So you run a business or your boss wants to know if PPC advertising is the correct solution for online growth.
Either way, you are going to have plenty of questions about how Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising can help you reach the business’s online goals. Nowadays there are not just Google Ads, but there is PPC advertising on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Tik Tok.
Here are the most common questions with all the information you need to feel empowered.
1. How much will it cost?
This is the first question, but it is a question with a fluid answer. There are so many factors that the answer to this will be unique to you. Factors that influence the costs that you’ll be charged include:
1 – The Budget available for your campaign
2 – The keywords you will bid on and the traffic volumes they generate
3 – The times and days you want to run your adverts
4 – The competition and how aggressive they are in their campaigns
After you have assessed the points above you will need to set a test budget. This will be different for everyone but it needs to be large enough to drive sufficient traffic to help assess the performance.
Your test budget will be highly influenced by the keywords you choose. By using keyword research and forecasting tools you can assess what your spending will need to be to make an impact. Just to give you an idea of the range of a PPC campaign, keywords can be pennies but major keywords can be costly, according to Wordstream the most expensive keyword is “Insurance” at $54.91 per click.
2. How long to be up and running?
Setting up a PPC campaign can be done in a couple of hours, but it does depend on the type, number and complexity of the campaign. This is normally when a professional PPC management company can be worth its weight in gold. Experience in keyword research and setting up campaigns streamlines the process and can save money over the medium to long term. Shopping campaigns are notoriously complex and can take weeks without expert knowledge.
3. Will it work?
Naturally, you will want to know if PPC works. Worldwide there are millions of businesses using PPC advertising and it is safe to assume from they are receiving a return on their investment. According to Google “businesses make an average of $2 income for every $1 they spend in Google Ads”
4. Skillsets?
Do you have the skillsets in-house to make a PPC campaign work? It is wise at this point that inexperience can be costly. Although you can set daily limits on your campaign so you do not overspend, it is very easy for the uninitiated to make errors with their keyword choices. This can lend itself to the daily budget being quickly used by attracting the wrong type of click-throughs.
It is at this point there is a major decision to be made by the business. I would liken it to contracting in Legal or Accounting services.
You wouldn’t attempt to run these services in-house as they are specialists with their ecosystems. This is true of the SEO and PPC industries. The years of experience provided by a PPC management company can bring faster and cheaper results.
5. Contracts?
Contracts are contracts and they are there to protect both parties in the agreement. The main question regarding contracts revolves around the length. It is normal in the PPC industry for an initial contract to be for 3 months. This would provide enough data to assess the success of the campaign and to make relevant adjustments. After this initial period, the contract would normally drop into a rolling contract which can be cancelled at any time. A professional PPC management company will be able to provide contractual flexibility to meet your individual needs.
6. SEO V PPC?
This is an often argued point by the initiated. PPC is perceived as costly because there will always be a charge for the traffic generated.
SEO is seen as cheap because of the lack of cost for the traffic. It is easy to gravitate towards SEO for financial savings but there are pros and cons to both channels.
The most important point to take away from the difference is the speed of uptake. The moment your PPC campaign is initialised it WILL generate traffic, whereas SEO normally takes months for any noticeable results and the results are not guaranteed.
If you are serious about increasing your traffic a combination of both channels is the best route, but at this point, you really should look to the professionals.
7. How do we beat our competitors?
You will be familiar with your competitors in your business niche. What you will not have any knowledge of though is how their campaigns are performing. These tools will provide an insight into your competitor’s average position and what their Cost Per Click (CPC) is.
If you choose to go it alone or use a PPC management company there are factors to consider regarding where your adverts will appear. If you run a search campaign, the adverts will appear on Google and the search affiliate sites. The exact position they will appear in depends on the auction results based on:
• Your average bid
• Competitors’ bids
• Time of day
• Location you’re targeting
• Device it’s appearing on
• Advert quality
As your campaign is managed the position and bids for adverts can be adjusted. As a side note, being top is not always best. Better written adverts in 2nd or 3rd position can generate as much, if not more traffic, than the expensive number one spot.
Summary
Whether you’re a digital marketer, the business owner or an assistant tasked with finding out more about PPC advertising, it’s important to know how this channel will help your growth. To find out more without any commitments contact a PPC management company without delay.
