Let’s see how simple and un-technical I can get in this post… I shall attempt to explain PPC Marketing.
First off – what is PPC?
Pay-per-click marketing. It’s a form of advertising on the Internet that allows companies to place advertisements in search results or other places online, paying when someone clicks on the ad, unlike the normal method where people pay for the space or media to get their ad shown.
The two main types of PPC:
1. Search engine advertising, where advertisers bid on keywords so that their ads will show up in the search engine results when someone searches for something that is related to their ad or the content of their ad.
2. Partner network advertising, where ads are placed on a large network of affiliated or partner sites. This is less targeted than ads that are tied to keywords, but it is cheaper (because the cost per click is lower).
“But nobody clicks on online ads!”
This is a myth.
Let’s take Google as an example.
Did you know that most of the company’s annual revenue (and by most I mean 97-98%) comes from advertising?
In 2012, they made over $40 billion from it.
So what does that mean?
It means it may not be you, it may not be me, but somebody, somewhere is clicking on ads.
So, what are the benefits of using PPC?
Well, for one thing, you can drive more traffic to your website really fast.
This gives your website visibility, increased traffic, and if you’re running an online business, you will subsequently get more revenue, which is never a bad thing.
PPC is usually faster and easier than SEO. New websites and businesses can take months to see any results from SEO, whereas it’s possible to get impressions and clicks from PPC almost immediately.
It’s also more engaging, flexible, and allows measurable results, among other things.
What type of business should be using PPC marketing?
To be honest, almost any business will benefit from PPC, because that’s where the people are. But to be more specific:
- Business with high customer lifetime values, like dentists or doctors
- Businesses with high margins, like lawyers and car-sellers
- Businesses with a diverse line of products, like department stores, Amazon.com and eBay
- Businesses that are seasonal, like florists or those selling greeting cards
- Businesses that sell products that are hard to find, that likely cannot be found in normal stores and have to be custom-ordered.
- And of course, for all you budding affiliates out there, you can use PPC to drive people to your landing page where you can capture their email addresses before directing them to an offer page
If they don’t purchase your offer and you miss out on that commission, at least you now have their email, where you can continue to build a relationship and promote to them.
Okay, so how do I get started?
This can be summarized into 7 steps:
1. Create an account.
Google AdWords is probably the most popular PPC provider. There’s also Yahoo! Search Marketing and Bing Ads.
2. Choose your keywords – for triggering your ads.
These keywords will need to be relevant to your business or website. For example, if you sell radios, “buy radio” will be one of your keywords. You’ll want to do keyword research to find out which are the most popular and relavant. You can use a tool like Google’s Keyword Tool.
3. Know your audience.
Determine the audience you are selling to, what they like, what they don’t like, how they behave, etc.
4. Create your ad.
5. Determine your bid levels.
Set a budget and allocate your bids within it.
PPC takes a lot of testing and tweaking before you can see profits so if you’re not sure of your numbers, I advise taking things slow and steady. Allocate a daily budget that you’re comfortable with and test the waters before going all in.
I learnt the hard way back in 2009 when I was first starting out in the World of Warcraft niche.
Started the campaign, went out for a few drinks and came an hour later $2000 poorer with only a few sales to show for.
You can try $15 a day per campaign and slowly increase the budget once you feel more confident.
6. Pick your search engine and start your campaign.
7. Lastly, track your results.
You’re going to want to improve either your impressions, clicks or conversions. Impressions= Searches. Impressions lead to clicks, which are meant to lead to conversions, which just means that people visit your site or buy your products.
So if you want more impressions, you need to change your keywords or bid. If you need more clicks, change your ad copy. And if you need more conversions, change your landing page, where your terms will land.
That should be enough to get you started on your journey into PPC marketing.
Just remember that PPC isn’t perfect.
If done incorrectly, you could stand to lose the money you invested into your PPC campaign.
So don’t put all your eggs in one basket.
You should still make use of SEO and social media, or other online channels.
Diversify, as this minimizes risk.
