Yeah, You Can Do It Yourself, But You May Need to Know A Few Things First
There are a number of benefits to think of when considering Pay-Per-Click advertising. Platforms like Google count on search results and place the keywords that people are searching on auction to purchase by companies in response to those searches. Putting you at the top of the list. It is now a fact that people don’t even see if the results are sponsored. They just want the fastest result based on their search.
Now, your ads don’t just appear on the Search Engine Results page, but rather they are subject to the Ad Auction. This is a process that major search engines use to determine relevance and effectiveness of the advertisement. This is when keywords become your greatest enemy or ally. It is important to only bid on keywords that are truly relevant to your business or else you may be wasting your money on ad-clicks. Each keyword is assigned a quality score that determines where your ad appears on a search results page, so making sure you maintain a good score between 8-15. Popular PPC marketing platforms include: Google Ads; Facebook Ads; Youtube Ads; etc. Listed below are some advantages and disadvantages that may help you when considering if PPC advertising is a great addition to your business.
Also, consider being specific too. Focus on keywords for your business that you want to focus or feature - or perhaps services that are more profitable to help your business grow. Don’t focus on things that may not need help or are lost leaders.
Advantages
Cost Effective: You only pay when a user visits your site. In 2023, the average cost per click ranged from $1 to $2 for search ads, and $0.10 to $0.50 for digital ads. You set your monthly budget and the ads go respond to search results in real time.
Measurable: Included analytics on all of your ads makes it very easy to track your audience, and see how effective your ads are performing. You can also set up visual remarketing campaigns to bring past visitors back to your website in hope that they just need more persuasion. E.G. have you ever considered buying something, not making the purchase and then that company’s ads start showing up wherever you search the internet. That’s remarketing. Not all industries allow remarketing, so you may need to know the rules.
You Can Choose Your Audience: You can target your Google ads based on; gender, age, location, and interests. You can also create custom lists and use your client lists to go find more clients just like that using AI tracking.
Increased Conversions: People who click on ads are 50% more likely to make a purchase. Businesses use Google Ads to bid on keywords that are the highest purchasing level. High competition keywords that would need a large advertising budget include; “best buy cameras” and “best buy computers”; attorneys can also pay quite a bit for “personal injury lawyer.”
Disadvantages
Competitive: Popular keywords can become very costly to bid on, and it is hard for smaller companies to out bid other larger companies.
Outsmarting Your Audience: Some people distrust PPC Ads, and would prefer to choose a website on their Search Engine Results that is not related to an advertisement.
Time Commitment: You can’t just set up your ads, and let them function without monitoring and assistance. Well, you can, but you will likely not be successful. You must ensure that the platform is being looked after, and analyzed on a day-to-today basis to ensure that your business is spending their budget wisely.
Conversion Rate: Not every click results in business, and many people may just click on your website, and become disinterested. Your business still pays for that click, so make sure your website is engaging, and maybe that user will convert to a sale.
PRO TIP: After time, you will find that you can use negative keywords to combat clicks that are not converting. For example, if you are an insulation company that is getting calls to do contracting work, you can look at your ad set that shows that you may have that on your list and tell Google that you don’t want clicks from that keyword.
It’s a lot, or can be a lot. Be patient and take the time to learn. Google is helpful and instructive to set up your account and there are plenty of YouTube videos if you are a do-it-yourselfer. Just be careful and call a professional if you know you don’t have the time.
PRO TIP 2: Google changes their algorithms from time to time depending on what’s going on in their business. They recently have made some changes that are impacting results for some industries, where others are still blowing and going. It can be frustrating. We have had clients that typically could bank on conversions for new clients, but then once Google made changes, their results have been less profitable and more expensive to drive the results that they need. This impacted their ROI and had to adjust the budget as a result.