A Beginners Guide to PPC Marketing

PPC (Pay-Per-Click) Marketing is becoming a vital part of many small & large business digital marketing plans. PPC, also known as CPC (Cost-Per-Click) is a tool that allows you to set up adverts that appear at the top of search engine results. Many businesses now are using PPC, however over 70% of businesses are failing to see a ROI (return on investment) due to poor campaign management. If you are a beginner in PPC Marketing or you would like to learn how to get the most out of your current/future campaigns you have come to the right place.

So What Exactly Is PPC?

As previously mentioned, PPC stands for pay-per-click. It’s a form of digital marketing in which companies pay a fee each time one of their ads is clicked. Basically, it’s a way of buying visits to your site, rather than attempting to “earn” those visits organically.
You have probably seen 100’s of PPC ads, you may have even clicked them without realising. The paid ads will always display at the top of the search engine results with a small green icon beside them. Take the below image for an example, when searching for ‘seo packages’ the top four results are paid ads (red boxes have been added to highlight the add icon). The fifth link (highlighted by a green box) is the first organic (non-PPC) position.

Ideally you would like your website to appear at the top off the results page organically. However, this can be a long, technical and difficult process which could take weeks, months or even years.

How Do I know Which Keywords to Target?

Your initial keyword research is the foundation for the success on which to build your PPC campaign, this is arguably the most important part. Keywords are the words or phrases that your customer will use when searching for your product on Google, Bing, Yahoo etc. You now need to decide what services/products you want to target. For an example we are going to put together a list of some of the services we offer here at one of our clients companies; Eventmasters LTD.
Note: make sure you include branded searches as they tend to have higher conversion rates and lower cost per conversions.

KEYWORD LIST:

Keyword Research

Now that you have your ‘first draft’ keyword list, it’s time to do some research. You now need to know which of your keywords are being used by customers on search engines. For example; your keyword could be Pay Per Click but customers may be searching for Paid Search.
There are many keyword research tools available online, some paid and some free. For this example we are going to use the Google AdWords tool as it’s free and the most commonly used. All you have to do is search for a keyword and Google will generate a list of suggested terms.

With this tool you can then search each of your terms and find out which ones are being used more frequently by customers.

Setting Up Your Campaign

Now that you have your list of keywords, it’s time to set up your account/campaign. The structure/organisation of your account can be vital to your success. You will need to create ‘Ad Groups’ for each of your terms. For example you will need to set up an Ad Group for Chelsea Hospitality and a separate one for Twickenham Hospitality. It’s a good rule of thumb to have around 3-5 Ad Groups per campaign.

Campaign Settings

Once you have set up your campaign with Ad Groups and the correct structure, the next thing to do is check all of the settings on your account. Many people rush this part of the process and find many mistakes later down the line.

LOCATION AND LANGUAGES

If you are targeting customers globally you will need to double check this setting. It allows for your ads to show in different languages so that you can cater to all customers. If you are targeting just UK customers then you can skip this setting.

DEVICE SETTINGS

Most PPC managers select ‘All’ for this option. It allows for your add to show on all platforms (desktop, mobile tablet etc.). For most campaigns you will want to select all but in some cases you may want to consider separate campaigns for mobile.

BIDDING AND BUDGETS

This is arguably the most important setting of your campaign. Getting this part right will determine the outcome of your success. If you set your daily budgets too low you will risk not utilising all of your budget, if you set it too high you risk spending all of your budget in a matter of days. You need to be somewhere in the middle. If you have a monthly budget the best way to calculate this is divide your total budget by the amount of days in that month.
For example if you have monthly budget of £1000 for January (31 days). Divide the £1000 by 31, leaving you with around £32.20 per day.
Once you have your account up and running you will have data to evaluate and you can then adjust your budgets accordingly.

Summary

By following these steps you will most likely see a ROI for your PPC campaign. You will need to tweak and adjust settings/budgets as you go to cater for your campaign. This is just the very start of your PPC campaign in the long-term.
If you would like any more advice or help please feel free to contact us and speak to with one of our experts.
Good luck! 😎😎😎