One of the most well-known forms of digital marketing is pay-per-click advertising. For businesses who have not tried it, the first question they should ask is “Why is PPC important?”
PPC is essential, make no mistake.
Before you start to build a PPC strategy, or invest in an ad campaign, it is crucial that you understand the importance of PPC for your business’ online growth.
This marketing style is widely recognized as one of the most effective forms of online advertising. It’s a very popular form of advertising that provides quick results and reliable returns. This helps businesses get more visibility on search engines such as Google and Bing. Plus, PPC visitors are more likely to convert.
What is PPC?
PPC is a powerful tool for businesses to increase their marketing effectiveness. Pay-per-click (or “pay per click”) is a form of digital advertising that can be used on a variety of platforms. It’s ads in which businesses pay for every click they receive, ranging from a few pennies to a few dollars.
Search ads are the most popular type. These ads look similar to regular search results on search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo. Display ads are graphic/banner ads that appear on third-party partner websites, and social-media paid advertisements (which function much like display ads within certain social media platforms) are also common. Although the “PPC” function will vary between platforms, the basic principle of all these forms of internet advertising is the same: each click is paid for.
Marketers often bid for search terms that will display their ads in search results. Or they pay to have ads appear in user feeds and videos. This is why PPC advertising is so important to keep up with your competitors.
It can deliver results quickly and consistently
This is undoubtedly the greatest benefit of PPC advertising. PPC advertising, unlike search engine optimization which focuses on organic traffic growth, can deliver results almost immediately after an advertiser goes live.
PPC is crucial for businesses who are looking to generate revenue quickly or take advantage of a short-term marketing window (such a for holidays, special events, holiday sales, seasonal sales, etc.). PPC is a key component of both a long-term and short-term digital marketing strategy.
Advertisers set up search ads on Google and Bing through their respective platforms. They set-up their budgets, ad groups and ad parameters. Once the ads have been launched, they will appear in search results immediately and can attract clicks/conversions. It is important to remember that PPC campaigns will get better results if they provide enough feedback data about campaign performance. This data can be used to refine campaign scope, improve keyword targeting and focus on high-value audience.
PPC is important because it allows you to use the short-term data to cancel/reduce budgets for campaign attributes that are not effective and instead focus on high-value attributes.
PPC helps you achieve your business goals and increase revenue
Although it may seem obvious, PPC can also directly contribute to the primary KPIs of a business and can directly (and measurably!) bring in revenue. That’s all there is to it!
This type of advertising is a great option because it delivers quick results. It also provides dependable revenue, as we have already explained. PPC marketing is a cost-effective way to advertise on search engines, partner websites, and social media. Google reports that businesses typically get $2 in revenue per $1 spent on Google Ads. This is a remarkable ROI of 2:1!
Many PPC platforms include KPIs as campaign goals. This allows businesses to target specific business goals.
- Ads can be used to create sales, leads and website traffic for search engines.
- Social media platforms – like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc. They all have similar goals like brand awareness, product sale, video-views and messages, app downloads, engagement, etc.
This is why PPC advertising is important for online businesses. The purpose of major ad platforms is to help businesses grow online. There are many ad styles available that can be tailored to your goals.
These ads can be used to advertise for specific business needs, as well as to track and measure performance.
This is one of the most effective forms of digital marketing.
PPC is one of most popular online advertising methods. The statistics speak for themselves. Statista data shows that search PPC ranks high among all online marketing options, with up to 20% of respondents claiming it provides them the best ROI.
For retail, search engine PPC drives 36% of revenue. It drives 46% for online businesses. PPC advertising is a great option for any internet business, as it yields 50% more traffic than organic.
Search engines and social media platforms play a crucial part of internet usage. Nearly every internet user interacts with either one or both of them regularly. PPC is a key part of internet shopper behaviour and it would be a mistake to ignore it. 75 percent of respondents (three-quarters) say search ads make it easier for them to find what they need.
PPC is so effective that 79% say it is a major driving force in their business. PPC has this level of effectiveness, which is why it is so important.
You have more control over your budget (only pay for clicks).
Pay-per-click advertising works entirely on budget. This allows for greater control than traditional paid advertising strategies. PPC advertising has many advantages. Businesses have very precise control over how their budget is spent.
You only pay for clicks for most paid ads, such as search engine PPC. There is no entry fee and no minimum budget. Businesses have the freedom to spend as much, or as little as they wish.
Marketers can create a campaign hierarchy using Google Ads or Microsoft Advertising (Bing). This is broken down into account > campaign> ads group > ads keywords/audience. Most social media platforms have a similar hierarchy. Marketers can use this hierarchy to break down their budget and adjust it as they wish. They also have exact control over how the budget is spent on each campaign, group or specific ad.
Unlike traditional paid advertising, PPC gives extreme levels of control that works because businesses can boost ad spend for areas/demographics/queries that work, and reduce ad spend in areas that don’t work – meaning that the importance of PPC is in its ability to squeeze every penny of budget for better return-on-ad-spend (ROAS).
This might seem overwhelming for many businesses, but it is a major reason why so many choose to hire PPC management professionals – especially when the benefits of professional return-on investment are so appealing.
Advertising that is targeted and more controlled
As we have already mentioned, control over your ad budget extends to other important metrics. Particularly audience targeting. PPC is a very important advertising model for many businesses because it allows for so much control.
Businesses know that a targeted audience is crucial to sales and transactions. So why not use PPC advertising? PPC advertising can target very specific audiences.
PPC marketers have the ability to control where ads are displayed on Google’s ad network. This is possible at a very fine level. PPC gives marketers the ability to control where, when and how often their ads are displayed. This includes which days, which locations and for what search queries (and by exclusion of keywords they shouldn’t appear for), user demographics, interests, past-purchases and many more. You can also control the target demographics of your ads on social media platforms.
These platforms can offer ad options that are based upon user data such as:
- Age, gender, language and other demographic information
- You can choose to be global, national or even local
- Interests, hobbies, and careers of users
- Your past shopping habits, brand interests, as well as web browsing
- Mobile vs. desktop browsing behavior, and cross-platform browsing habits
- Education level, income, employment
- Life events
- Political affiliations
PPC can help improve SEO performance
Because there is a lot overlap between search engine PPC (search engine optimization) and search engine PPC, they work well together. PPC and SEO are important together because businesses will target the same keywords on the same platforms for the same audience.
Although there is no direct correlation between PPC campaigns on Google/Bing rankings and SEO rankings, businesses who optimize both are more likely than not to improve their SEO. PPC is an important SEO tool. This is because many businesses who improve their website and content to achieve a higher Google Quality Score also inadvertently increase their SEO ranking.
You are halfway to SEO and PPC if you do the same keyword research and keyword density. PPC can be a good option for SEO. Many businesses that use both PPC and SEO believe it helps. PPC advertising can be an additional strategy that may help with SEO.
- A brand’s advertisement might make it more likely that a searcher clicks on its organic listing.
- PPC ads can increase a company’s brand recognition and make it more likely to convert via SEO.
- Paid Ad Clicks can help your pages reach the top of Google’s page 1. This can result in more sharing, more mentions and more backlinks which can improve SEO rankings.
Data is another reason PPC is important. Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising provide a lot of feedback on ad campaign campaigns. Marketers can use the data from keyword research, keyword performance and A/B ad testing to determine conversions, impression shares, and other metrics. – Use that data to refine their SEO campaigns.
Search PPC delivers results faster than SEO (weeks, instead of months), so you can test keyword strategies in PPC. Then you can use conversion rate (CR), traffic data, and other metrics to see if similar strategies work well for long-term SEO.
Tracking and measuring data are used to fine-tune ads
Another advantage of PPC is the availability of tons of feedback data, which is something that non-digital strategies do not offer.
Marketers can use a variety of metrics to measure specific keywords, target audiences and platforms. They can also use this data to help improve their PPC campaigns. PPC is only possible if a company can accurately read its data, adjust ad campaigns to suit their needs, wait for new data and measure their effectiveness.
Advertising is very data-rich. This allows marketers to have very precise data and control over their ads. These changes can result in huge budget savings and even higher ROI. This is why PPC is so important for modern marketing. PPC allows businesses to:
- Maximize clicks using the pre-set advertising budget
- For specific conversion styles, such as product sales, signups or app downloads, you should target a particular cost-per-action (CPA).
- A specific amount of return-on-adspend (target ROAS) is required. This basically means a balance between revenue and spend.
- Maximize conversion in cases where companies are willing to spend more.
- Maximize conversions (for ads set up for high value keywords).
- For ad space, target the lowest bidder.
- As well as daily budget caps/budgets, set total overall budgets.
These strategies vary from one platform to the next, which is why PPC is so important for advertisers who prioritize data. Most platforms, such as Facebook, Microsoft Advertising, and Google Ads can automatically analyze the performance of your ads and adjust your ads to achieve the above-mentioned goals.
Visitors to PPC are more likely convert
Unbound data shows that half of all visitors who arrive at a retailer’s site via a paid search advertisement are more likely to convert.
Formstack also claims that PPC ads are the third-largest source of on-page conversions. PPC ads also place brands at the top search engine results page (SERP), where more than 40% clicks go to the top paid ads spots.
PPC can provide quick results for businesses willing to pay to play. It can help you get your products/brand in front of customers and generate revenue quickly.
It’s simple to get started
All marketers agree that PPC can be very easy to get started.
PPC is much more efficient than content-focused marketing strategies, slow-working SEO and labor-intensive advertising. It’s easy to set up and get started quickly. Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising marketers can create a free account to start creating ads in a matter of minutes. After ads have been approved and created, they will appear in search to drive results.
There is no prerequisite for building an audience organically or sourcing contact information. This is in contrast to other marketing channels such as email and social media. These platforms assist marketers in the ad process and, once they are ready for their ads to go live, they immediately gain access to millions worldwide users.
Advertising can be activated and deactivated quickly, so it’s as simple as flipping a switch to increase brand visibility.
Conclusion
PPC strategies are crucial to businesses trying to be seen in an ever growing online space. They are cost effective, provide incredible data, and will increase your ROI through your website.
Night Owl Sites’s professional team of marketers can help businesses understand the importance of PPC for digital marketing and sustainable business growth. Brands can expand online with our paid marketing strategies that take advantage of many search engine management strategies.
