PPC advertising – or Pay Per Click advertising to give it its full name – is a convenient, potentially cost effective way of driving traffic to your website through sponsored links on search engines like Google and Yahoo!.

When you do a search on Google, for example, the results you get are listed down the middle of the webpage but you will have also seen those links on the right of the screen – they are your sponsored links.

How do they get the links there? Essentially, a company or individual will bid on search terms – just like the one you used to get your results – and the winning (highest) bidder will get their link to appear on the right, at the top of the page.

Whenever anyone clicks on that link they will pay the amount they bid to the search engine. Hence the name ‘pay per click’, of course.

The cost of pay per click advertising seems low – anywhere from 75c to $1.25 is the average – but it ca be deceptive. If you don’t plan your PPC advertising properly it could end up costing you a lot of money.

The answer to the question “Should I use PPC advertising?” is a complicated one. There are, however, some instances where pay per click would be a very useful tool to add to your marketing plan.

Launch of a new website

If it’s a brand new website you want to drive traffic to then waiting to be ranked organically is probably going to take too long. Although you will have carried out search engine optimisation of your site, it could be weeks or months before the full benefits are realised. PPC advertising can put you on page one of Google and Yahoo from day one. Yes, it will cost you money, but if you’ve set up your site properly and planned carefully, you could reap the rewards quickly.

New product launch

Launching a new product is a good opportunity to use pay per click advertising. You want to generate traffic, word of mouth and, most importantly, sales as quickly as possible. Having your new product advertised on page one of Google for related search terms is a good way of going about it.

Seasonal or time limited offers

When it comes to a summer or Christmas sale PPC is a fantastic way of getting your offer out there. People will always be interested in saving money and if your ad is carefully worded – and the landing page your customers arrive on well constructed – you could seriously benefit from PPC advertising.

You’ll see that the main element of all these examples is speed. That is the main advantage of pay per click advertising – if you’re willing to pay enough the results can be immediate. This is not the case with search engine optimisation, which could take a long time to get you to page one on a search engine, if at all.

Speed isn’t the only advantage of PPC advertising. Careful, planned pay per click management can achieve sustained results in terms of sales and a superb return on investment.

5 Things To Remember For Successful PPC Management

1) Choose the right search terms – do your keyword research, assess the costs and go for what works best for you, not the top, and therefore most expensive, terms.

2) Target your best offer or most successful product – don’t go for everything, you’ll not be able to keep track of what you’re spending and lose money.

3) Write effective ads – make sure your ad is engaging and not too long. You’ll pay through the nose for it and put off potential customers if it is.

4) Make absolute sure the page your customer lands on when they click your ad is the one they were expecting. DO NOT send them to the homepage. Send them to the product or offer page and make it as easy as possible for them to buy.

5) Test – a LOT. Try different search terms and different ads until you’ve worked out what is performing best for you. And keep testing. Things change over time.

Author Bio: Trevor Richards is writing on behalf of Fluid Creativity, a full service digital marketing agency specialising in pay per click management.

Category: Marketing
Keywords: ppc, ppc management, pay per click management, pay per click