If you’ve never heard of PPC campaigns, this article will get you up to snuff. PPC stands for Pay-Per-Click, a type of internet marketing offered by Google wherein businesses bid on keywords or keyword phrases that search engine users may put in when looking for particular information or services.
PPC advertising allows bidders to compete for ad placement in a search engine’s sponsored links when a user searches on a keyword related to the bidder’s business.
Here’s an example. If one of your keyword phrases is “personal injury law Little Rock, AR,” your Google ad showing your business could show up at the top of the Google results page. If a user clicks on your ad (one created by another marketing tool by Google, Adwords) the searcher will be taken to your website and you will be charged for the cost of the click. If you paid $3.50 for the phrase, that search could yield a significant personal injury case worth a lot more than what you had to pay for the bid.
Creating a PPC campaign
Creating a PPC campaign requires some knowledge about the process. You have to
- research and select the best keywords
- organize the keywords into a cogent campaign and ad groups
- set up a PPC landing page optimized for conversions (e.g., people that end up contacting you).
Google rewards the best PPC campaigns by charging those advertisers less for ad clicks. If your landing page information and your ads are relevant to searchers, Google will be happy, since their very specific raison d'être is to make finding information for its users easy.
How Google AdWords work with PPC
Google AdWords is a platform by which businesses can create ads that show up in Google’s search engines and other Google locations. Every time a user searches for something, Google’s bots search advertisers’ ads and choose the best ones to show up near or at the top of the user’s search results.
AdWords is like an auction. The winners are those that have a high “ad rank.” An ad rank is calculated by multiplying two factors: the CPC (cost-per-click) bid (the highest amount of money an advertiser is willing to spend) and the Quality Score (calculated on the success of your click-through rate, your ad content relevance and your landing page content quality).
AdWords and PPC campaigns are not for sissies
The whole process of creating an ad campaign based on specific keywords is not for the faint of heart. It requires a lot of time to perform the PPC keyword research, write the ads, and manage the campaign.
- Research: You need to research and create a keyword list that is most likely to be what a searcher will type in when making a query. The list needs to be relevant, exhaustive and adaptable to changes.
- Managing Campaigns: You have to constantly monitor and analyze the effectiveness and cost of your PPC campaigns, including the landing pages. If a certain keyword or keyword phrase is under-performing, you need to delete it, and research and add more promising ones.
PPC campaigns are a very important part of an online marketing campaign but it really does require expertise in the field. If you are interested in setting up a PPC campaign and/or want help managing it, just give us a call at Group Matrix. Our experienced professionals have the knowledge required to make your AdWords and PPC campaign a worthwhile marketing strategy.
Group Matrix Blog – July 2, 2018 – by Sharon Bowles
