How Effective Is PPC Advertising?

Aside from being an easy way to get your company in front of users who are searching for exactly what you have to offer, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising can have a major overall positive impact on the revenue of your business. But ultimately, how effective your campaign is depends on your chosen keywords, ad copy, landing pages and more.

Here are just a few of the ways that running a well-researched PPC campaign can benefit your business and help you reach your marketing goals.

PPC can increase web traffic

This is obviously the top reason for running a PPC campaign. Increasing traffic to your website can help boost search engine rankings, improve your conversion rate and expand your overall brand awareness.

With over 2 billion people online, generating highly-targeted traffic is a no-brainer. There are 40,000 searches every second, meaning there are millions of opportunities for your business to be found on popular search engines.

Behavior of users is another factor to consider when looking at increased web traffic. According to recent studies, those who are searching for a particular product or service are 65% more likely to click a paid ad. Being top of mind – and top of the search results – can greatly boost your traffic and, in turn, your conversions.

Measure campaigns in real time

There is no lead-up time to launching a PPC campaign. Once the campaign is turned on, your business will immediately be advertised to the thousands of people searching for your targeted keywords. Instant gratification definitely has its place in the marketing world!

And because a PPC campaign drives immediate results, this allows you to measure the effectiveness of a set of keywords or tested ad copy in real time. If you’re not happy with the results, adjustments can be made right away and those changes will go into effect immediately to be analyzed. This isn’t possible with other forms of advertising. Traditional channels like television, radio and print aren’t nearly as nimble and don’t allow for much flexibility.

Keeps you in the competition

Large businesses spend a ton of money on PPC campaigns, making the cost of some of the more popular keywords much more expensive than normal. However, you can still stay in the game by targeting less popular, more niche keywords that your competitors might be missing. You can run your ad campaign at different intervals or times of day, and use a range of tactics to gain advantage on other businesses in your industry.

One of the best ways to stay at the top of search results is to target your competitors’ brand names. This is a common, slightly cut-throat practice for many advertisers in industries where competition is high. In theory, if someone uses the search term “Coca Cola”, for example, an ad for Pepsi might appear in the number one result. Identify who your main competitors are, and don’t rule out the strategy of stealing their traffic!

Great addition to a comprehensive strategy

If you are looking to grow your business quickly, factoring in PPC to your comprehensive marketing strategy is the way forward. Pay-per-click campaigns work effectively alongside social media, content publishing, email marketing and more. Retargeting helps round out the strategy by ensuring that those who have seen your PPC ads and visited your website are then served your ads again on their journey to other websites, keeping you in the forefront of their purchasing decision.

PPC and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) also work well together as they potentially target the same keywords – One via paid ads, and one via organic search. Insights and data from a PPC campaign can provide valuable information on where to focus efforts for organic search, helping further align goals across marketing channels.

Potential clicks can turn into leads and sales all from one targeted search. If you’re seeing great results from a PPC campaign, it can be scaled up immediately based on what you’re willing to spend. It has been proven to be a reliable channel for business and offers little risk in testing, making it a valuable part of any marketing blueprint.