PPC Advertising: What, Why and How

Digital advertising is the most cost-effective way to reach your target audience. And if you’re looking to quickly drive traffic to your website, pay per click advertising (PPC advertising) is likely a great option for your business.

What Is PPC Advertising?

PPC advertising is a model where the advertiser pays a fee each time their ad is clicked. For the results to appear on search engines (Like Google, Yahoo and Bing), you should ensure you pay more than your competitor’s ads. Google uses an automated process to determine how relevant your ad is to someone who is searching for your product or service. They also have an automated way to calculate how much your exact cost per click (CPC) will be.

Why You Should Consider Doing PPC

The biggest advantage of using PPC is that your company will almost instantly appear at the top of search engines. Because your ads are targeted to a specific audience, you increase the chance of making a lead or sale. PPC is a great way of attracting new customers.

PPC also lets you pay as you go. Unlike other forms of advertisements, you only pay for clicks – you can run the ad for a few days, months, or whatever period of time you like. PPC offers an opportunity to grow your customer base by connecting with people searching for products/services like yours.

How to Get Started?

PPC advertising helps you reach the audience interested in your products or service. To get started, you should create a paid advertising checklist. This is where you plan your strategy and define your goals.

After that, you should build your advertising keyword list. Next, evaluate and test your different ads. After your ads have been live for a month, you should measure the results. This will ensure your campaign is running efficiently and you are seeing conversions.

PPC On Google AdWords

This is the most popular PPC platform. Google chooses a set of winners every time a search is initiated. The winners are based on the relevance of keywords, quality of ad text and size of keyword bids. More specifically, a metric is used to determine who appears in the Google search results and where they are placed. This is calculated based on the quality score (how good the ad is) and CPC bid (how much the advertiser is willing to spend).

Create compelling ads that deliver the message your audience is looking for. Also, be sure to monitor and measure your PPC campaigns to see how much you’ve spent, how many people have seen your ads and how much you’ve earned.

What is the average cost for Google ads? There’s no one-size-fits-all answer to this question. The average cost per click is $1 to $2 depending on the type of ads you wish to run in Google. Some average competitive keywords in the legal and insurances niches can cost around $6.

When you use PPC, you should expect a 50% return on investment (ROI). This means that when you spend $2, you’ll get $3 back. You should consider your actual ROI, as the months pass, so you can determine how to adjust your marketing budget. If PPC advertising ends up being your best source of business, and the ROI is very good, you might want to move more of your budget into this type of advertising. On the flip side, if the ROI isn’t ideal, you may want to pause your PPC activity, or lower the budget so you only spend money on the keywords and ads that drive the best results.

PPC On Facebook

Facebook provides boundless opportunities for online marketers. The main objective of Facebook PPC is to build brand awareness, generate leads and get more visitors. But before you decide on the specific approach to take, you should have an idea of what you want to accomplish.

If your objective is to increase engagement, click on the ‘engagement’ button during the PPC setup process. Next, create an account and enter your campaign name. The next step is to select your audience. You should zone your target group as close as possible. This should be based on location, gender, age, and the language they speak. If you don’t do this, you’ll end up wasting your money on unqualified ads. For example, if you’re a local coffee shop in Atlanta, you probably don’t want people in Buffalo, NY clicking your ad. Once you finish configuring how your ad is to be displayed, select the budget and schedule it.

Why use PPC on Facebook? This platform has the largest number of users. It’s estimated that more than 2.41 billion people use Facebook every month. The other obvious question is; why should you pay? Because there is so much activity on Facebook, it is unlikely you will get noticed very well, if you do social media marketing without running ads.

For instance, if you have a clothing line, you should ensure the untapped audience sees your ads on their newsfeeds. This is also a huge opportunity to re-connect with past visitors. The great thing about Facebook PPC is that it costs less than other forms of PPC advertising.

The lowest CPC on Facebook is $0.45 while the highest CPC averages $3.77. On average, you should expect to pay $1.72. While the CPC will vary from one industry to another, Facebook remains an affordable PPC advertising platform. If well-executed, your ROI should be 2-3 times the cost of advertising.

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PPC On Twitter

Twitter is an enormous platform with more than 126 million daily users. Although it’s a huge hub for political activism, it’s also popular for business influencers. Whether you’re a small or large brand, you’ll have complete control of your campaigns.

Unlike with other platforms, Twitter allows you to set cost per bid. What’s more, you can identify the niche that matches your products. Your PPC campaign should be based on how much you bid, the size of the target audience, and how engaging your ad is.

If you have a large following, you can make money through PPC advertising on Twitter. The average CPC on Twitter is $0.53, and for every dollar spent on the Twitter ad campaign, you should expect a return of $2.70. To maintain a high ROI your advertising campaign should be brand focused.

PPC On Instagram

Instagram has more than 1 billion active users dominated by younger people. To put this number into perspective, Instagram has roughly as many active users as Twitter, LinkedIn and Snapchat combined. Since the platform was launched in 2015, it has grown steadily.

Why should you use Instagram ads for your PPC campaign? Compared to other social media platforms, Instagram has the fastest-growing audiences. Apart from that, the users spend most of their time on the network. Instagram uses laser-focused advertising by targeting the audience in terms of demographics, behavior, interests and more. If you want your ads to run continuously, you should select the lifetime budget option.

The average CPC on Instagram is $0.7 while the highest price is $1.23. Because Instagram has more engagement than Facebook, it costs more to place an ad. When you spend $1 on an ad, you should expect a return of about $3.

Which PPC Places Are Better Than Others?

Now that you understand how PPC works across platforms, it’s time for the acid test – which one is the best? All things considered, advertising on Facebook is better than the other platforms. It has the highest number of active users and is the easiest to analyze the audience. But, certainly consider experimenting with all social media PPC options and see what works best for you, your business and your budget.

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