According to a recent report by Google, search ads can boost your brand awareness by as much as 80%.
Increased brand awareness is just one of the benefits of pay-per-click advertising (PPC). Curious about the others?
We’ll share everything you need to know about the benefits of PPC and explore the best PPC practices to implement for a successful paid search campaign.
Table of Contents
What Is PPC?
Pay-per-click advertising (PPC) is an online advertising model that allows your ad to pop up when consumers use specific keywords in search engines, while looking for information.
Depending on the platform you select, your ad may appear at the top and bottom of search engine results pages such as Google, Bing and Yahoo or on social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn.
The only thing that distinguishes your ad from the other sources that pop up in search is a small "Ad" icon.
Top 10 Benefits Of PPC
Launching a paid advertising campaign helps you get immediate intent-based leads and boost brand visibility. By optimizing your website and landing pages, paid ads can also help you increase conversions.
Here are the top benefits of paid search ads.
1. Helps You Target The Right Audiences
Let’s say you have an orthodontics practice in Los Angeles and you want to promote your clear braces.
Creating a PPC campaign based on carefully selected keywords allows you to appear in the search results of the people who are looking for your exact services and products.
In this case, the keywords you bid on might be “clear braces in Los Angeles,” or “adult clear braces California,” if you’re looking to specifically target adults who might prefer a clear option over a wired option.
Matching your ad to the keyword and search intent will increase the number of clicks on your ad, along with the traffic to your website and the possibility for conversion.
2. Helps You Reach Your Customers In Feal Time
Unlike other types of advertising where you have no control over the time frame your ad reaches customers, PPC allows you to schedule the appearance of your ad in time frames you consider best, based on hours, locations and demographics.
Research when your prospects are most active online and set your ads accordingly. If a certain time period proves ineffective, you can re-schedule your campaign almost immediately.
3. Helps You Promote Your Business Locally
Let’s say you have a law firm that offers legal expertise in a specific city or state, or a florist shop that sells wedding bouquets in a certain district that’s popular for events.
Using the geotargeting approach (also known as local PPC), allows you to reach customers that are located in specific cities or communities. This will limit your ad from appearing in geographic locations that are irrelevant to your business, which will help you avoid wasting money.
4. Helps You Boost Your Brand Recognition
A 2017 Nielsen study on ads and memorability discovered that recall drops by 50% for all ads in the first 24 hours, but stands at 50% for half of the brands five days later.
Think about how placing your ad in visible positions may affect target audiences’ purchasing decision. Even if they do not click immediately on your ad and do not check your services right away, the key is to ensure they remember your name and reach out to you later.
5. Helps You Gain A Competitive Edge
If you work in a highly competitive environment with a variety of suppliers offering the same product or service, it is not an easy task to stand out.
A PPC campaign seen and clicked on by thousands of people will help distinguish you against the companies that don’t use paid advertising, and help you get your brand name out there.
6. Helps You Produce A PPC Ad Easily
Producing a PPC ad does not require expert design or production efforts. All you need to do is research the right words, think of an engaging headline and combine it with an impressive visual.
Accessible to companies of any size and easy to set up, PPC can be activated in no time and start generating leads almost immediately.
7. Helps You Test Different Ad Versions
Based on your PPC campaign’s performance, you can adjust your ad and landing pages to optimize as needed. This flexibility allows you to test and work with multiple ad versions to see which one works best.
8. Helps You Track And Measure Results Quickly
From the number of clicks on your ad to the number of conversions, you can measure your PPC performance through several clicks on your phone or laptop.
Use Google Analytics or other tracking tools to verify if your campaign meets the set of PPC KPIs you’ve established.
Tracking the PPC traffic to your landing pages and analyzing conversion can give you insights into the success of your campaign.
9. Helps You Have Control Over Your Campaign & Budget
Are you working with a small advertising budget? No problem. From choosing the bid for your keywords to the maximum spend for your PPC campaign, you are in total control of your ad and budget.
PPC gives you flexibility to start small and scale in the future if desired.
10. Helps You Combine PPC With Other Marketing Strategies
Based on your analysis of which keywords perform well, you can use these insights toward your SEO strategy. This can be done by using the high-performing keywords in your titles, website content, calls to action, meta descriptions and more.
You can also use your campaign results to retarget users who have already interacted with your website, from purchasing an item to signing up for a webinar.
From easy PPC set-up to overall campaign control, PPC helps you target new clients and boost your brand awareness
PPC Best Practices
In addition to listing the benefits of PPC, here are some best practices to consider when planning and launching your PPC ad, in order to reap the benefits of PPC.
Optimize Your Ad Copy
Craft engaging copy to grab attention and encourage conversion:
- Match your keywords with the search intent of your users
- Use an engaging headline to capture attention
- Add your website link at the bottom of your ad, so that it is easy to spot and click
- Use a call-to-action button to encourage consumers to click on your ad
Adjust Your Ad According To Performance
Monitor your PPC metrics to track your campaign performance. Try different layouts and keyword combinations and test various versions to see which ones perform the best.
For example, if you misjudged a keyword and it’s not performing well, block it from appearing by adding it to your negative keywords.
Review And Optimize Your Budget
Monitor and analyze your spending vs. your planned resources on a regular basis, whether weekly, monthly or quarterly, depending on the allocated budget size.
Consider:
- Bidding on high-value keywords
- Changing the platform
- Freeing up budget from poor performing campaigns to other paid media channels
- Shifting budget from other paid media channels that do not perform well to your current PPC campaign
Check Google Ads And Microsoft Ads For New Features
Did you know that recently Microsoft Ads introduced video extensions, which show as a thumbnail and expand when clicked, along with multimedia ads, which use machine learning to combine images, descriptions and headlines? All this, to make ads more engaging.
Crafting your PPC ad according to the latest PPC platform features can improve users’ interaction with your ad and boost overall ad performance.
Test New Paid Channels
Google, Microsoft and Facebook may be the most common pages to show your PPC ad, but it is worth testing how other PPC platforms can benefit your business.
- Use LinkedIn to target business and professional audiences
- Use Snapchat to reach younger audiences
- Use Pinterest to present services and products for female target groups
Crafting an engaging ad copy, optimizing your PPC budget and testing new paid channels are among the best practices for a successful PPC campaign
How PPC Agencies Can Help Optimize Your PPC Campaign
Though running a PPC campaign doesn’t have to be a complicated task, working with a professional PPC agency can help ensure you’re reaping the benefits of PPC as much as possible.
From law firm PPC to eCommerce PPC, professional PPC agencies have extensive expertise in various industries and stay on top of the latest trends that can benefit your campaign.
Experts can help you research and analyze your target audiences and competitor landscape, select highly-performing keywords and tweak your ad messaging to increase clicks.
They can also provide expert recommendations on how to optimize your landing pages and website to boost conversion.
Benefits Of PPC Advertising: Key Takeaways
Pay-per-click (PPC) is a paid advertising strategy that allows you to reach your potential clients when they are searching for the products and services you offer.
The benefits of pay-per-click include:
- Targeting the right audiences
- Reaching your customers in real-time
- Promoting your business locally
- Boosting your brand awareness
- Providing a competitive edge over the competition
- Producing a PPC ad easily
- Testing different ad versions
- Tracking and measuring results quickly
- Having control over your budget
- Combining PPC with other marketing strategies
To launch and run a successful PPC campaign, follow PPC best practices, which include:
- Optimize your ad copy
- Adjust your ad according to its performance
- Review and optimize your budget
- Check Google Ads and Microsoft Ads for new features
- Test new paid channels
Hiring a professional PPC agency for your campaign can increase your chances of creating an engaging and highly-performing PPC ad, so you can reap the benefits of PPC for your brand.
