Today, digital advertising encompasses all “traditional” media formats. Whether you want to buy TV, audio, or print, all forms of media can now be accessed through a digital outlet – adding additional layers of targeting to convert and engage customers.
While there are many different types of pricing structures for digital advertising (CPM, CPC, eCPM, CPCV), most will make you pay for a guaranteed amount of impressions based on a given budget.
In pay-per-click (PPC), however, you only pay when someone clicks on your ad, rather than just seeing it. So why are there so many articles telling you to stay away from PPC?
Since everyone’s a critic, let’s try and debunk a few common misconceptions.
#1 – PPC ads aren’t specific to my customers’ needs because we are a small business
PPC ads are a lot more relevant to the things your customers are searching for than you may know.
A potential customer will be served ads based on the keywords found in their search terms. This allows you to deliver ads around those topics your products or services are relevant for.
The reason PPC works great for many businesses of any size is because you only get charged if someone clicks on your ad. No matter your budget, you can compete with top brands who have millions of dollars to work with.
An interesting way to get your customers attention is highlighting promotions or sales in the ad copy. This will grab a buyer’s attention instead of having another distracting ad pop up.
#2 – I always need to be in a top position
While sitting in top positions may seem like the only way to get relevant consumers to click on your ad, the truth is that unless you are looking to build brand awareness sitting in the top two positions may not give you the results you were looking for. Instead of worrying about positioning, focus on a quality score and matching your business objectives to get the best results.
A few ways to boost your quality score include improving your content by adding beneficial information, creating relevant landing pages, and including calls to action in your ad copy. Using these improvements will help to increase your click-through rate (CTR) and ultimately, your conversions.
That said, sitting in the top position will not hinder your performance – as long as you continue to optimize to your end goal.
#3 – Spend More = Rank Better, Right?
Having a bigger budget doesn’t always mean your ad rank will improve.
PPC gives every type of business the same opportunity to advertise at any budget threshold. Google incentivizes advertisers who take quality scores seriously when looking at spend.
Let’s take a look at how that works.
Equation: ad rank of the person below you / your quality score + 0.01.
Example: Your quality score is 10. The advertiser below you has an ad rank of 14. Your total would be $1.41 per click (14/10+0.01). Now if we looked at the advertiser below you who has a quality score of 7 and the advertiser below them had an ad rank of 12 they would pay $1.72 per click (12/7+0.01).
From our example, you can see how important quality score is in affecting your spend per click.
#4 – Setup your PPC Account & Forget it
After all your hard work doing research, setting up the campaigns, and finally launching, you would think that you could just sit back and watch the sales flow in.
But, no matter how much research you do, consumers are constantly coming up with new search terms that you may need to filter in or out. Even after your campaigns have been setup, monitoring and optimizing are the reason you accomplish your objective.
Here are a few things you should focus on to make sure that you have a healthy account:
- Monitor bid adjustments
- Separate out keywords into their own ad groups
- Consistently test new ad copy
PPC is just a small piece in the digital world, but has quickly gained both critics and cohorts. Next time you hear a misconception, do your own research to find out if there is merit behind it or contact our PPC team with any questions.
