|
flevyblog
The Flevy Blog covers Business Strategies, Business Theories, & Business Stories.
|
Editor's Note: Take a look at our featured best practice, Digital Marketing Plan (34-slide PowerPoint presentation). Introducing our new and improved digital marketing template plan designed to capture your audience's attention, generate interest, create desire, and prompt action (AIDA model). This template is not just for a one-time campaign but for ongoing business activity. It's perfect for [read more]
* * * *
Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising is one of the most common digital advertising practices used today, yet many businesses are skeptical of its effectiveness. A click, after all, isn’t the same as a sale and when such campaigns aren’t designed well, they can turn into a waste of time and money. Still, the approach wouldn’t still be thriving if it didn’t work, so brands can’t write it off entirely. Instead, what businesses need to do when implementing PPC campaigns is make sure that they’re properly structured to yield optimal results.
Know Your Goals
The first and simplest thing that businesses need to know when implementing a PPC campaign should be obvious, and yet it often goes overlooked: you need to define a successful campaign. If you don’t know what you want your PPC campaign to achieve, you can’t know if it’s working. That’s a serious problem.
There is no universal definition of a successful PPC campaign. Rather, you need to determine how many sales, clicks, or impressions would make a given marketing effort successful for your brand. This will depend on factors like budget, existing audience size, and platform, among others. These goals will evolve with your company, especially if you’re a beginner using PPC ads to market your new business.
Consider Your Keywords
PPC campaigns are built around keywords and anti-keywords, but to reach your intended audience, these have to be selected carefully. Choose terms that are too popular and you rick being drowned out by larger competitors, but target your campaign too narrowly and you won’t reach enough people.
Given these challenges, when structuring your PPC marketing campaign, many experts recommend researching keyword combinations that include added elements like your location, commercial terms like “sale” or “discount,” and popular search addenda like “how to” or “best.” Though it may be hard to rank for general product or service terms because of how many other companies you’re competing with, adding other terms to your PPC campaign profile can help.
Use Targeting Tactics
Keywords are just one of the different ways to make sure that your PPC ads are hitting their mark; another important targeting tactic is to define the demographics for your campaign. Many brands fail to implement precise targeting practices because they worry about missing those outside their core audience. If you don’t define the demographics for your campaign, though, you’re likely to waste a lot of money on clicks that will never convert. It’s better to reach a slightly smaller group and increase the proportion of clicks that lead to sales.
A Matter Of Balance
Research shows that PPC advertising is one of the most effective approaches to advertising, with PPC ads producing 50% more conversions than organic approaches according to a Moz study reported by SmallBizGenius. This is despite popular wisdom that typically promotes organic advertising over PPC and other practices. On the other hand, the majority of all ads, including PPC ones, are subject to ad blindness.
Today’s digital consumers are just too savvy to pay ads much attention and have mentally learned to filter them out. Add to that the 25% of users who have ad blockers installed and advertisers are facing an uphill battle – which only underscores the importance of having a clear strategy.
Structure your PPC campaign well, and you can break through this blockade. Now, are you ready to execute?
You can download in-depth presentations on Digital Marketing Strategy and 100s of management topics from the FlevyPro Library. FlevyPro is trusted and utilized by 1000s of management consultants and corporate executives.
For even more best practices available on Flevy, have a look at our top 100 lists:
These best practices are of the same as those leveraged by top-tier management consulting firms, like McKinsey, BCG, Bain, and Accenture. Improve the growth and efficiency of your organization by utilizing these best practice frameworks, templates, and tools. Most were developed by seasoned executives and consultants with over 20+ years of experience.
