PPC Advertising plays an important role in your online marketing strategy. One of the most important digital marketing goals is having your site rank high on Google organically. This takes a lot of work and involves an in-depth knowledge of how websites function. It’s a time-consuming and often unpredictable process. If you’re not a web expert, have limited knowledge, or are looking to have your site ranked on Google to bring new traffic to your site for a particular event, location, or season, then perhaps a Google Ads or pay-per-click (PPC) campaign is for you. So, how does PPC work?
To learn that, let’s first understand what PPC is.
What is Pay-Per-Click (PPC)?
Before diving into explaining how PPC works, it’s important to understand this type of advertising and its fit into an overall successful marketing strategy. PPC stands for “pay-per-click”. This is a form of advertising in which you set a budget for your ads on a given platform, such as Google or Facebook, and then only pay for the clicks you receive. There are a variety of similar types of advertising, such as pay-per-impression or pay-per-view; all of these work on the premise that you pay only when the intended interaction—views, clicks, or impressions—occurs.
Pay-per-click advertising can play an essential role in your business’s broader online marketing campaign. It can benefit specialized, time-sensitive campaigns, directly address competitors, or break into new geographic markets. However, PPC advertising can be far too expensive, time-consuming and temporary, if used as the sole approach for your online marketing presence. Instead, it should be used in the context of a strategy that includes robust analytics, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), content and video development, as well as a social media presence.
How Paid Search Works
Whenever there is an ad spot on a search engine results page (SERP), an auction instantaneously takes place for the keyword. A combination of multiple factors, including bid amount and the quality of the ad, decide the winner who will appear in the top position. These auctions are what keep the gears of PPC moving.
They begin when someone searches for something on a search engine. If advertisers are interested in showing ads related to a user’s search query, an auction is triggered based on keywords bid on by advertisers. The ads that win the auction then appear on the search engine results page. To get involved in these auctions, advertisers use accounts on platforms like Google Ads to set up their ads and determine where and when they would like those ads to appear.
Accounts are split into campaigns for ease of management and reporting of different locations, product types, or other helpful categorization. Campaigns are further divided into ad groups that contain keywords and relevant ads.
The Most Popular Types of PPC
There are several ad networks that allow you to run PPC ads. Some of them are more popular than others. There’s no doubt that Google AdWords is the most popular of the lot. That network allows you to run ads on search results and private websites.
But Google isn’t the only search engine in town. Bing has its own version of PPC that allows you to run ads on a variety of Microsoft search properties and partners. Facebook also offers a PPC advertising model. Many marketers love advertising on Facebook because it’s relatively inexpensive. You can also run PPC display ads that are a great alternative to the more boring, text-based ads that run on a lot of websites. Finally, you can also run a retargeting campaign with PPC. That’s a great way to reel in customers who’ve already visited your website.
Why Should You Use Pay-Per-Click?
There are many compelling benefits of pay-per-click advertising:
- PPC is measurable and trackable. You can see how your campaigns are performing, including impressions, clicks, and conversions, the traffic you’re receiving, and how the results correlate to your budget.
- It provides a better understanding of the behavior and search patterns of the customers.
- Unlike SEO, PPC allows you to set up campaigns quickly, create ads and find new customers and prospects.
- You get budget flexibility. You can set up your ad budget and choose how much you want to spend. For example, if you see positive results, you can scale up quickly.
- You get a wealth of targeting options, whether you want to target keywords through search ads or focus on a specific demographic on the display network.
- Your ads work on all platforms, including mobile and desktop devices.
Pay-Per-Click Models
Commonly, pay-per-click advertising rates are determined using the flat-rate model or the bid-based model.
1. Flat-rate model
In the flat rate pay-per-click model, an advertiser pays a publisher a fixed fee for each click. Publishers generally keep a list of different PPC rates that apply to other areas of their website. Note that publishers are usually open to negotiations regarding the price. A publisher is very likely to lower the fixed price if an advertiser offers a long-term or a high-value contract.
2. Bid-based model
In the bid-based model, each advertiser makes a bid with a maximum amount of money they are willing to pay for an advertising spot. Then, a publisher undertakes an auction using automated tools. An auction is run whenever a visitor triggers the ad spot.
Note that the winner of an auction is generally determined by the rank, not the total amount, of money offered. The rank considers both the number of funds provided and the quality of the content provided by an advertiser. Thus, the relevance of the content is as important as the bid.
When It Makes Sense To Use Pay-Per-Click Advertising?
In specific scenarios, PPC Advertising may be an essential element to achieving your marketing goal, especially in cases when you want the fastest results possible.
- To Supplement Your SEO Efforts- It’s no secret that SEO takes time. From the day you start writing and optimizing your website, it may be months before you begin seeing competitive rankings for your target keywords. Supplementing this process with a PPC advertising campaign can help you fill in that gap. As soon as your ads are live, they’ll appear on your targeted platform, and you can start getting instant results, including brand awareness, clicks to landing pages, and even conversions.
- To Build Awareness of New Products or Services- SEO works well when you target keywords your buyer persona would search for online. However, new products and services sometimes face the problem of that target audience not knowing what to search for. While you can use SEO to target keywords higher up in the Sales Funnel, PPC ads help you take an awareness-building message right to your target audience.
- To Beat Well-Known Competitors- If you are beginning to establish an online presence for your business in a space already dominated by large companies, it’s going to take some time to carve out your own space on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP.) Fortunately, however, ad placements cover up to 85% of the area above the fold, and 80% of search results contain Google Ads ad placements. This means that, even while you are working to establish your place in the organic results, you can buy visibility for those keywords that your larger competitors may be targeting organically.
- If You Are A Nonprofit- Nonprofits already contend with the challenge of limited budgets; often, the price of competitive SEO can be out of reach. Fortunately, Google Ads can help. Through their Google Grants program, Nonprofits can apply to receive funds of in-kind advertising per month through Google Ads.
So, that was it. The detailed information on how PPC works in Digital Marketing is now shared for your information. Don’t forget to share your views on this article in the comment section. For more informative blogs, don’t forget to follow us on our social media handles.
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