a massive help in launching your own paid search campaign and can help in benchmarking your campaign’s performance contrary to your closest competitors.

Setting Up Google Analytics and Tracking

Google Analytics is a tool that provides insight into your website’s performance, how a visitor interacts with a page within your website, and what content they deem attractive. Information gathered from this tool can be valuable for your paid search campaign.

• Consider Using Ad Extensions

An ad extension lets you add features to your advertisements, which then increases their performance. Here are some of the following extensions you can consider using:

• Sitelink Extension – This extension allows you to add more links to your ad. They’re great for directing people to a specific page on your website. When searchers click or tap the links, they usually go directly to the information they need or the product they want to buy.
• Call Extension – This extension lets you add contact numbers to your text ads, significantly increasing click-through rates. When these extensions appear, searchers can easily click a button to contact your business directly.
• Location Extension – This extension helps searchers find your location by displaying your business address, map location, or its distance on your text ads. When searchers click on your ad or tap on the extension, they get more relevant information about your business in one place.
• Affiliate Location Extension – This extension helps retail chains reach potential consumers when they’re in the middle of deciding what or where to buy. They’re great for assisting people find nearby shops selling your products.
• Lead Form Extension – This extension can help you in generating leads by getting people to submit a form containing their information in your ad directly.
• Price Extension – This extension gives more avenues to showcase the range of products or list of services you offer. They usually appear below your ads and may appear as a set of eight cards, with each extension having its link. When people tap these cards, they will see the prices and options you offer.
• Callout Extension – This extension allows additional texts to be included in your text ads to show more information about your brand, products, or services.
• Structured Snippet Extension – These are snippets highlighting specific aspects of your products or services in the form of a header that can be seen below your text ad. For example, a header “Destination” with a list of values such as “Italy, Greece, Germany, Norway.”
• App Extension – This extension showcases a link to your app from your text ad. It’s usually shown below your ads, and if users click this link, it will direct them to your app’s page in Google Play or the App Store.

• Setting Your Budget

Evaluate your average CPC thoroughly and define how much you will allocate for your campaign budget. You can find the appropriate price per click using the average profit for each customer, profit margin, and conversion rate. Use the formula provided below:

It’s vital that you know the difference between what you’re paying upfront for each click versus what you’ll ultimately be gaining from it.

If you’re paying $3 per click and gain $300 in revenue, you’re undoubtedly enjoying the success of an effective paid search campaign. However, not every click can yield a sale of that size or make any at all.

This is what makes evaluating your average profit per customer and conversion rate important. It gives a clever idea of how much to spend on your campaigns.

• Creating High-Converting Landing Pages

Are you developing landing pages with high relevance to the keywords you are targeting? The more searchers find your page useful, the less you will be paying for each click. As such, carefully targeted landing pages with relevant content tend to drive more conversions.

Your page should offer real value to visitors while marking your company as a reliable source and a thought leader in the industry.

• Crafting Your Ads

Text ads comprise a headline, URL, and a brief ad copy. Make sure to create your ad copy in such a way that perfectly encapsulates your product or service and is compelling enough to pique attention.

Also, remember that there’s a limitation to the number of characters you can use for your headline and ad copy. So, make sure you include unique value propositions and a strong call-to-action. You can also make use of your targeted and related keywords here.

• Placing Your Bids

Place your bids on the search terms you have identified along the process and keep in mind to stay within the budget you have previously decided on. You can also opt on setting up automatic bidding. This means the bid is automatically adjusted according to parameters, such as your cost per acquisition (CPA) and conversion rate.

Bid modifiers let you target a more specific audience, which can be a great help, especially in smaller budget ad auctions. For instance, bidding on ads that only run on mobile devices or computers exclusively.

Creating An Effective PPC Strategy

If you plan on diving into Pay-Per-Click, you need a solid strategy that helps cut back loss and maximises the profit. On another note, you must exert a considerable amount of time and effort to make the strategy work. Here are three phases to consider to make a great advertising plan:

Planning Phase

Before you go on spending your ad budget, you must get this work done first and foremost. This includes:

• Set PPC goals – Is your goal to increase brand awareness? Sales? Lead generation?

• Create audience personas – Who is your target? What are their needs?

• Competitor analysis – What insights can you gain from your competitors in the industry?

• Keyword discovery – How are users searching for the products or services you’re offering? Find search terms or phrases based on the elements discussed above.

• Marketing channels – Deliberate how you’ll be presenting your brand from different touchpoints. Make sure you offer them a seamless experience from one channel to another.
• Brand protection – Consider how you’re going to ward off click frauds and establish a strong, widely-recognised brand image.

Execution Phase

During this phase, think about how the strategy will be executed. Will you be the one to set it up, an in-house local expert, or will you be outsourcing an agency to do all the work for you?

Irrespective of whoever will do it, it’s essential to consider the following:

• Audience targeting – Engage your audience through remarketing or cleverly timing it at the same time around a significant life event.
• Ad headlines – It’s an integral aspect of a successful paid search campaign. Headlines must be a compelling and concise value proposition with a persuasive call-to-action.
• Landing pages – Regardless if it is your website’s home page or a specific individual page, it must be relevant and equally compelling. Relevance is the key to converting people after clicking your ad.

Optimisation Phase

An ad campaign will not survive and is doomed to fail if you don’t regularly optimise it.

Accumulating data about the latest trends or learning what’s happening in the industry gives insight into making informed decisions for your campaign. Changes and adjustments on your bids, keyword lists, and ad copies can pay off big time.

That’s how much data is an integral part of an advertising campaign.

Why You Should Understand the Customer Journey

In pay-per-click advertising, who do you think is the star of it all? Isn’t it the customers? That’s why it’s crucial to think about the journey they will go through. Make sure to keep user intent in mind and adjust your advertising efforts to connect with them at every stage.

If you get it right, you’ll enjoy the benefits and rewards that come as leads, conversions, and above all, profit.

It can be mapped out with respect to your marketing funnel divided into the top, middle, and bottom sections.

Top of the Funnel

The first phase is about the audience becoming aware of a need for a solution, which includes two things:

• Exposure – Prospect finds out and is now aware of your brand. Consider your impressions and impression share and how your budget is being allocated in spreading brand awareness.
• Discovery – Typically, a consumer needs to engage with a brand on more than one occasion before deciding whether they’re going to purchase or not. Streamline this by developing engaging and relevant landing pages with a powerful CTA, and conclusively, provide a smooth and seamless experience.

Middle of the Funnel

You’ve done the initial brand awareness, and consumers will now start to compare their options. During this phase, it’s going to be all about consideration.

Consumers are going to be conducting research on different brands, as well as their products and services. Now’s your chance to come up with various tactics to persuade them:

• Remarketing – Use your website cookies to track consumer behaviour and proceed to target them with a follow-up ad.

• Personalised product recommendations – Who doesn’t love anything personalised? Offer potential customers personalised recommendations. It’s likely to end in conversion rather than just generic offers they probably receive all the time.
• Brand storytelling – Humans are natural storytellers. Customers are the same. Use clever and compelling copy into cajoling them into believing your brand message.

Bottom of the Funnel

The final phase is to, finally, convert leads. It’s how most PPC campaigns usually end but understand that conversions don’t always mean sales. It’s when a user completes the action you’ve laid out as the goal, for instance, when they:

• Subscribe to your newsletter.
• Download your eBook.
• Sign-up for your webinar.

Businesses traditionally considered conversion as the culmination of the advertising or marketing cycle.

However, modern marketers beg to differ.

Conversion is not what’s the end of the line. Instead, it’s the start of a long and blossoming relationship between a business and the customer. Plus, it’s more economical to keep and nurture existing customers than acquiring new ones.

Brands should seek into nurturing brand loyalty so customer retention rates will improve. In the long run, this will make each customer valuable. They will be the ones to help you acquire brand advocates, making it much easier and cheaper to gain new customers.

Section II – Pay-Per-Click Advertising Data Analytics

Now that you got the fundamentals of pay-per-click, time to dive deeper. This part explores how data has affected paid advertising. Here, you will discover data-driven analytics and other optimisation strategies.

Let’s begin.

Data-Driven Attribution Model Enhances PPC Success

Remember the last ad a user clicked before converting into a paying customer? It’s what attributes to conversion. In this industry, data is the driving force of modern businesses. Because of data-driven analytics and analysis, we’re able to dig deeper and gain more insight into your customer’s buying journey.

What is PPC Data Analytics?

A comprehensive evaluation and insight of a pay-per-click advertising campaign’s key components using the following metrics:

• Impressions
• Clicks
• Conversions
• Cost-per-Acquisition (CPA)

Benefits of PPC Data Analytics

Adapting the data-driven approach of analysing your PPC campaigns can benefit you in many ways, such as:

• Understanding a customer’s buying journey – This helps you get a better perspective of how a user converts into a customer. And it further refines your keyword selection process, ad copies, and your brand’s voice.

• Identifying negative keywords – This helps in filtering out unqualified traffic and in avoiding wasting your campaign budget on insignificant clicks.

• Discovering new useful keywords – This will help generate more conversions and maximise your ROI.
• Determining your best and worst ads – This can help you figure out what works and what doesn’t, thus, budgeting more wisely.

Changes cannot be easily predicted, especially in a digital space. That’s why data-driven analytics is important because it gives more nuance and a clearer insight into your campaign at every level. With better data and actionable insights at hand, you can make better decisions that’ll surely capitalise on every bit of your budget.

Here’s the Reason Why Google Ads Policies Are Rejecting Your Ads

There are times where Google will block your ads and won’t show them on the SERP or display network. It can be very stifling, especially if you have no idea why or what’s happening.

Well, it happens for reasons, such as:

• Ad text format – There’s a chance your ad text violated one of Google Ads’ policies. It may have exceeded the character limit or appear to be ‘spammy’ with the excess use of capitalisations, exclamatory signs, or even bizarre claims.

• URL – Is the link you’re using correct and present?

• Keywords – Be original and avoid making use of branded keywords that are already the property of another brand.

• Restricted content – Everything offered in your ad should be honest and genuine. Anything that sparks dishonesty or counterfeit is more than likely getting flagged.
• Billing information – Make sure you’ve set up your correct billing information to get the most out of Google Ads.

There’s a clear roster of policies and disclaimers advertisers should abide by for Google Ads to approve their ads, such as:

• Avoid violating the trademark rules.
• Avoid publishing content focusing on adult entertainment, gambling, explosive products, etc.
• Avoid displaying your company’s phone number in your ad copies. Use call extensions instead.
• Get rid of any previously disapproved ads from your account.

After submitting your ad, it’ll go through a review process, and Google Ads will mark it with these statuses:

• Eligible – Ad is still undergoing the review process; however, it may start showing up on a few of Google’s search pages during the initial scanning.

• Under Review – Ad won’t be displayed until Google fully approves of it.

• Approved – Ad fully complies with all of Google’s policy measures.

• Approved Limited – Ad is marked as approved, but visibility is limited due to content and industry restrictions.
• Disapproved – Ad violates the policy measures and, thus, won’t be allowed.

Build your knowledge of PPC with the help of Google Ads. In the future, when you’re launching your PPC campaign, you’ll be able to pass without any hitches. Another effective way is by discussing it with PPC marketing experts.

Essential Questions to Ask PPC marketing experts to Improve Your Campaign

No matter how powerful PPC marketing is, the limitation of knowledge will always hinder success. If you very much want to bring out its full potential, tapping an expert is sometimes the best choice. Asking the important questions can help develop your knowledge and understanding of how this channel works.

Prior to getting an expert for your business, it’s better if you figure out your goals first. This helps in guiding you on what questions to ask and lets you work together in determining if your budget is utilised correctly.

Here are some example questions to inquire about:

How should I be planning my budget?

Establish a balance between budgetary control and room for a growth opportunity. Evaluate your goals and daily ad budget and find out whether your current balance will make your goals feasible.

How do I measure my PPC campaign’s success?

This depends on how your goals are set and aligned. A truly successful PPC campaign delivers a positive return on investment (ROI), whether on conversions, clicks, or revenue.

How can I track conversions?

The key to success in PPC advertising relies on tracking and optimisation. Examine the keywords your audience is using, then make adjustments on your bids and target valuable search terms with more likelihood of generating conversions.

What components influence the Quality Score?

Quality Score (QS) is a vital diagnostic tool meant to give an insight into the quality of your ad campaign in comparison to your other advertising competitors. You can measure the score on a scale from 1 to 10 (1 being “below average” and 10 being “above average”).

The performance of these three combined components calculate an ad’s QS: 

• Expected click-through rate (CTR) – How likely will your ad be clicked when shown on the search results?

• Ad relevance – Does your ad match the intent behind users’ searches?
• Landing page experience – Is your landing page valuable and relevant to the people clicking on your ad?

Improving your QS will benefit the performance of your ad campaign and CPC rate, which PPC marketing experts can surely help you with.

Using Visual Storytelling in Your PPC Strategy

Nowadays, visual content has been on the rise, and the world is obsessed with it.

PPC is no different. Not only does it bring your brand’s message to life, but it’s also a very effective method of getting people engaged with your brand.

Data visualisations are great as they bring impact and can be used in the PPC process too to: 

• Devise your PPC strategy – You can create a well-planned and solid strategy from data visualisations from your previous ad campaigns.

• Identify problems – Trawling through a screen full of numbers is just exhausting. It’s easier to figure out the flaws in your previous campaigns through clear visuals such as graphics and charts. Not only is it time-efficient, but it also makes data analysis more interesting.

• Select Keywords – Data visualisations help in discovering low-performing keywords. It also enables you to identify new and much more promising search terms to include in your ad campaign.

• Holistic view for final touch-ups – At a glance, it’s easier for anybody to get insights from a visual analysis point of view. It gives an overhead view of all the critical metrics of PPC and will be simpler to plug the holes in the strategy.
• Execute your strategy – As paid advertising is a continuous process, visuals will only continue to be valuable. Consider using visual reports in monitoring and optimising your ad campaigns on a continual basis.

Data visualisation is a very effective tool. Embracing this method of analysis will help advance your understanding of PPC campaigns.

How to Effectively do PPC Campaign Audit 

A PPC audit is a comprehensive and in-depth evaluation of your ad account that determines the effectiveness of your PPC efforts.

If you know how to do the audit properly, it can alter your fortune in the short run and give you a whole lot of knowledge that affects your performance and improves your ROI in the long run.

Here are ten steps to doing an effective audit for your PPC campaigns:

• Goals

What is your main goal for conversion? When running a campaign, ensure goals are set because it helps direct the path of your customer’s buying journey. After you have defined your objectives, make sure the call and conversion tracking are enabled and set up your CPA (cost per action).

• Campaign Analysis

You can easily make a review of your campaign settings in Google Ads. It only takes a few minutes. However, don’t just skim over it – be proactive and find opportunities in optimising your campaign.

• Settings Analysis

During PPC audits, it’s not unheard of for some of your settings to be changed. Think about how features like mobile bids, location targeting, and day-parting can be used.

• Search Network Ad Group Analysis

For PPC, conversion is the ultimate goal. That’s why make sure every aspect of your campaigns is prepped to generate high conversion rates. Regularly do evaluations of your ads, keywords, Quality Score, and landing page.

• Display Network Ad Group Analysis

Similar to the Search network, you also have to examine how each of your ad groups is targeting the search terms, audiences, and interests. Make sure to analyse from top to bottom to hone in the best audience for your business.

• Ads Analysis

Never rely on Google to do all the work for you. In PPC audits, you have to search for issues or flaws the autopilot system has missed. For instance:

• Are all of the ad groups in your campaign split-testing multiple versions?
• Are your display ad campaigns using text and image ads?
• Have you checked any broken links, grammatical errors or misspellings on all of your ads?

• Bid-Based Analysis

Stop wasting your budget on locations, time periods, or devices that aren’t doing anything for your campaign. Evaluate your campaign’s results and performance and make adjustments accordingly.

• Landing Page Analysis

Are your landing pages mobile responsive and optimised for conversions? They may go beyond Google Ads, but they make an impact on your key metrics, which is why it’s essential to test and alter them until they’re perfect.

• Comparison from Previous Period

Make comparisons of your CPA (cost-per-acquisition) from your previous period data.

• Budget Utilisation

Are you losing impression shares because of a tight budget? Think about your conversion rates and campaign budget over the past three months. Try to figure out any aspect that’s affecting your ROI negatively. They need to be removed.

How Competition Analysis Improves Your PPC Strategy

While it’s easy to think of your competitors as mere threats, they’re actually an excellent avenue to help you succeed – that is, if you’re adept at doing a competitor analysis.

Here are five steps on learning from the competition:

• Identifying your competition – Consider conducting in-depth market research to identify nearby competition with similar products or services that are also targeting the same audiences.

• Discovering your competition’s keywords – Develop a comprehensive list of their keyword search terms and get a clearer picture of user intent. Furthermore, you get to learn how they are thriving.

• Studying their Ad Copies – Examine their CTAs (call-to-action). How are your competitions using their CTAs to get their value across their paid ads? How can you apply the same thing to your campaigns?

• Analysing their Landing Pages – How are their landing pages delivering customer experience?

• Mobile Optimisation – Is your landing page optimised for mobile devices? Is it seamless and engaging? Think about how to optimise your landing page for mobile device users to gain a competitive advantage.

Best Practices for a Quality PPC Strategy

Let’s get into some of the best PPC practices that fully maximise your time, effort and, of course, your budget.

PPC Ad Copy

A powerful ad copy will get users to click on the ad. Let people know you can give what they are searching for, and make sure you get that message across clearly.

Search ads are usually composed of an ad headline, a URL, and a brief description of your product or service. Each element has a limited character requirement. To fully utilise the limited space, ensure your ad copies:

• Address your target persona directly.
• Incorporate the main keyword you placed a bid on.
• Provide a persuasive call-to-action that spurs searchers to take the next action.
• Make your offer appealing.
• Use the exact language as your landing page.
• Conduct A/B split testings on your ad copies.

Landing Page 

Perhaps the second most crucial element of a paid search campaign (your ad copies being the first) is the page you direct your lead to after clicking on your ad.

The landing page must provide a seamless experience, show relevance to the ad, and most importantly, deliver what was promised. You may think, “Why?” Isn’t the purpose of a landing page to convert visitors into leads or paying customers? In addition, an effective landing page improves the Quality Score (QS), which can improve your ad placement on the SERPs.

Don’t waste your effort and money by crafting a poor landing page.

Here’s what a high-converting PPC landing page should include to drive conversions and generate sales:

• Solid and compelling headline mirroring the one you have on your ad.
• A clean layout and design.
• Easy to use, responsive form with a clear CTA button.
• Specific and comprehensive copy relevant to your keywords.
• Presents and delivers the offer promised on the ad.
• Has been A/B tested.

A/B Testing Your Ads

An efficient marketer rarely chucks something out to their audience without testing if it’s effective or not. It’s no different with PPC. A/B testing is equally a vital key to your campaign as with every other element in it. Its goal is to increase your conversion and click-through rate (CTR).

The good thing is you only need to test four parts of an ad:

• Ad Headline
• Brief Description
• Landing Page
• Keywords

Minor adjustments and tweaks can significantly change the results, so make sure you do it one at a time to track the improvements easily.

Finally, test your ads early enough and let them run for a considerable amount of time to gather valuable data. After all, there’s no point wasting your budget on poorly-performing ads.

Maximising Your ROI

By carefully examining customer lifetime value (CLV) and customer acquisition cost (CAC), you can gain insight into how you can maximise your returns (profit). This also helps in determining how much you can afford to invest in new leads.

Let’s talk about inputs and outputs. There are two avenues to take this on:

1. Lower your cost per lead (CPL). [Input]
2. Increase your return (ROI). [Output]

Additional PPC Tips and Tricks

Let’s discuss a few other things that help maximise your return on investment (ROI).

Audience Segment Targeting

Use audience segment targeting to your ad groups and interact with your leads based on their segment. This element improves the performance of your ad campaign by getting in contact with users who are browsing websites, watching videos, or using apps.

Audiences of Search, Display, Video, and Hotel campaigns are made up of segments grouped based on their demographic information, intent, and interest estimated by Google. When you add an audience to specific campaigns or ad groups, there are various segments you can use for targeting, such as:

• Affinity – Engage these people based on something they are passionate about, their interests, and even their habits.

• Custom segments – Contingent on how you’ve set your campaign goals, you can reach these people by paying attention to their habits, what they are passionate about, or their current interests. You can also reach them based on the intent of their recent purchase.

• Detailed Demographics – You can reach these people using their life facts.

• Life Events – Make sure to reach these people when they are celebrating or are in the middle of significant milestones in life.

• In-Market – You can reach these people based on the intent of their recent purchase.

• Remarketing (Your Data) – Reach back to people who have already interacted or made contact with your business.

• Website and App Visitors – These are users who have visited your website and/or app.

• Customer Match – Current customers from the data of your CRM.

• Similar Segments – People who share similar interests with your existing customers or website visitors.

Bid Adjustments

You can make adjustments to your bid depending on how your ads are performing. Consider factors like categories, devices, demographics, language, and many more.

As an example, if one of your targeted keywords isn’t performing well on mobile devices, unlike on desktop, you can make a bid adjustment. When searchers now enter that keyword on a mobile device, your bid is already X% lower than the amount you usually go for.

Custom Ad Scheduling

Ad scheduling is about displaying your ad only at certain times and days. Setting this up cuts down on your ad spend and improves ad relevance on search results.

Conversion Tracking

Conversion tracking means monitoring the performance of your landing page through a tracking code placed on a page (typically a “Thank You” page) where prospects are directed after submitting the customer contact form. You are better equipped in making campaign and bid adjustments with the data you’re getting from conversion tracking.

Keyword Monitoring

Regularly monitor your keywords. Avoid letting so much time pass before checking your keywords’ performance. Make a habit of monitoring and tracking how well they’re performing and make adjustments, if necessary.

Like, place a higher bid on keywords generating great results for the campaign, or you can lower the bid or eliminate the underperforming ones.

Match Types

There are keyword match types you can use to control which terms trigger the ads and how wide the variations are, such as:

• Broad match: This type displays your ads for search queries with spelling mistakes, synonyms, related search queries, and other similar variants. For example, if a user’s searches for ‘women’s dress,’ it triggers ads for ‘ladies dress’. Furthermore, this type has the least control over the keywords than other types.
• +Broad +Match +Modifier:  This type works similarly as the broad match but only gets triggered when search terms have a “+” sign before them (or close variants of those search terms). Close variations can include terms with similar meanings. Additional words may appear before, after or in between the terms.
• “Phrase Match”: This type shows matches of the phrase (or close variants) with additional words appearing before or after the search phrase. Close variations can include terms with similar meanings.
• Exact Match: This type only shows the exact keyword terms or close variants of the exact search term and has the tightest control over the keywords that trigger your ads.

Negative Keywords

A negative keyword can rule out certain search terms from your active campaigns and help focus only on keywords relevant to searchers. Better targeting puts your ads in front of users and, thus, increases your ROI (return on investment).

In selecting negative keywords, look for:

• Similar search terms that may show up for searchers looking for a different product.
• Search terms giving unwanted impressions.
• Search terms getting fewer engagements.
• Search terms you don’t want to rank for.

You can add these keywords to a negative keyword list. Then, you can apply this list to all active campaigns in your account. This way, you won’t have to add them to each campaign repeatedly.

Location Targeting

The purpose of location targeting is for controlling who will be seeing your ad, especially if you’re a local business that only serves customers of some geographical regions. There’s also targeting multiple locations within an ad group by setting a targeted radius or choosing a specific city or region.

Campaign Budget

Your campaign’s daily ad budget can be set on the amount you want to spend. Bear in mind, however, Google Ads can (and will) overspend your daily ad budget up to two times the amount.

Other Bidding Strategies

PPC typically means you’re paying per click on advertisement networks. However, platforms have developed and have been providing different bidding strategies.

You can potentially use the following strategies depending on the goals you’ve set and the type of ad format you’re using:

• Targeting cost-per-action (CPA)
• Targeting return on ad spend (ROAS)
• Maximising Conversions
• Maximising Conversion Value
• Enhanced cost-per-click (ECPC)
• Maximising Clicks

With the other bidding strategies listed above, you’re either letting Google take the wheel and automatically place the bids for you and pay according to that action, set a targeted ROAS, or focus on generating conversions or clicks depending on your budget.

Build a Powerful Pay-Per-Click Marketing Campaign

PPC is a profitable marketing channel. It’s important to make sure your PPC campaigns are properly targeted and structured to get optimum results.

That’s why take the time to learn how launching and optimising a campaign, setting goals, and measuring performance work properly, and you’ll reap the benefits in no time.

If you still don’t know where to start after reading this guide, Business Key is more than happy to help.