Pay-per-click (PPC) is a type of digital advertising. Companies that run PPC ads only pay for that advertising when someone clicks on the ads. Several platforms sell PPC advertising, including Google, Bing, YouTube, Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter. Also referred to as search engine marketing (SEM) or paid search, PPC can quickly drive traffic to your site while increasing awareness of your brand.

PPC occupies a specific place in your overall marketing strategy, and it’s designed to deliver specific benefits, including:

• Brand awareness: Even if a paid ad doesn’t get clicks, it still gets seen. Every time your ad gets noticed, you’re building recognition among users. You can’t measure or quantify how many people merely notice your ad, but as traditional advertising and marketing taught us, you’re still promoting your brand simply by being present near the top of the page.
• Accessibility: Digital marketing is a great equalizer and every company has equal access to Google Ads. An ad for your small business can appear next to an ad from a global brand, and it doesn’t have to cost much to get started.
• Targeting qualified leads: There’s traffic, then there’s the right traffic. PPC ads give you controls that allow you to target the audiences that will be more inclined to notice and engage with your ads. You can dial in that audience by location, age, device, the time of day, and more. This feature is one of the most important differences between SEM and SEO.
• Conversions: Having a new customer make a purchase is the ultimate goal of all of your advertising and marketing efforts, of course, but in the online universe, the steps that prospective customers take that gets them closer to that goal count as conversions. (Signing up for your email list is an example.) Because your PPC ads take users to a landing page, you have another opportunity to reinforce your ad message and keep users focused on a single goal, upping the likelihood that they’ll convert.
• Data and insights: Digital marketing shines here—you can see into your competitors’ strategies, slice and dice the performance of your own ads in various ways, learn more about your audiences, and test nearly everything. Best of all, the insights you gain as you examine patterns, behaviors, conversions and all the rest can often be used in other marketing efforts.

If you’d like to find out what PPC can do for your particular business needs, please get in touch.

If you’re fairly new to SEM or PPC, you may not be aware that paid search strategies can include more than one type of ad. Text ads, such as Google Ads, make up the bulk of most advertisers’ efforts, but these are also forms of SEM:

• Retargeting ads are shown to users who have already had some level of engagement, such as putting an item in a shopping cart, or whose search activity indicated interest in the advertised product or service.
• Display ads are those ads you see along the sides, in the footer, or across the top of a web page.
• Call-only ads are just that—a click on these ads (which are displayed only on devices that can place a all) initiates a phone call rather than taking the user to a web page.

Absolutely. Google offers plenty of how-to videos and articles for do-it-yourself Google Ads that guide you through setup, bidding and more. There is, however, one important thing to consider before taking this on: How much time can you devote to making sure that PPC makes money?

For the best returns, you’ll need to invest a not-insignificant amount of time. There’s time for the initial setup, ongoing monitoring and adjustments to your campaigns, and creating landing pages. We have several long-term clients who came to us when their PPC management tasks took too much time from running their businesses.

You will also need time to really dial in your bids in order to balance costs and performance. Bid too low and you won’t get much impression share; bid too high and you will waste money. Keeping a close eye on bids and adjusting them as needed is essential to success.

Lastly, you’ll need time to keep up with the constant changes that the search engines make to their paid search programs. There are always innovations, some of which can make a big difference in how well your ads and your budget perform.

Of course, this is the point where we remind you that DAGMAR Marketing can handle all of your PPC management needs, from competitive research and campaign strategy, to landing page development and ongoing campaign optimization. Whether you’ve done some PPC advertising yourself or just wonder what you’d need to invest to make it worth your while, we’d love to hear from you.

Not every business needs to do pay-per-click advertising, but if you’re looking for a way to generate qualified leads in fairly short order, PPC may be worth the investment. It’s efficient and, when it’s done right, affordable.

With an initial look at your playing field and an idea of your budget, we can tell you if PPC may be a good option for you (and we’ll tell you if it’s not). Get in touch for a free consultation to discuss your needs.

Not only does pay-per-click advertising work well with your other marketing channels, it can help them be more successful. In fact, your PPC campaigns will work best when all of your efforts are working together.

You should use the same criteria to select a PPC agency that you would use to contract with any type of service provider:

• Technical expertise: There’s a bit of art to PPC, but it’s mostly science. Look for an agency with deep technical abilities and that stays up to date on the constant changes in PPC. The agency should also be adept at creating the ads and landing pages that make everything work.
• Reputation: Ask for references from the agency’s current roster of clients and check out its online reviews.
• Customization: To be effective, PPC must be customized to each client’s business. Everything that makes your business unique comes into play in your PPC strategy. What works for one industry, product, or location, for example, won’t work for another.
• Results: There’s no more objective decision-making factor than what kind of results an agency gets for its clients, particularly if it has clients in the same type of business you’re in. If an agency won’t share this information with you, move on.
• Customer service: Ask who will be your day-to-day contact and how available that person will be. Ask how often reports will be sent to you and what they will include. PPC is complex, and it’s easy for an agency to give you just part of the story when you don’t know what information may be missing.
• Contracts: A lot of reputable PPC agencies work on a month-to-month basis. While asking you for a longer commitment isn’t necessarily a bad sign, it’s certainly an arrangement that’s more favorable for the agency than it is for you.

Results can come quickly with pay-per-click advertising. You may see positive results in just a few weeks. As we collect data from your initial campaigns and use the insights gained to adjust them, your results should continue to improve. You’ll see the results we get for you in our monthly reports, and we’re happy to review the progression of your campaigns with you at any time.

Signing up for Google Ads is free and you only pay when your ad is clicked or when a phone call is generated. Beyond that, the answer to “how much” is “it depends.”

Your ultimate advertising costs will be determined by the relevance of your ad, how much competition there is for the keywords you’re targeting, and how many clicks you get. Not all keywords cost the same, and some may be so expensive that they’re not worth it for your business.

If you’re new to paid search and would like to know more about how costs are determined, please give us a call!

The media you use to promote your brand can be classified into three types: earned, owned and paid, and they’re all important to a solid online marketing strategy. As the term suggests, when you pay to have your marketing content placed somewhere, you’ve taken advantage of paid media. Owned media is a channel that you have complete control of, such as your blog content and your company’s website. Earned media is out of your control and happens naturally (or organically), such as a customer review or a mention in the press that you’ve “earned.”

Paid media is just another way to refer to online ads, which include content labeled as “sponsored” and “promoted” on social media platforms such as Twitter and LinkedIn. It’s also a great example of the power of digital marketing, since the various media channels offer at least some level of control over who your ads are targeting, which is both efficient and cost-effective.