It can be difficult to get a foothold in the digital attention economy, let alone getting to the front page of a search engine. Most consumers only scroll through a few pages and will not go out of their way to click on a popup or banner ad. This is why pay-per-click advertising, or PPC, is one of the best ways to get content in front of consumers without having to wait for customers to come to you. This article will go over what PPC is, why you should use PPC in your next marketing campaign, and how to use PPC.
What is Pay-per-Click Marketing?
Pay-per-click marketing is a model in which advertisers pay a search engine a small fee every time their ad is clicked, in exchange for their ad being moved closer to the top of search results. This is done by selecting keywords and phrases that people search for and placing any ads with fees higher up in the search engine feed.
Depending on the size of the fee and the popularity of the ad, this makes it profitable for search engines to make the ad more visible and encourage people to click on it. And, of course, it is profitable for a company to have people clicking on their ads and heading to their website, so under this model both companies and search engines profit from ad placement.
This is because the fee per click for each ad is meant to be very low, so that it can be offset by the company’s profit from sales and other website traffic. If all goes according to plan a search engine will make a nice profit from click fees on the advertisement, while the advertising company benefits from web traffic and profits from extra sales.
Why use Pay-per-Click Marketing?
There are numerous benefits to using PPC marketing, the first and most obvious of which is a better position in search engine results. Most consumers don’t get past the first few results, let alone the first few pages, so the further you can climb in the search results the better off your ads are.
Another major benefit of PPC marketing is that it provides results that are both quick and consistent. Since people are constantly searching online, even a small raise in search result position can lead to increased site traffic. This traffic is also steady since you can use part of your growing budget to increase your position gradually every day for better results.
PPC marketing also increases the range of your ads while letting you better specify who does or does not see them. Being high in search results means more people see your ads, but you can select which keywords or phrases you appear in and which you don’t. This lets you focus your marketing campaign on specific audiences and exclude others based on search terms.
You can also focus your ads to appear more or less frequently based on the time and location of the user. This lets your further refine your marketing campaigns by narrowing down when and where someone is when they use the search terms you have marked.
Finally, PPC is a great tool to analyze your advertising practices and test the effectiveness of your content on real audiences. Most PPC programs come with built-in analytics that companies can use to fine tune their marketing campaigns by seeing what is or is not working and quickly testing new strategies on real customers at any time.
Tips on How to use Pay-per-Click Marketing
Although PPC has many benefits, it does not guarantee success and relies on companies taking active steps to make sure they stay relevant in search results. Here are a few steps you can take to maximize the effectiveness of your PPC campaign.
Refine your keywords. You can break down which specific search terms are getting the most clicks, and which are costing you money, which you can use to hone your list of terms to hit the most profitable audiences possible.
Test multiple ads. Since you can set different ads to appear under different conditions, use this to test ads and find the most effective content for each situation to maximize your chances of success.
Review your landing pages. If your ads are getting a lot of clicks but you aren’t seeing sales, considering taking another look at the pages you link to and see if they can be improved to increase page traffic and sales.
Author
Cedric Miller is an experienced copywriter and SEO who is passionate about learning the intricacies and best practices of successful persuasive writing and rhetoric. To visit my blog follow this link https://www.cedricmiller.com/
