Does PPC Advertising Work?
Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.
PPC Advertising
It’s a relatively new form of marketing compared for traditional forms of marketing such as telemarketing or press advertising.
Started up in the early days of the internet PPC is googles way to generate revenue for its search services.
It seems to work well, at least it does for google, being one of the highest profit companies in recent years however how does it work for the companies that are paying?
What is PPC Advertising?
PPC advertising is ‘pay per click’ and is now becoming quite a popular marketing system. Originally started by google as a way for them to generate revenue (and for advertisers to appear on the main search if their website did not) it is spreading to other companies and websites.
It is based on an advertiser selecting words of phrases that they would like their website to appear for when a visitor on the search engine does a search. For example, a company that is targeting marketing may have an advert appearing on a search engine like this:
Marketing Companies
Find and compare quotes from local
Marketing Companies today.
www.marketingquotes.co.uk
These adverts will appear at the top and right hand side of a search engine page designed for you to click on them to visit the website.
You would select target words of phrases for your advert to appear (so the advert above may target a phrase such as ‘marketing companies’ or ‘marketing’.
How does PPC work?
PPC works by the advertiser paying per click on their advert (as above). Depending on the competitiveness of the word or phrase, search engines set a CPC (cost per click) for you to pay. The more competitive the phrase, the more you pay. Something like ‘car insurance’ would be an expensive phrase to sponsor whereas something like ‘hotel kitchens’ would be cheaper.
The more you bid to pay for a click, the higher up the page your advert appears until you are at the top position.
Normally you would set a monthly budget to work with, and when your budget is reached, your adverts stop appearing. There are lots of settings so that you can set your adverts to appear at certain times throughout the day, during the weekends etc.
How to get the most from a PPC Campaign
PPC can be very expensive, but also can be very successful. If you have a very high value product, then all you need is a couple of orders and you are well into profit. If you have a low value product, then it can be tricky to get the system to work as effectivley as possible.
1. Be specific with your keywords
The internet has millions of users every day which includes students, children, researchers, your customers and everything inbetween. What you want is for your potential customers (and only them) to click on your adverts. You cannot control who does and does not click on your advert, just by being very choosy with what you are looking for will you get a very focused type of traffic.
2. Use negative keywords
Negative keywords are words that you do not want to appear. So for example, if you were wanting to target ‘legal firms’ and wanted to ensure that recruitment companies did not click on your advert, if you make ‘legal firm recruitment’ a negative, or anything with ‘recruitment’ appearing – this should reduce the risk of your adverts appearing for that type of search.
3. Be stingy with your budget
People do not always click on the top advert; just one that stands out to them. Start off with low bids and go from there upping your bids over a few weeks till your adverts start appearing (this is called impressions – which means the number of times your advert is shown throughout the day).
•Make your title and description catchy
Using the example above, you only have 1 line with a restricted character number for the title, so it needs to be impacting. The description again is restricted, so you need to keep it short, sharp but also deter people that you do not want to attract. Hard to do, but using a few different adverts and then seeing which ones are more sucesful is a good test for what works and what does not want.
How long does PPC take to work?
This is a hard one, as search engines do take time to ‘get to know you’. If you change something, it can take a few minutes to take visible effect, but there is a period that the search engines see you advertising and get to know what you are doing and what sort of searches you are after. Sounds like it is cleaver, but it actually is, it is a case of setting up a campaign, allowing the dust to settle and the campaign to tick over for a couple of months. Make a few small changes then again, allow the changes to settle down.
We normally advise that a campaign takes around 6 months to bed in and become fruitful.
It does depend on the company/service but generally there is lag period between setting up a campaign and it becoming fruitful for you.
It is not a quick fix, although it may appear a quick fix, going in all guns blazing can use up your budget and become a costly exercise.
How cam I prevent wast with my PPC campaign
PPC is about trial and test. A PPC company will know what does work and what does not, however there is going to be a testing period at the beginning of the campaign to get a feel for what does work and what does not. However it is case of trying to minimise any losses by being very focused on all the tools and features that are provided.
Are all PPC companies the same?
No, however PPC does change. As costs go up across markets, the cost of advertising on search engines has also gone up (this was raised recently in the press) so it is a bit of a changing science. Also, PPC is effected by market trends, seasons etc. due to people being on holiday etc.
PPC will need constant monitoring to ensure it is working correctly and for this, hiring a professional to set up and monitor the campaign is advised. Constant changes to a campaign is not good as search engines do not like this, hence why it was mentioned doing a change, leaving it a bit to allow the dust to settle. then tweaking it.
Does PPC advertising work
This is the original question asked and as the above covers, PPC can work if set up and managed properly. It can be very expensive and unsuccessful if not done properly, so best to get a professional agency to set your campaign up and manage it for you!