What is Pay Per Click(PPC) ?

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is a form of advertising where the marketers only pay for each ad that gets clicked – thereby meaning they are in fact only paying for each visitor. PPC is in itself an important metric in these campaigns, along with things like CPA and maximum bid. This definition will explain everything you need to know in-depth.

Pay Per Click

(PPC)

Pay Per Click (PPC) describes an advertising model wherein the advertiser pays only when someone clicks on an ad. This form of advertising essentially means that marketers are paying for each visit to their website – usually for only a few cents per visitor. As long as they have a high conversion rate then, it is almost possible to guarantee at least some profit.

Useful PPC Terminology

CTR: CTR stands for the Click-through rate. This is the percentage of users who click on your ad. Many advertisers mistakenly think that raising their CTR should be the primary goal in order to improve their PPC. However, the truth is that the CTR is considerably less important than how well targeted your audience is. Which target your audience is most important in PPC.

CPC: This is your ‘cost per click’. This refers to how much you are paying for every click. Knowing this figure is important, as it will allow you to better decide what budget you have to spend on your ads. You will pay a different CPC for each ad, so this number is usually calculated as an average across multiple clicks.

Demographic: Knowing your target demographic is important. This means knowing who you are aiming your ads at and that in turn will allow you to use targeted advertising.

CPA: CPA stands for Cost Per Action. This means the amount you are paying for each time a user completes the action you wish for them to complete. Popular options include signing up for mailing lists, buying products, liking Facebook pages, or downloading freebies. Some platforms like Facebook let you opt for a CPA payment method. Others simply allow you to calculate what your CPA.

Maximum bid: Adverts in a PPC campaign are typically shown on a bid-for basis. This means that if two different adverts are considered suitable for a single advertising space, the advertisers will then enter into a bidding war. That means that the advertiser with the highest maximum bid will win, but only by the lowest amount necessary to win the price war. This is why your CPC varies. However, your maximum bid will determine the most you’re willing to pay per click (per visitor).

Budget: Your ad campaign will have daily, weekly or monthly budgets on top of your CPC. This means that once you have reached that pre-agreed amount, your ads will then stop showing.

Factors That Influence the Success of a PPC Campaign

PPC is a great way to potentially bring more traffic to your website. With the right PPC campaign, you can get highly targeted visitors to your site for just a few cents per click and you can gather a lot of useful data regarding the kinds of people who visit your site; which keywords lead to the most clicks and/or sales, which regions bring the most traffic, etc.

However, if you get your PPC wrong on the other hand, then it is a very quick and effective way to waste a lot of money and become rather disheartened. And this can be perplexing because, in theory, it all seems so easy. Just create your advert, choose your keywords, and set a budget right?

What many PPC campaigns don't take into account is the amount of competition that they are facing up against. This is a big mistake though, as if you are targeting keywords with too much competition, you'll find that each click costs you too much money (PPC works using a 'bidding system') and that your ad only shows occasionally. Thus it becomes less cost-effective and you don't get the volume of traffic you need.

What are the Negative Keywords?

Negative keywords mean keywords that you simply want to exclude from your PPC. In other words, when someone types in these phrases you're stating that you simply explicitly don't need your increase show as a result – albeit it otherwise would.

There are many reasons you might do this, but the most obvious is that you might know for certain that particular searches aren't going to lead to sales or clicks.

For instance, if you're selling a book on fitness, then you would possibly want to place the word 'free' as a negative keyword.

That's because the people using that search term will be looking specifically for things they don't have to pay for and will thus be unlikely to be willing to spend money on your book.

Likewise, you might want to include terms like 'Football'. These people will be looking specifically for football workouts most likely, so they're not going to want to spend money on a workout that is more general.

Some Companies That Offer PPC tools and Softwares

1. Google Ads Editor
2. Wordsteam
3. Hubspot
4. NinjaCat
5. Optmyzr
6. SEMRush
7. Ahref
8. AdsEspresso
9. Buzz Sumo

Some fundamental tips for PPC

1. Your first step is to understand your targeted audience.
   You should create an Ideal Customer Avatar or Audience Persona so that you can give a clear and straightforward message to your audience.
   It has become so simple to frame the message after creating your audience persona.
   If you want to learn how to create an audience Persona downloads our free guide on "How to create an Audience Persona".
   
2. After understanding your ideal customer you should research the targeted keyword. There are many different tools in the market to find the keyword. Some best software in the Industry is Ahref, SEM Rush, and Ubersuggest.
3. You should clearly define your goals which you want to achieve with online efforts whether it is sales, leads, branding, etc.
   A good plan maps out how you’ll get to your goals and makes room for adjustments when you’re off track.
   If you don't know how to set measurable goals, follow framework S.M.A.R.T.I have explained it in detail in my other Article. If you want to read it click here.
4. You need your ads to be super specific to location, devices, and language. Use available options to target your advertising the right way, so you don’t waste your money on ads that reach the wrong people.
   You can also target a radius around your business, so your advertising only shows to potential customers that fall within that radius.
5. No negative-keyword strategy.No negative-keyword strategy
6. Your campaign should be well structured. A structure organizes your campaigns into themes, making them easier to measure and manage and keeping your message relevant to your audiences.
7. Lack of the call to action. You should add a decent amount of call to action to your Landing page or website and try to make scarcity about the service or product you offer.
8. Using the home page as a landing page. When people click on your ad, they should land on a page relevant to the keywords used for that ad. Send them to an irrelevant page, and you increase the chance that they’ll leave your website without taking action.
9. If you don’t have a way to measure what you are doing, you’re not going to be able to figure out if your strategy is successful.
   Most advertising platforms offer a free measurement tool to be able to track results. Use what you learn in your measurements to adjust your campaigns.
10. When you build your plan you have to test and refine it for best results. Possible changes may be made in the target location, time of day, messages, keyword, bidding, and landing page, among other elements. Testing all these elements and making changes where needed will make or break the success of a campaign.
    One way to do this is to use Experiments in Google Analytics, which allows you to test various elements simultaneously.

For instance, if you want to test out two or more different landing pages, Google Analytics Experiments allow you to split tests to determine the efficacy of each page.

Conclusion

PPC is a good way of Advertising. If you know how to do it you can multiply the money you have invested in it. Advertisers and online marketers are using this method to generate revenue for the company.