Starting any new digital marketing campaign can be intimidating for businesses, and PPC is no exception. Anyone considering working with Google Ads will probably be overwhelmed by the various guides and articles about PPC best practice. These guides range from genuinely helpful to utterly incomprehensible…As our PPC department is particularly accomplished here at the Tourism Marketing Agency, we thought we’d attempt to write the clearest, most easy-to-read PPC guide for our readers.
What is PPC?
Put simply, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is a particular kind of digital advertising where you only pay when a user clicks on your ad – if someone sees your ad and doesn’t click, it’s free. While it can get a little complex further down the line, PPC can be split into three not-so-complex categories:
Paid search
This puts your ad on Google’s search engine results page (SERP), just above the natural, non-paid Google results. We’re sure you will have noticed these paid listings at the top of your Google results pages.
Display advertising
This puts your ad on the display network across a range of different websites. You can use display to prospect new customers who Google has identified as potentially interested in your service or product or to retarget people who have been to your website previously. Ever feel like a particular website or brand you like is following you 4 across various different websites? Well, it probably is, and this is because the brand is using retargeting.
YouTube ads
This refers to the ads that play before you get to see the video you want to watch, as well as the banners that appear across and alongside YouTube videos. You can choose how long your video ad is, whether it’s skippable, and when in the target YouTube video your ad will play.
What are the main benefits of using PPC?
- PPC allows you to reach your target audience immediately, without all of the time and effort that goes into organic search marketing (SEO) or various forms of offline advertising.
- You can set your own ad budget, ensuring you never spend more than you can afford. This can be as little as a penny, and you can pause your campaigns whenever you like.
- The results, the successes (and failures) are very easy to measure and analyze. Every click is counted and the user’s journey is tracked through the site. If they convert as a result of your ad, you’ll be able to tell. This can help you get a clear idea of which ads are performing best for your target audience, allowing you to finetune your ads over time.
- Data gained from Google Ads can actually inform other aspects of your business as the keywords and search volume data can improve and streamline your SEO and content marketing strategies.
- You can specify when and how you’d like your ads to appear, allowing you to target your desired audience at specific times of day or specific devices when they are more likely to make a purchase or inquiry. For example, while people may browse on their phone during the morning commute, they are perhaps more likely to book a holiday on their laptop in the evening, after a conversation with their partner.
How does PPC work?
As PPC can work for a variety of reasons, there is no quick answer to this question. There are several in-depth answers, however, and we’d like to go into more detail below.
PPC offers control
One of the most attractive features of PPC is the level of control it offers. It really is designed to be as flexible as anyone needs it to be. You have control over your budget, the time of your ad display, the location of user you’re targeting with your ad, the type of device your target audience is using, etc. And, with PPC, you can turn it off and on at the click of a mouse. Instantly. If something isn’t working, or you don’t want to waste any more budget on a specific ad campaign, you can stop it immediately.
There are various other ways to control how and when your ads display:
Control your audience with PPC
PPC ads also afford you absolute control over the audience you’d like to target. The Google Ads system is incredibly precise, allowing you to specify your demographic to extremely exact dimensions. Choose gender, age, location, interests, browsing history, and so much more. This is perfect if you know exactly who you want to target, but it’s also great if you don’t and you’d like to experiment with different demographics. Try out a few variations and see which ones work.
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