Pay Per Click Search Marketing

Your PPC ad will appear based on the keywords you have chosen to appear for. Your position in the results is based on a variety of factors. The price you pay is just one of them. The price is set like an auction, with the advertiser setting the maximum bid they are willing to spend. The actual price paid is worked out based on the search term, the quality score and relevancy of the keywords, ad text and landing page as well as previous account history and what your competitors have bid.

Pay Per Click Budgeting

When planning a PPC campaign you can carefully budget your costs as with any other form of online media buying. The budgets are based on your profit margins and the life time value of a customer. When considering your PPC marketing budget you must look at not only click through rate (CTR) but also conversion rate (CR). A high CTR does not mean a high conversion rate.

Your conversion rate will be affected by a number of issues these include your landing page, your offer, your price competitiveness, your brand, your call to action, your purchase funnel, and your product or service. With all this in mind there is a lot of work to do before you get things right. This is where a PPC agency can help. PPC marketing is data driven marketing every decision made should be based on the facts presented.

Your PPC budget will impact the keywords you can bid on. In some very competitive industries you can be looking to pay as much as £35+ per click. Your PPC agency will have to examine the data and decide whether you can compete on these terms or go for long tail phrases to keep your costs lower. The long tail phrases will be cheaper but the volume will be far less.

PPC Optimisation

When optimising a PPC campaign there is a lot to think about. Google AdWords is the most popular search engine but there are benefits of using the other search engines such as Yahoo, Bing, AOL and Miva. Although the traffic is less they are less competitive and your CPA can be cheaper. If you want to run across multiple search engines it would be a good idea to use a PPC company they can manage the whole campaign for you presenting the results as one so you know exactly how your campaign is performing without dealing with each search engine separately.

Content or Search Network

Google AdWords offers you the ability to run on the search network or you can appear on sites within their content network. If you opt to use the content network your ads will appear on specific sites you choose as a placement campaign. Alternatively you can use keywords and appear next to content that relates to your product. The content network is a different kettle of fish to the search network and should be treated differently and set-up in a different campaign so the two can optimised in the most appropriate way.

Landing Page

A PPC campaign is not solely about the keywords and the copy a huge part of the success of the campaign is the website. If your PPC agency is not optimising your website and giving recommendations for improving the conversion rate they are only doing half of their job.

Benefits of PPC advertising

Pay Per Click marketing is an immediate form of internet advertising your campaign can be set-up and running very quickly and generating leads or sales from day one unlike SEO which can take a number or months. PPC marketing allows you to exactly work out your marketing budget and the data will show you your return on investment (ROI) to the penny. With all the data you generate from your PPC advertising you can use this information to optimise your site for the most effective keywords in your SEO activity.