What is PPC? Discover the Fundamentals of Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Marketing

Want to grow your business? You've come to the right place if you've heard a bit of PPC marketing and want to learn more or if you already know you want to use PPC to market your business but need help figuring out where to begin. This article teaches you everything you need to know about PPC and how to use it to your advantage.

First, we must define PPC and gain a basic understanding of how PPC advertising works. Let's get started!

Know About PPC!

PPC is an abbreviation for pay-per-click, an internet marketing model in which advertisers pay a fee each time one of their clicked ads. It's essentially a method of purchasing visits to your website rather than attempting to "earn" those visits organically.

One of the most common types of PPC is search engine advertising. It enables advertisers to bid on ad placement in a search engine's sponsored links when customers search for a keyword related to their business offering. So, for example, if we bid on the keyword "PPC software," our ad may appear near the top of the Google results page.

Whenever is click on the ad, we must pay a small fee to the search engine, directing a visitor to our website. However, when PPC works appropriately, the cost is insignificant because the visit is worth more than you pay. In other words, if we pay $3 for a click that leads to a $300 sale, we've made a tidy profit.

A lot goes into creating a successful PPC campaign, from researching and selecting the right keywords to organizing those keywords into well-organized campaigns and ad groups to making PPC landing pages optimized for conversions. Search engines reward advertisers who can create relevant, intelligently targeted pay-per-click campaigns by paying less for ad clicks. Google charges you less per click if your ads and landing pages are helpful and satisfying to users, resulting in higher profits for your business. So, to start using PPC, you must first learn how to do it correctly.

What exactly are Google Ads?

Google Ads is the world's most popular PPC advertising system. Businesses can use the Ads platform to create ads on Google's search engine and other Google properties.

Google Ads uses a pay-per-click model in which users bid on keywords and pay for each click on their advertisements. When a search starts, Google searches its pool of Ads advertisers and selects a set of winners to appear in the valuable ad space on its search results page. The "winners" is by many factors, including the quality and relevance of their keywords, ad campaigns, and bids.

How effective are your Google Ads? Use our free Google Ads Performance Grader to find out:

It is an auction. This system enables winning advertisers to reach out to potential customers at a reasonable cost. An advertiser's Ad Rank is measured by: CPC Bid (the maximum amount spent) * Quality Score (value considers your click-through rate, relevance, and landing page quality). The infographic below depicts how this auction system works.

PPC marketing with Google Ads is especially beneficial because, as the most popular search engine, Google receives massive amounts of traffic and thus delivers the most impressions and clicks to your ads.

The frequency with which your PPC ads appear is the group by the keywords and match types you choose. While a variety of factors influence the success of your PPC advertising campaign, you can achieve a lot by focusing on the following:

Keyword Relevance –  Create relevant keyword lists, groups, and ad text to get a better customer reach.

Landing Page Quality – Creating optimized landing pages with compelling, relevant content and a clear call-to-action tailored to specific search queries.

Quality Score: Google's rating of the quality and relevance of your keywords, landing pages, and PPC campaigns is known as Quality Score. Advertisers with higher Quality Scores receive more ad clicks for a lower cost.

Creativity: Creative ad copy is essential, and if you're advertising on the display network, you can use a tool like our free Smart Ads Creator to create designer-quality ads that will entice users to click.

Keyword Research for PPC

The foundation of your AdWords PPC campaign is keywords, and the most successful Google Ads advertisers are constantly growing and refining their PPC keyword list. Keyword research for PPC can be highly time-consuming, but it is also vital.

If you only conduct keyword research once when you create your first campaign, you will miss out on hundreds of thousands of valuable, long-tail, low-cost, and highly relevant keywords that could drive traffic to your site.

The following is an example of a good PPC keyword list:

Relevant – Obviously, you don't want to pay for Web traffic that has nothing to do with your company. You want to find targeted keywords that will result in a higher PPC click-through rate, a lower cost per click, and higher profits. The keywords you bid on should be closely related to your products or services.

Exhaustive – Your keyword research should cover the most popular and frequently searched terms in your niche and the long tail of search terms. Long-tail keywords are more specific and less prevalent but account for most search-driven traffic. Furthermore, they are less competitive and thus less expensive.

PPC is iterative and expansive – You want to constantly refine and expand your campaigns and create an environment in which your keyword list grows and adapts.

Managing Your Pay-Per-Click Campaigns

Once you've created your new campaigns, you'll need to manage them regularly to ensure they remain effective. One of the best predictors of account success is consistent account activity. Therefore, you should constantly be analyzing your account's performance and making the following changes to optimize your campaigns:

PPC Keywords: Increase the reach of your Pay Per Click advertising google campaigns by including keywords relevant to your business.

Add Negative Keywords: Use negative keywords to improve campaign relevancy and reduce wasted spending.

Split Ad Groups: Increase your CTR and Quality Score by splitting your ad groups into smaller, more relevant ad groups, which allows you to create more targeted ad text and landing pages.

Examine Expensive PPC Keywords: Examine expensive, underperforming keywords and, if necessary, turn them off.

Improve Landing Pages: To increase conversion rates, tailor your landing pages' content and calls-to-action (CTAs) to individual search queries. Also, only direct some of your traffic to the same page.