Pay Per Click advertising is a form of Internet marketing that allows you to pay a fee to have your website on the search engine result page (SERP) when someone types in specific keywords or phrases. The SERP will display the ads you create to direct visitors to your site, and the fee you pay is based on whether people click your ad.
Pay per click (PPC) advertising is one of the most cost-effective ways to improve your ROI and brand awareness. If you can create a seamless user journey (which you’ll learn how to do later in this piece), it could mean a massive ROI for your PPC efforts.
Main Elements of Pay per Click
Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
Search Engine Marketing (SEM) refers to any digital marketing (paid or unpaid) done on a search engine, like Google, Yahoo, or Bing. This includes using paid advertising. SEM can be done with a variety of media including online banner ads, pay-per-click (PPC), email marketing, and even social media.
CPC
Cost-per-click is an important metric that can help you determine the bids you should place on your ads. This metric can help you optimize your campaigns to yield higher ROI and save money.
Formula of CPC
(Competitor’s Ad Rank / Your Quality Score) + 0.01 = Actual CPC.
Ad Rank
This value determines the position of an ad on a search engine results page. It’s equal to Maximum Bid x Quality Score. The maximum bid is bids placed by advertisers. Quality score is determined by how relevant the ad text and meta description are to the keywords being searched. It’s equal to Maximum Bid x Quality Score.
Quality Score
This is the score that search engines give to your ad based on your clickthrough rate (CTR) . It is mainly based on the relevance of your keywords, the quality of your landing page, and your past performance on the SERP.
CPM (Cost per Mille)
CPM is the cost per one thousand impressions. It’s most commonly used for paid social and display ads. There are other types of costs-per-marketing, like CPA (cost-per-acquisition), but for the sake of protecting space in your head, we’re going to stick with clicks.
Campaign
The first step in setting up your PPC ads is determining your ad campaign. You can think of your campaign as the key message or theme you want to get across with your advertisements, and it is what will determine the success or failure of these ads.
Ad Group
You probably already know that you need to create different ads for your pay-per-click campaigns. But here’s the thing—one size doesn’t fit all. That’s why you’ll create a series of ads within your campaign based on a set of highly related keywords. You can set a CPC for each ad group that you create.
Keywords
Keywords basically search queries that people type into a search bar or key onto a website. Search queries are made up of words and phrases, which are then turned into keywords by using software that tells a search engine what it is searching for; the keywords your ad will be displayed alongside in SERPs (search engine results pages).
Landing Page
Landing pages are the most important part of your paid advertising strategy. They are where users will end up once they click your PPC ad. Whether it’s a dedicated webpage, your homepage, or somewhere else, make sure to follow landing page best practices.
Best PPC Platforms
Pay per click advertising is a great way to advertise your website and grow your audience quickly. However, it is important to consider what method of advertising is best suited for your audience, as well as your budget. The number one rule to remember when choosing a platform is, always stay within your limits.
Some of the top PPC platforms.
Google Ads (formerly known as AdWords)
Google ads is one of the best ways to promote your business, help sell products or services and increase traffic.
Bing Ads
Bing Ads and Google Ads are two very different beasts when it comes to the audience you’ll be able to reach. With Bing Ads, you get a slightly lower CPC at the expense of a much larger audience.
Facebook Ads
Facebook Ads is a popular and effective platform for paid ads (more commonly used as CPM than CPC), mainly due to its specific targeting options. Facebook allows you to target users based on interests, demographics, location, and behaviors. You can do this by creating ads with specific goals like getting users to download your app or interact with certain content on your website.