How PPC campaigns can make a real difference to your marketing strategy

Many companies focus on content creation, organic search results and link building to drive their online marketing strategy, but there are other ways to boost your profile and drive potential customers to learn more about your business. One popular way to drive traffic to your website is to undertake Pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns. This method of advertising involves the advertiser paying a publisher, usually a search engine every time their advert is clicked on.

A popular way to drive visitors to a specific page on a business’ site, PPC campaigns can be a great way to bring potential clients to your website, but if organised poorly they will yield limited results. To learn more about how these campaigns can be effectively run and managed to make a real difference to your business, read on.

How PPC works

Essentially, this is a way to purchase greater focus on your content, as the publisher will want to enhance their chances of people clicking on your link, and therefore them being paid. These campaigns are cost-effective for advertisers, as you only pay for the clicks that are earned by the campaign, meaning that you will not have to pay much if the campaign is not very successful.

Often, PPC campaigns are paid for through a bidding system. A company will select the keywords, phrases or questions they wish their advert to rank for, then offer the publisher a price. Other companies may also bid on this same word or phrase, and the search engine will select the highest bid, as well as the most effective and relevant content, to push. Companies will pay once their link is clicked on.

Select the publisher that’s right for you

Whilst Google is a typical choice for those looking to curate a profitable PPC campaign, there are other search engines and platforms out there, so make sure that you choose the best one for your business. Consider sending out a survey to find out what search engines your current customers prefer, then consider running PPC campaigns on these so that your target audience is being reached effectively.

It’s not all about money

As mentioned, content and relevance are essential to the success of any PPC campaign. Whilst the amount of money your business is willing to spend on each click will have a strong impact, you also need to make sure that you have selected relevant and topical keywords. If you have selected keywords that your clients and potential clients are searching for and created relevant and insightful content for them to read, then you should be able to achieve strong results, even if your budget is limited.

Content is king

As this method of payment relies on content being relevant as well as the investment that the company is willing to make, firms need to make sure that they have high-quality, relevant information on their pages at all times. Whilst this can seem like a daunting feat, particularly for a small business, there are many agencies on the market available to create quality content that will engage and entice readers. By working with one of these outsourced companies you can rest assured that your website will always be populated by quality, relevant content that will boost your chances of ranking for the keywords you want to target.

How to go about managing a PCC campaign

The largest and most popular advertiser is Google, and as such it is worth taking your time to learn about how the search engine runs its PPC service so that you can run your campaign as effectively as possible. If you don’t want to have to undertake all that work yourself, then you can find yourself a specialist agency to support you. Check out their website to make sure that they offer the services you need and will be able to help you achieve the results you expect.

If you’re eager to run your own campaign across a variety of publishers, then make sure you have all the digital tools you need to successfully manage and monitor your campaign and really make the most out of your investment. It can be a challenge to run a campaign yourself, but by using the right solutions you can easily put all the data together and explore how successful the experience was.

Analyse your results

Once you have completed your campaign, make sure that you learn from your experience and use this knowledge to improve your future campaigns. Always treat your first PPC campaign as a learning exercise. Using keyword tools and other solutions to ensure that you know everything about how your campaign performed and what went wrong will ensure that you learn from your mistakes and repeat the successful aspects of your campaign in the future.