What Is PPC? Pay-Per-Click Marketing Guide

PPC, or pay-per-click advertising, is when you run an advertisement on a platform and pay for the number of clicks, impressions, or goals you accomplish. It’s one of the fastest ways to get your business in front of potential customers.

Local businesses and e-commerce businesses can use PPC to test products, services, and marketing messages in a fraction of the time it takes other marketing methods.

To scale even faster, professional pay-per-click management agencies help you avoid common beginner mistakes and maximize your ad spend.

This guide walks you through the entire process, helps you understand what PPC is, and gives you tested solutions on how to drive scalable growth.

What Is PPC?

PPC stands for pay-per-click, and it’s a type of digital advertising where your ads appear at the top of search engine platforms, like Google, when people search for relevant phrases and terms.

The method is a powerful way to attract immediate traffic from people actively searching for services or products you offer.

Here are some core concepts that drive the process:

• Keywords: Search terms you bid on to trigger ads.
• Bids: This is the amount you’re willing to pay per click.
• Ad auctions: The automated system determines ad placement.
• Ad rank: Your ad’s position is based on bid amount and quality score.
• Quality score: This is Google’s rating of your ad’s relevance and landing page experience.
• Cost-per-click: This is the actual amount you pay per click.
• Landing pages: This is the webpage a user lands on after clicking your ad.

PPC ads are the quickest way to test marketing materials, audience demographics, and sell your business.

How PPC Compares To Other Digital Marketing Strategies

With PPC ads, you pay as you go. You bid on keywords, and when traffic clicks on your ad, you pay a set fee. The model may provide instant visibility, but the cost quickly adds up if you don’t know what you’re doing.

Other methods, like content marketing, offer a sustainable and long-term traffic source for leads. Blogs, SEO, and other content methods have a lower cost per acquisition and drive traffic without additional costs.

Social media, both organic and paid, can lead to better direct relationships with your company but take long periods of time to grow. PPC is a more direct-response approach to generate leads and clicks quickly.

Organic search relies on SEO and blog articles to rank in search engines over time. Paid search puts you at the top of SEO listings instantly for a price.

Benefits of PPC for Local Businesses

Local businesses that concentrate on AdWords PPC management have an instant machine ready to print leads and traffic.

One of the biggest advantages is instant visibility. Instead of waiting months for your website to rank organically, you jump to the top of Google search pages within hours of launching a PPC campaign.

You also get pinpoint targeting with PPC campaigns. Opening a new ad gives you options to input specific zip codes, cities, and a radius around your business. You can target ads by time of day, device, and other demographics.

Here are some key demographics you can use for targeting inside PPC ads:

• Gender
• Age
• Location
• Income
• Job title
• Parental status

With PPC ads, you control the budget to fit your needs. You establish before running ads if you want to start with $10, or scale up throughout the week.

The clear results let you see the exact number of clicks, conversions, and costs to calculate your return on investment (ROI).

Even if your company chooses to stick with organic methods, like social media or content marketing, PPC complements the growth. PPC management agencies, like Levy Online, help shortcut the time to get to these benefits. 

Key Components of a Successful PPC Campaign

When mastering pay-per-click advertising, you need to focus on five key components that will drive 80% of your results. Our team has experimented at length with PPC ads and discovered these key components, and what you can do to optimize them.

Keyword Research

Strong keyword research is the foundation of every successful PPC in digital marketing. If you don’t target the correct terms, your ads won’t show for the right audience.

Most companies have covered shorter key terms, like “emergency plumber,” but your localized experience can create long-tail keywords that perform better, like “emergency plumber in Summerlin.”

Use tools, like Google Keyword Planner or Ubersuggest, to uncover targeted keywords for your company.

Ad Copy

The best PPC ads immediately grab attention and compel viewers to take action. The copy needs to be clear, relevant, and focused on the user’s intent.

Use strong headlines and highlight the most effective benefits, and focus on one major pain point. Don’t overlook the call-to-action (CTA) button copy because you can align it with your message.

Landing Page Optimization

The user experience from ad to landing page is crucial to creating a system that is sustainable and profitable. You need to turn clicks into conversations, and the landing page is where it happens.

Align your landing page message almost identically with your ad message. Users need to feel they’re in the right place. If Google gets signals that your landing page converts, it rewards you with a higher quality score.

Budget Management and Bidding Strategies

Choosing the right bidding strategy will help keep you within budget. Here are three typical options to choose from:

• CPC: Pay-per-click
• CPM: Pay-per-thousand impressions
• CPA: Pay-per-acquisition

Before you start, outline a clear budget that leads to your goals and monitor your performance regularly. Scalable results are the product of high-intent keywords and optimized landing pages.

Performance Tracking and Analysis

Using the data you receive will help you make better decisions on improving ad performance. Focus on key metrics, like click-through-rate (CTR), conversion rate, and ROI.

Monitor these metrics consistently and use them to spot trends, cut waste, and improve results. Use tools, like Google Analytics and the Google Search Console, to make it easier to track and analyze data straight from the source.

Types of PPC Advertising and Their Platforms

While PPC exists on a number of platforms, the biggest and most used is Google Ads. The others are useful for testing to see if your audience has bigger numbers elsewhere, so you can tap into an untouched source for leads.

Google Ads: The Dominant PPC Platform

As the most powerful search engine and PPC platform in the world, Google has powerful tools to reach users all across the globe. You can reach viewers in search results, websites, YouTube, and other assets Google owns.

It uses an ad auction system that takes your bid amount, ad quality, and expected impact to determine your placement and cost.

Here are the most common ad types to focus on:

• Search: Text ads on Google results
• Display: Banner ads across websites
• Shopping: Product listings in Google Shopping
• Video: Ads on YouTube

The flexible targeting, budget control, and performance tracking make Google a premium PPC option and where you should spend most of your budget.

Other PPC Platforms

It’s worth exploring other PPC platforms since Google is extremely competitive. Microsoft Advertising (formerly Bing Ads) can serve your marketing ads to Bing, Yahoo, and partner sites.

Social media platforms are where most younger attention is, and you can get your ad on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

Amazon Ads are perfect for e-commerce brands with sponsored product listings directly in front of shoppers.

Common PPC Mistakes To Avoid

A high budget can’t save a PPC campaign with a poor strategy.

One common mistake is poor keyword targeting, like using overly broad or irrelevant keywords. Even if these keywords bring in lots of traffic, they won’t be relevant, and you’ll waste your budget on unqualified clicks.

Another common mistake is letting your landing page stay idle without making optimizations. When traffic starts hitting the page, identify bottlenecks that prevent conversions and experiment with adjustments.

Here are some other common PPC mistakes:

• Ignoring negative keywords
• Inconsistent monitoring
• Weak ad copy
• Lack of location extension

Use these tips to help people find your business and boost your ad’s visibility. A PPC advertising service will help you start campaigns without spending budget on trial and error.

How Much Budget Do You Need To Start With PPC?

Your exact budget will depend on your industry, competition level, and marketing goals. There is no one-size-fits-all answer to PPC ad budgets.

Some industries have higher-than-average cost-per-clicks, like legal, finance, or tech.

When you’re just starting out, we recommend starting with a budget around $10-$20, so you can gather enough data without spending the entire budget in one small campaign.

Monitor your results consistently and make adjustments along the way. Over time, you’ll identify keywords that align closely with your brand and drive down PPC costs.

Search Engine Marketing PPC and the Local Market

The term ‘search engine marketing’ (SEM) is a broader strategy that includes both organic SEO and paid search marketing ads on search engines, like Google.

Search engine marketing PPC is the more immediate, fast-moving part of SEM and immediately helps local businesses get in front of the right audience. Platforms, like Google Ads, let you target specific locations, making it easy to appear in front of your potential customers.

Reaching customers typically involves several trials and errors, but we’ve concentrated all the lessons into these best practices:

1. Use location-based keywords: Include city names, neighborhoods, or “near you” phrases.
2. Enable location targeting. Set ads to show only within a specific geographical location.
3. Add location extensions: Display the business address and map to increase visibility.
4. Tailor ad copy to local intent: Mention local events, services, or landmarks to connect with nearby users.

Why Partnering With a PPC Company Can Make a Difference

Managing a PPC campaign takes more than setting a budget, choosing a few keywords, and watching the money roll in. There’s real skill and complexity involved. You need to understand ad auctions, optimize bids, write high-converting copy, track performance, and adjust campaigns in real time.

Local businesses simply don’t have the time, staff, or expertise to manage it all effectively.

That’s where partnering with a PPC professional agency, like Levy Online, makes a difference. A dedicated team handles each piece of the PPC strategies for B2B, and you gain access to our powerful tools, expert-level insights, and proven strategies.

Get the most out of your Google Ads by partnering with Levy Online. We use Google Ad Smart Campaigns to get the most ROI. We’ll go over your current process and discover how we can help grow your business.

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