Many online marketing options are available to business owners. PPC, or pay-per-click, advertising is a marketing strategy that can be an incredibly effective way to generate traffic. This form of internet marketing increases a website’s visibility in the search engines through paid advertising. Learn how to get more traffic by running a PPC campaign.
Basically, when you launch a PPC campaign, you are buying visits to your site. As a PPC marketer, you’ll pay a chosen search engine a small fee each time one of your ads is clicked – driving visitors to your site. There are various strategies to be aware of in order to run an effective PPC campaign.
Ideally, a PPC campaign is considered profitable when the visits to your site generate more money than what you invested in advertising fees. As an example, let’s say you pay $4.00 every time someone clicks on your ad.
This nominal fee is inconsequential if the visitor who clicked your link purchases a product or service on your website that costs $400.00. When viewed in this light, it becomes clear how cost-effective PPC can be, and results can happen quickly.
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PPC Versus Content Marketing
Juxtapose this to driving traffic to your site organically through content marketing. While writing relevant content is not optional, it does take time before you’ll see the results of your hard work. There’s really no way to circumvent this.
The two main PPC networks are Google Adwords (Google) and MSN Adcenter (Bing and Yahoo). Choose just one to begin with. Stick with it until you are comfortable with the process. Then you can branch out to other networks. Social media sites like Facebook and Twitter also have paid advertising.
Factors Involved When Running A PPC Campaign
Many factors are involved when building a winning PPC campaign. Becoming informed on what works and what doesn’t is an important preliminary step before launching your first campaign. The last thing you want is to lose money because you didn’t understand the process. Avoid blowing your budget by adhering to some general PPC guidelines.
Determine The Intent Of Your Campaign
Begin my determining the intent of your campaign. Will it be used in conjunction with your email marketing plan to increase your subscriber list? Or maybe your list is already established, and your goal is to convert your website traffic into paying customers. Is establishing your brand your main objective? Identify your desired result, in order to, strategically craft your campaign.
How Much Money Are You Willing To Spend On Your Campaign?
How many dollars per click are you willing to spend per campaign. Will you be running a single campaign or multiple ones? These are important questions to answer. If your new to PPC, determining your budget can be overwhelming.
Let’s say you decide you pay $0.50 per click for your initial campaign. You have a product on your website that is selling for $30.00. You’ll need to make a sale every 60 clicks just to pay for the campaign.
Conversions over this will result in revenue and a good ROI, or return on investment. Let these numbers help you determine the amount you are comfortable investing in your advertising strategy. Begin with a nominal invest until you get a feel for the process.
Once your bill hits the specified amount, your ads will stop appearing in the search results for the remainder of that budget period. This lets you know exactly the total amount you’ll be paying. Be aware that your estimated budget is a daily one, not a monthly charge.
Pay close attention when you are plugging in numbers. If $500.00 is the most you want to pay monthly, make sure that you aren’t topping out a that amount in clicks each day. Racking up serious charges like this can sink your business over time.
Select Your Keywords Wisely
Without targeted keywords, your campaign will fail miserably. Keywords, or ad groups, are the bread and butter of pay-per-click advertising. Begin by choosing niche-specific keywords.
Your keywords must be relevant to your target audience, your landing page, and the products you are promoting.
If not, you may be penalized by the search engines with higher fees. You’re also wasting your money.
You can be very exacting in the keywords you choose for each campaign. This will allow you to target specific groups of people. Relevant keywords lead to increased conversions. Test what works, in terms of conversion, and what isn’t effective. Over time, you’ll want to remove the keywords that aren’t performing well.
You’ll need a keyword research tool to find a wide range of industry-related keywords that are low competition. I use this one and it’s fabulous. You can try it here.
Ad Groups
Take care in selecting your keywords as they are the core of your advertising strategy. Your goal is to create an ad group with tightly-related keywords. The search engines like this, and it will allow you to create a very targeted ad. Name each ad group, to avoid confusion in the future, as you’ll most likely have many campaigns.
Approximately 1-10 keywords should be selected for each group. More than this could result in a less-targeted ad, and a lower CTR (click through rate). High-quality ad groups translate into higher CTRs, which google rewards by reducing the cost of the ad. Here’s a visual:
Relevant ad group = more clicks = more sales = lower campaign cost
Examples of Keyword Groupings
The following grouping is not a good example of tightly-grouped keywords:
“Gourmet cooking” – “cooking for kids” – “meal planning for those with food allergies” – “feeding the elderly”
Though these keyword phrases are all under the broad category of cooking, they aren’t nearly targeted enough. Let’s narrow our search:
“How to become a gourmet cook” – “becoming a gourmet cook” – “become a cook gourmet” – “gourmet cook becoming”
Disclaimer: this post contains affiliate links
Don’t Forget About The Landing Page
A landing page is exactly what it sounds like – a page that people land on. These pages are important in PPC campaigns because those that click on your ads need to be taken somewhere. And that somewhere is a page that exists on your website.
This will give you an idea of how PPC advertising flows:
Relevant Keyword – Relevant Ad – Relevant Landing Page – Relevant Product Recommendation
See where the landing page fits in? It’s a critical feature in any PPC campaign so familiarize yourself with how to design and build an effective one. A landing page should include engaging content, a relevant offer, and a call-to-action. Having a specific page, for those clicking on your ads, will lead to higher conversion rates.
Ensure that the traffic driven by your campaign converts well by incorporating a landing page into your marketing strategy. Keep your marketing message focused and well-defined to maximize the impact of your campaign.
If you’d like to learn more about internet marketing, PPC campaigns, SEO, landing pages, email marketing, keyword research, and much more, click the banner below or read my REVIEW of how I got started with affiliate marketing. It will be the best decision you’ve ever made, and an incredible investment in your future.
Key Points
PPC campaigns have the potential to earn a lot of money, while reaching a wide audience. The best part is they continue to generate revenue over time once that campaign is successful, and you’ll pay less in advertising fees. Conversion rates, generally remain stable over time, and traffic is predictable in a profitable campaign. The rewards just keep coming!
if you’re not familiar with the world of PPC, I urge you to become acquainted with this effective online marketing strategy, and see where it takes you in terms of website traffic and sales.
Have you dabbled in PPC? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Let me know in the comments:)
PPC marketing can be very complicated for those who are new to it. For this reason, I like that you have broken it down into easy to follow steps, touching on the main aspects that people will need to look into. I also think it’s good that you have links to other more in-depth information for those wanting to look into it more deeply. The flow and layout were easy to follow and the amount of value offered was fantastic. Keep up the good work, Marty.
Hi Marty,
Yes, PPC marketing can be complicated and I tried to make it less so in my article. Thank you so much for reading and taking the time to comment!