4 Tips for Harnessing the Power of PPC
There are tons of ways that digital marketers can harness the power of the Internet to grow a business, and one of the most effective is the pay-per-click (or PPC) ad. PPC ads allow companies to place ads on search engines alongside organic results — and then only pay for those ads when a person actually clicks on them.
Not only are PPC ad campaigns considered cost-effective for companies that want total control over the marketing budgets, but they’ve proven their worth as well. Studies show that people who arrive at a page from a PPC ad are 50 percent more likely to make a purchase than people who find a page via organic search results.
For marketers who want to harness the power of PPC, the following tips can help ensure that paid ads generate more leads and convert more paying customers.
1. Use Negative Keywords
It’s tempting to only use relevant keywords to optimize a PPC ad. However, business owners and marketers should also take advantage of the negative keywords feature for an AdWords campaign. Negative keywords are words that are specifically NOT a good fit for what a company offers; for example, if a company offers upscale men’s clothing, negative keywords might include things like discount clothing, children’s clothing, etc.
2. Optimize for Mobile
There’s no doubt that today is the mobile age, with more than half of all Internet usage conducted from a mobile device (rather than a desktop computer). For that reason, it’s essential to optimize a PPC campaign for mobile web users. PPC ads should include click-to-call buttons so visitors can call directly from an ad, and they should lead to landing pages that are optimized for mobile, letting potential customers easily consume information on-the-go.
3. Utilize Retargeting
If someone visits a business’s site once and doesn’t buy, the business shouldn’t give up on them. Instead, companies can use retargeting to get a person to revisit a site and consider buying on that return visit. Retargeting places a cookie in the browser of someone who visited a site — and then displays PPC ads about that business in their future search engine results. A study by comScore clearly showed that ad retargeting results in a stronger lift than any other ad targeting strategy.
4. Monitor and Tweak
One of the best parts about PPC ads is that a company can see how they work in real time. For that reason, marketers should never just create a PPC ad and walk away; instead, they should consistently monitor how an ad is doing. Tweaking things like ad copy, negative keywords and more can help show how those things affect an ad’s performance. By staying engaged with PPC ads, businesses can ensure each one is packing the most punch possible.