The Ultimate Guide to PPC Marketing

The return on investment for PPC marketing is almost 200%. It shows a $2 return for every $1 spent.

PPC is a part of search engine marketing in which advertisers display their ads on a variety of platforms like search engines and social media.

Pay-per-click advertising allows businesses to bid on chosen keywords relevant to their products or services, and they can pay the publishing website for every click they receive on their site.

As a marketer or business owner, Pay-per-click marketing is a must-try strategy due to its high return rate.

However, PPC advertising is tricky for beginners. Therefore, you should know how PPC works and how it benefits your brand in the long run.

This article will comprehensively explain the concept of PPC marketing and its ecosystem. I will discuss the best PPC platforms and how they can position your brand at the top to compete with other businesses.

Let’s begin!

 

What is PPC?

PPC stands for pay-per-click. It is a part of search engine advertising where the advertiser pays a fee for every click on their advertisement listed on search engines or web pages that are a part of the display ad network.

Not only does PPC improve click-through rates and website traffic, but it also helps in quality lead generation for your brand.

If done correctly, PPC can reap a high ROI, further maximizing profit margins.

Here is an example of a PPC ad in action for the search query “best PPC tools”.

How Does Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Work?

PPC campaigns are majorly based on keywords. The cost of your ad campaigns highly depends on the keywords you choose. You will have to pay a higher price if you choose a competitive keyword.

The PPC model is beneficial because it allows you to get your products and services appear in front of your targeted audience, who actively search for phrases relating to your niches and locations.

A well-built PPC campaign can get you valuable leads who are likely to make a purchase. This increases your return on investment as you save a substantial amount of money from potential customers that exceed the cost of clicks paid to the publisher.

PPC advertising works differently for different platforms, but the basic process remains the same for all pay-per-click platforms.

Here are the most common ways how pay-per-click works:

• Based on your marketing goals, choose how you want your ad to be displayed and which type of campaign and format you want for your branding.
• Sign up for an advertising account with platforms such as Google Ads, Meta Ads, Bing Ads, and more.
• Start creating innovative and customer-focused ad groups using keywords and phrases.
• Next step is to decide a budget and price you are willing to pay for every click.
• Now, your bidding price and the ad will be auctioned with other advertisers longing for the exact keywords.
• The ad auction results will determine how your ad will be displayed and on which rank.
• Finally, you pay the price for every click you get from visitors on these ads.

Best PPC Platforms

Here are the best PPC platforms:

1. Google Ads

Google Ads, one of the most popular ad networks, is an online platform to market your product, service, and promotional video to a web user to improve your brand awareness and escalate lead generation rate by driving traffic to your site.

It is so much in demand due to the popularity of the Google search engine and the reach it has among the audience.

In the Google Ads display network, you can place ads in Google search results and websites that accept AdSense.

The ad creative can be in the form of text, image, gif, or video.

You must bid for your ad to rank higher when shoppers use specific keywords and phrases relating to your niche. If your bid is highest in the Google Ad auction, your ad rank will likely be higher on search engines (SERP).

Here are the key features of Google Ads:

• It has a unique feature called AdWords Express that aims at small businesses struggling to reduce the difficulty of executing ad campaigns by managing keywords placement and advertising placements.
• Google Ads Editor, one of the top Google Ads features, is a downloadable program that allows you to make bulk changes and edit your ads offline. Also, it allows you to track ad performance.
• Keyword Planner is a Google Ads feature that provides data on Google searches and other resources that helps you plan your marketing campaigns.
• The Reach Planner offers you to forecast the traffic and reach the extent of the video ads on YouTube and Google Video Partners websites. Not just that, this tool also allows you to choose your targeted audience.

As far as the cost of the platform is concerned, Google Ads puts you in charge of your digital advertising costs. You can only pay for the result you get through clicks on your advertisement.

All you need to do is set a boundary and predetermined budget as to how much you want to spend on your Google Ads.

Based on your decided budget, the platform gives you an estimation of your clicks and calls. You can start and stop your campaigns at any given point in time.

The platform provides free expert assistance to promoters like you to help you configure your Google Ads account and figure out your budget.

2. Microsoft Ads

Microsoft Ads is one of the most preferred online advertising platforms that have the potential to take your brand to 653 million monthly unique searchers and 208 million unique users using native advertising techniques.

One of the unique features of Microsoft Ads is that you can import your campaign data from Google Ads and Facebook Ads, which simplifies the process of getting started.

Microsoft Ads help reach relevant audiences with high-buying power and creates personalized experiences using powerful audience intelligence to improve campaign performance and landing page quality.

They help you create your ads in different formats, such as text for search, responsive placement, and images for shopping campaigns.

Microsoft Ads are placed on search engines, Microsoft audience networks (MSN, Outlook, Edge Browser), and quality partner sites like LinkedIn.

Signing up for Micrsoft Ads is free, and the cost of advertising with the platform is not restricted to any minimum or maximum cap.

You only have to pay the advertising platform based on your website’s clicks through ads.

Further, you can schedule a defined budget for your advertisement and adjust your spending daily.

3. Facebook Ads

More than 2 billion people use Facebook, and 1.6 billion people worldwide are connected to a small business on Facebook. With so much reach and audiences, it acts as a great advertising platform to increase your brand awareness in your niche.

Facebook Ads are displayed to users based on their behavior, interest, demographics, and activity. Ad format of the platform involves videos, single images, carousels, and slideshows.

When you work on this platform, you can create and run innovative campaigns with the help of self-serve tools and track their performance with easy-to-read reports.

You don’t have to worry about your target audience, as you’ll find your potential audiences here. An added advantage of investing in Facebook Ads is that it offers multi-channel marketing.

You can display your advertisements not only on Facebook but on platforms like Instagram, Messenger, and Audience Network. Other than these, you can also display your social ads on specific mobile devices.

You can also decide your daily or lifetime budget and the period you want your PPC campaigns to run. This setting helps you keep your spending in check, so you don’t overspend.

Must-Have PPC Tools

Here are the top must-have PPC tools:

1. Google Analytics

The Google Analytics PPC dashboard is an automated analytics tool to track all your key metrics for your pay-per-click campaigns. The software helps you optimize your marketing campaigns and make better business decisions to maximize the return on ad spending.

Google Analytics also allows you to track your Ads performance on other platforms, such as Facebook Ads, Bing Ads, TikTok Ads, LinkedIn Ads, and more.

2. Google Merchant Center

Google Merchant Center is a tool that takes your store and product info into Google and displays it to buyers worldwide.

Most shoppers turn to Google while researching a particular shop or product to find the best deal. Google Merchant Center lets you set up promotions for your shopping ads to maximize ad visibility.

You can also set up a site-wide promotion to your ad to apply to a specific or all the products on your site to attract more traffic and qualified leads.

It offers 2 x higher returns on ad spend and an 8-15% increase in conversion rates.

3. Microsoft Advertising Editor

Microsoft Advertising Editor is a robust desktop application for managing your Microsoft PPC campaigns. It is free to use a downloadable PPC tool that manages paid search ads and audience networks.

This software allows you to manage your ad campaigns online and offline. You can make quick campaign changes and post the revised version with just one click.

Microsoft Advertising Editor allows you to create campaigns, edit PPC ads and manage millions of keywords in bulk. It can scale to all sizes according to your needs.

4. Ahrefs

Ahrefs is a PPC competition analysis tool that monitors the growth of your competitors.

Ahrefs can be used to check how well your pay-per-click campaigns are performing and to discover the top keywords that are working for your competitors.

Enter your competitor’s domain into Site Explorer and go to the PPC Keywords report to see the keywords they’re bidding on in paid search.

For example, if I am an eCommerce site owner, I can analyze Shopify to find the keywords they are bidding on. Here is an example:

5. Semrush

Semrush is another top PPC marketing tool that helps you reveal your main paid search competitors and see the keywords they are bidding on. You can also discover examples of their live ads to create engaging ad copies.

Using PLA research, you can uncover the product pricing strategy of your competitors.

With the help of the Semrush PPC keyword tool, you can set match types, clean keywords, remove duplicates and save money by removing conflicting keywords.

6. Keyword Tool.io

KeywordTool.io is a free online PPC keyword research tool to find phrases and words that have the potential to generate the best leads.

The tool offers a comprehensive list of keywords someone uses when searching for products and services in your niche.

Keyword Tool.io finds relevant phrases and words for advertising platforms such as YouTube, Google, Bing, Amazon, Instagram, Pinterest, and more.

7. Databox

Databox is a PPC reporting tool that offers you to set defined goals, monitor your ad performance, and get real-time data to make critical marketing decisions.

It takes all your PPC data from all the popular sources such as Google Ads, LinkedIn Ads, Facebook Ads, TikTok Ads, and more in one place. You can then build a comprehensive PPC report that proves the return on investment and turns numbers into a narrative to gain quick insights into your social media performance.

It has a free-forever plan with 3 data source connections, all standard features, and 60+ database integrations link.

The paid plan starts at $72/mo and goes up to $231/mo.

PPC Keyword Research

Here are the steps to consider while conducting PPC keyword research:

• Establish your PPC goals: Before you start your keyword research, you must define your campaign goals. These goals can involve the path you want your prospects to take to move down the conversion funnel or how many conversions and clicks you aim for in a set time. Researching keywords using these objectives will help you better understand your visitor’s intent.
• Use automated tools: Manually researching for keywords will take away a lot of time and effort, leading to missing out on opportunities to get a lot of prospects. Searching for keywords is no guessing game. To ensure you are targeting the right keywords, you should take the help of automated keyword tools like Ahrefs or SEMrush.
• Check out keyword metrics: Some keywords have different potentials and relativity. You should look at the keywords’ monthly volume and cost per click to know their relevance. Finding the right balance of volume and cost is essential to get the right keywords into your marketing budget.
• Check what’s already working: Conduct a competitor analysis of PPC keywords using SEMrush, Ahrefs, or any other tool. All you need to do is plug in your competitor’s website and grab their high-performing keywords.
• Target using your data: Once you are ready with your keywords, you need to target them at the best searches. Target matches are divided into three categories, i.e., broad match, phrase match, and exact match. These three go by, as the name suggests. The broad match gets results with exact keywords and phrases relating to it. The phrase match gets narrower results than the broad match with the same approach, and exact match targets search identical to the keyword. For valuable conversions, keep your search target more specific, as your serious leads will likely get specific with their searches.

How to Manage a PPC Campaign

Here are the steps for successful PPC campaign management:

• Optimize your Website: Optimizing your website is the most crucial step of PPC management. The more optimized your site is, the more your conversion rate will be. Shoppers don’t want to disappoint themselves by clicking on an ad and not finding anything relevant.
• Choose a bidding method: Depending on your budget, marketing goals, and your PPC experience, you must carefully decide your bidding method. You can choose between manual bidding and automated bidding. Manual bidding allows you to set a cap on your cost spent per click. On the other hand, automated bidding asks for less effort but a higher price.
• Fix your ad budget: Paid advertising has the advantage of keeping a tab on your budget. Your pay-per-click campaign can be created and managed with minimal spending, as most ad platforms let you fix or change your budget according to your needs.
• Research and choose keywords: Keyword research is the backbone of every PPC campaign. Without proper keywords, your entire PPC campaign will be directionless. Targeting the right keywords by conducting a deep competitor analysis and thinking from shoppers’ point of view will guarantee the success of your PPC campaign and generate a higher conversion rate for every ad that gets clicked. To find the right keywords, you can take the help of the best PPC keyword research tools.
• Create an engaging ad: Once your page is optimized, and you are ready with your list of keywords, it’s time to create the main element of your PPC campaign, a killer ad. Remember that a short and to-the-point ad is more likely to garner audience attention. Your ad should specifically be goal-oriented and you should link your most relevant page. For example, your PPC campaign can focus on a particular segment of products like friendship day sale products.
• Add a CTA button: It’s crucial to add a call-to-action section in your advertisement that redirects to your web URL. Your CTA should be short, crisp,  clear, concise, and compelling.
• Run a test to measure PPC performance: After you have performed all the above actions successfully, it’s time to check whether you have done an excellent job. Measuring your ad performance and making necessary changes to maximize ROI and improve yield results is essential. You can do this by using the A/B testing method, i.e., by running two near-identical versions of the same advertisement but with significant differences such as CTA, keywords, or landing page. Once you know which is working better, stop the less-performing ad and make necessary changes to the better version.

Key PPC Marketing Metrics to Track

Here are the top PPC marketing metrics to track:

Clicks

Clicks are the total number of clicks you get on your ad run.

Cost Per Click (CPC)

Cost per click refers to the amount an advertiser pays for every click they receive on their ad.

Click-through rate (CTR)

The Click-through rate is the aggregated percentage of the ad views that finally results in clicks. This metric determines the amount you are paying as cost-per-click.

Impression Share

Impression share is the percentage of impressions your ad has received compared to what it could receive.

Conversion Rate

Conversion rate means the total number of people that convert into valuable leads by completing the CTA process on your landing page.

Quality Score

Quality score is a metric that determines the effectiveness of your ad and how good your ad quality is compared to other advertisers bidding for the ad. It determines your ad positioning.

Total Conversion Value

Total conversion value refers to the sum of conversions and unattributed conversions of your ads.

Conclusion

PPC is a marketing technique that shows instant results, and you can quickly identify what’s working for your brand and what you can improve.

Follow this PPC marketing guide to start advertising on Google, Bing, and other search engine marketing platforms.

If you need expert assistance, you should join a growth-driving PPC marketing agency, such as Ninja Promo. Contact us to supercharge your PPC marketing ROI.