Bait-And-Click: 4 Expert Tips On Creating A Successful PPC Strategy For Your Business
Getting to the front page of the SERPs is the holy grail of digital marketing. Unfortunately for us marketers, there is no gimmick or trick for making that happen.
Except that there is. It’s called Pay-Per-Click Advertising, or PPC.
Paying to promote your digital assets puts your ads at the top of the search engine results. Considering that 46% of clicks on the first page of Google, that’s reason alone to at least consider PPC as part of your digital marketing campaign.
Considering that paid ads can increase brand awareness by up to 80%, that pretty much seals the deal. It’s worth your time, as business owners and digital marketers, to at least investigate PPC advertising.
Going about it without a PPC strategy is like setting money on fire and throwing it down the garbage disposal, however. It’s never a good idea to just wing it in business. This is especially true when every single click costs you money.
Here are some tips for running an effective PPC strategy so you can make the most of your paid ads.
Your Guide to PPC Strategy
PPC is always changing. Towards the tail end of last year, Google updated their ads service, from AdWords to Google Ads. This offers a bit of breathing room for newcomers to break into the top paid search results.
One of the biggest changes to Google’s PPC platform is that exact phrases are no longer required to show up in the search engine results.
Now that close matches also count for PPC campaigns, you no longer have to try and factor for unwieldy SEO phrases. Now you can promote your content, in earnest, without having to create spammy ads or content.
Here are some other tips for constructing a successful PPC strategy in 2019.
Try Out Different Channels
Even though it’s exciting that Google is becoming more available to regular companies, it’s still only one of the search engines at your disposal.
Other useful sources of PPC traffic include:
You can even promote your products and services on Quora, the social question and answer site. Quora is surprisingly useful for targeting PPC ads, it turns out.
Quora lets you configure your PPC ads for to emulate search engine queries and social media inquiries. It also features powerful, robust metrics for tracking your conversions and costs.
Perhaps most importantly, Quora lets you showcase your products and services in use. Context helps people relate to your brand, making it no longer just an ad.
Social proof is one of the most powerful tools available to a digital marketer. At that point, it stops being advertising and becomes a word-of-mouth recommendation instead.
Consider the Buyer’s Journey
The age of direct advertising is long since over. Think of receiving a telemarketing call when you’re sitting down to eat dinner. Are you likely to purchase this product or service?
Not likely.
Instead of constructing your PPC ads like an old-school paper advertisement, create different content for buyers in different stages of their buyer’s journey. Each stage will have its own unique calls-to-action, based upon what you’re trying to convert for.
If someone were conducting an entry-level search, say “How does PPC marketing work?”, you might serve up an ad asking them to sign up for your newsletter, for instance.
This is one way that PPC differentiates from traditional marketing. It’s even more powerful, more customizable, and more targeted. It can still cost loads less than a traditional print marketing campaign, at the same time.
Create Different Retargeting Lists
The ability to re-target potential customers who’ve seen your ads is another powerful benefit of PPC advertising. You shouldn’t lump all of your retargeted ads, however, at the risk of alienating your audience.
Say, for instance, that someone clicked on one of your ads yesterday. Your brand is going to be much fresher in their brain that someone who clicked through two months ago.
The colder a lead is, the more you should entice them to revisit your site. Consider adding incentives, asking questions, or engaging with your audience in other creative ways. It’ll yield greater results than simply asking them to ‘click here.’
Consider Audiences
PPC advertising is moving further and further away from keywords. Algorithms are changing to increasingly consider the context of a query. The audience is another significant want that PPC ads are being segmented and served.
This PPC trend requires segmenting your audience in new and creative ways. You might have one funnel for a brand-new visitor. You’ll have another for loyal, returning customers.
You can even segment your audience by geographic region. This can be highly useful, especially if you have a physical storefront, as people who click on mobile ads are increasingly likely to visit a physical location.
It can be highly useful if you sell physical products or services, as well.
Leveraging your audience can also serve as a form of social proof. You might include a CTA in one of your sales funnels, asking your customers to share some of your content or tag you in a social media post.
If you get creative, PPC advertising can become free advertising, and marketing, from real people. That’s better than money can buy.
PPC advertising isn’t going anywhere. It’s still a major presence in the world of online marketing. It’s simply adapting and we must evolve with it.
If you’re looking for more PPC strategy, you can find more tips over here.
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