When it comes to online marketing pay per click advertising plays a huge role for companies. This is especially true for leveraging pay per click advertising to maximize your return on PPC marketing. When people think of PPC marketing there are the big three: Google Ads, Facebook Ads, and Bing Ads. These are a great way to drive targeting potential prospects to your website, landing page, or blogs. The majority of digital marketers prefer Google Ads and make it the biggest part of their PPC strategy. This is mainly because Google ads displays their ads on Google SERPs (search engine results page), which of course is the most used search engine in the world.
Why to Use Google Ads in Your PPC Advertising
Digital marketing through a PPC strategy can be costly, however it has some great advantages and benefits.
Speed & Convenience
PPC campaigns are fast and easy to set up for digital marketers. You can use these ads to target potential prospects with great precision and with the proper tracking, you can see your results immediately.
Cost Effective
Unlike other platforms, on Google Ads, you the advertiser, are only charged when your ad is clicked and not when it is displayed so you get the most bang for your buck.
Adaptability
In Google Ads you will be frequently optimizing your account to produce max success. You will be modifying things like keywords, ad text headlines, ad text descriptions, landing pages, url pathways, what hours you advertise and the location. The list goes on and on.
Budgeting
As an advertiser on Google Ads you set your budget for your campaigns. There is no minimum spending limit on this platform and you can choose to spend specific amounts. For example, if you only want to spend 50 dollars a day you can set that parameter, if you only want to spend 35 cents when someone wants to click on your ad you can. And this too is flexible. If there is a specific time period you want to increase spend, or a specific set of days like during Black Friday, you can easily make that change to your budget and restrictions.
Dependability
With PPC campaigns on most platforms it is easy to predict the amount of visitors or impressions you will be gaining based on how much you spend. Facebook Google and Bing all show you a projected amount of potential impressions and as you continue to collect data, your predictions and projections will get more accurate.
However, if you are a first time digital marketer, you need to stay on top of your account. Many first time marketers lose money, especially when they do not set up their PPC marketing campaigns.
Google Ads PPC Campaign Prep
One of the first things we recommended doing if you are just starting your own Google Ads campaigns is to go through Google Skillshop. Google Skillshop helps you master and understand the tools that Google provides companies that use their platform and it is free. All you need is a gmail account.
If you want additional information or just some more background for Google Ads, check out our tutorial for beginners. After you sign at the top there is a drop down that has the word topics. just click on that drop down and click on the Google Ads tab and you can get a crash course on everything about Google Ads and even get Google Certified at the end if you want.
The next step after learning more about how to effectively use the platform, you should go to the Google Ads Keyword Suggestion tool to start making a strong list of keywords for the products or services that will be in your campaigns.
Long-tail Keyword Phrases
PPC ads are competitive, and the price to get your ad to clicked on can vary on the keyword. For example, based on Google's Keyword Planner the keyword “lawyer” as a top page bid can range from $4.97 to $16.50. Top of page are the top three spots on a search result which are where you are most likely to get the best chance of conversion. However, if you use a long-tailed keyword, or a phrase, you are not searched as often as the competitive keywords. You will, however,l get more bang for your buck and more potential clients that are willing to buy. A long-tailed keyword could be “human rights lawyer” which ranges from $1.62 to $7.24, which is half as expensive as the general, but competitive, keyword “lawyer”. It will also have a drastically lower number of impressions, except you will be getting potential prospects that are looking specifically for a human rights lawyer which gives you an even more search targeted audience.
Creating Strong PPC Google Ads
One thing that is essential and correlates to your success on Google Ads is having strong ad copy.
Product Price
One option you can go with is letting the potential customer know the price of the item or service. This strategy is offensive and defensive. lt is defensive because if your product price is higher than the consumer expects it can defer them from clicking on your ad and wasting money on that click. They may also close out of your site once they see the price. It is also offensive because if you have great prices compared to other competitors it will work to your advantage to get more clicks and more potential customers.
Call to Action
A call to action is when you ask the customer with a specific phrase to perform an action like “call no”, “sign up”, or “purchase now”. The call to action helps the customer understand what they need to do after reading and clicking your advertisement.
Adding Strongest Performing Keywords & Brand Name to Your Ads
When a user searches in Google, the keywords they used in your ad copy will be bolded which further validates your ad to the consumer. So reviewing your keywords to see which of your ad keywords are performing the best and adding them into your ad can be extremely helpful. Also, including your brand name into your ads will help the customer with brand recognition.
Continuous Optimization
We highly recommend working on continuous optimization. For example, when creating ads most people will have two variations running at once. The differences should test one specific thing. For example, you might try a different call to action in both ads and see which ad has the better click through and conversion rate. After having significant data you can choose the stronger ad and then make another variation off that ad to test. You can also test variations of keywords and change your maximum cost per click.
There are several different tests you can try in Google Ads because the platform is so versatile. Just remember to always further your optimizations because you can always get better results. If you want tips for writing ad copy check out our ad copy tips blog post.
Making sure you understand how Google Ads functions and having a strong foundation in your account are essentials for success in PPC strategy. Adding the prep work before launch, including strong ad copy, and continuous optimization will allow you to bring your success to a whole new level in Google Ads.