Digital marketing is a broad field that comprises of various marketing processes and promotional strategies implemented via digital channels to reach consumers, establish online presence and branding, as well as promote a company’s products or services. Under digital marketing, there is a type of online advertising called PPC (pay-per-click) marketing. Generally, PPC marketing is employed to generate leads, increase sales, and boost brand awareness.
In PPC campaigns, advertisers accumulate costs whenever a user clicks on their advertisements. Basically, advertisers bid on certain keywords for their ad, set an audience type, then the search engine displays the advertisement if it matches a user search query.
PPC Campaigns and Ad Groups
Advertisers start by selecting keyword themes and making individual campaigns. For instance, the advertiser may set the theme “dining tables” for the campaign. Under this general theme are subcategories that are called ad groups. From our example, the ad groups may include “round dining tables”, “long dining tables”, and “square dining tables”.
Then each ad group has themed keyword variations. For instance, the “round dining tables” ad group may have the following keywords: “round dining tables”, “round dining tables on sale”, and “round-shaped dining tables”.
Creating a Successful PPC Campaign
How often your advertisement is displayed relies on which keywords and match types you set. Surely, there are several factors that impact how successful your campaigns will turn out. However, you can increase your chances of success by focusing on these aspects:
The relevance of the Keywords
When creating your PPC keyword lists, make sure that they are all relevant to what you are promoting. Moreover, you should craft tight keyword groups and engaging ad text.
Quality of Landing Page
Optimize your landing page by integrating content that is not only relevant but also persuasive. Furthermore, your landing page must include a clear and enticing call-to-action.
Quality Score
This is the rating of Google on the quality and relevance of your landing page, keywords, and overall PPC campaign. Those with a higher Quality Score obtain more advertisement clicks at a lower cost.
It’s more than just clicking – there are various terms to consider before coming up with a PPC campaign
Keyword Research for PPC Marketing
Conducting keyword research is a time consuming, yet one of the most crucial stages of creating a PPC campaign. Keep in mind that your whole campaign is built around keywords; thus, you need to constantly refine your keyword list. If you only perform your keyword research once, chances are high that you are missing out on tons of low-cost long-tail keywords that could potentially drive traffic to your landing page or website. To employ a successful PPC campaign, make sure that your keywords have the following characteristics:
Highly Relevant
Obviously, if you want to drive quality traffic into your website, your keyword list should comprise of only those which are relevant to your business. Effectively targeted keywords will result in higher click-through rate and ultimately greater profits.
Comprehensive
Your keyword list should not only be composed of the most frequently searched keywords in your industry. It must also include more specific and less common long-tail keywords (which are also less expensive) because these can help you obtain more traffic.
Expansive
You need to grow and refine your campaigns to be successful in PPC marketing. Hence, it is important to create a landscape wherein your keyword list is constantly expanding.
Various Types of Keyword Matching Options
Google AdWords is the most popular platform for developing and implementing PPC campaigns. In AdWords, you can customize the way your keywords are targeted. Below are the various types of keyword matching:
Exact Match
As the term suggests, this only targets search queries that are completely identical to the keyword you set, excluding exceptions for plurals and misspelled words.
Broad Match
If you choose this default option, your ads will be matched with any search queries that include words that are similar or relevant to your keywords.
Phrase match
In this keyword matching option, your ads will only be matched with queries that have certain phrases or similar variants of these phrases that you specified.
Aside from these matching options, negative keywords are also an essential part of your keyword targeting because these allow you to prevent your advertisement from being shown and matched with search queries that have certain irrelevant words. For example, if you are only selling shoes for adults, you might want to add “baby” as a negative keyword to keep those who intend to purchase shoes for babies away from your ads and your adult-sized shoe business.
Making sure that your advertisements are only displayed to consumers who can be considered a good fit for the products or services that you sell will not only help you save money but will also allow you to save time. By setting proper keyword targeting options, you wouldn’t have to waste your time sifting through unqualified leads.
Final Thoughts
This article only covers the most basic terminologies and concepts in PPC marketing. If you want to run successful campaigns, you should take the time to learn more about this online advertising model and apply what you’ve learned.
In the PPC world, it is important to test and experiment on various features and strategies until you come up with the approach that works best for you. While there is no magic formula in PPC marketing, there are some good practices that work effectively for a lot of businesses.
If you don’t have the time to learn the ins and outs of PPC, but would want to integrate it into your digital marketing strategy as soon as possible, it is recommended to hire a professional who can do this for you. At Infinit3solutions, we have in-house PPC marketing professionals who can help you develop, run, monitor, and tweak campaigns.
Throughout the years of working in this field, we have handled a wide range of clients and have acquired useful skills and knowledge that allow us to adapt to the evolving PPC world. Contact us today and let us help you implement successful PPC marketing efforts that are within your budget.
