When so many obstensibly free options are available to promote your brand, it can feel like Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising is a waste of money. However, there are a few things you can accomplish with a PPC campaign that would take months to accomplish with blogging, social media posting, and other earned media. Not sure if PPC is right for your goals? These are a few times when PPC is the right pick:
When You Want to Build Traffic Quickly
Organic traffic is highly sustainable once you build the content to get people to your site, but it can take awhile for your work to show results. PPC allows you to put your site in front of a lot of people all at once, giving your brand a giant traffic boost.
When You Want to Focus on Specific Geographic Areas
Trying to build traction in a new city? Geotargeted ads can allow you to use your PPC budget to hit exactly the audience that you want. Choose by city name or get even more granular by targeting zip code by zip code. You can also save money by incorporating negative qualifications, such as eliminating from your ad campaign any areas where you do not do business.
When You Want to Re-Engage Past Visitors
Remarketing lets you show ads to people who have already visited your site but did not convert.
Build audiences in Google Ads or Microsoft Advertising with your site tag, then segment by pages viewed or time since visit.
Exclude recent buyers so your budget goes to people likely to act, and set list durations to match your sales cycle.
When You Have a New Product or Division to Promote
One of the benefits of PPC is that it allows you to build momentum quickly. If you want to give a new product a jump start, a PPC campaign that focuses exclusively on what’s new can give you a big boost. Create specific landing pages for this campaign so that you get maximum mileage out of your efforts.
When You Need to Show Measurable Results Fast
It can take a while for an organic campaign to show measurable results and even then, there will always be a need to continue content generation. PPC marketing, particularly on search engines, gives you results that are detailed enough that you’ll know which part of an ad is working and what kinds of users are responding. If you want data quick, a PPC campaign is the way to go. Set up conversion tracking for purchases, forms, and phone calls in Google Ads or Microsoft Advertising, and link to Google Analytics for reporting. Run ad variations to compare headlines and calls to action, then optimize using CTR, conversion rate, CPA, and ROAS.
PPC is part of a robust and healthy digital marketing strategy. By deciding on specific goals and using PPC for the right reasons at the right time, you can make the most of your marketing dollars.
