What is Pay Per Click Advertising Anyway?

Pay Per Click advertising or PPC is pretty fantastic.  Why?  The easy answer is that PPC allows your business the opportunity to be at the top of the search engines just by bidding on certain keywords and phrases.  It sounds simple but there is actually a lot more which goes into it.  You’ll want to be sure to read our Pay Per Click Advertising Pros and Cons section below.

First – Let’s show you what PPC ads look like. 

 

You’ve seen these types of listings before but maybe didn’t know that they were call Pay Per Click ads.  You’ll notice that many of PPC listings are companies how aren’t showing up in the organic or map results.  More than likely they’ve decided to spend on PPC rather than other Local Marketing strategies to get their website listed at the top of the search engines organically. 

These ads are basically sold at auction and you bid what you want to spend for a click on the ad.  If someone clicks on your PPC listing, they arrive at your website and you are charged the amount that you bid.  If you have the highest bid you have the opportunity to rank in the top of the page in the sponsored results area.  Now you noticed that we said “opportunity” right?  While having the highest bid has a lot to do with getting your results to the top, there are other factors which impact this as well such as Quality Score.  Quality Score is a value which Google places on how relevant your ads are to the person viewing your ad.  The higher the Quality Score, the better chance for you to rank that ad higher than your competition.  Google provides some great examples here.

Pros and Cons of Pay Per Click Advertising

 

Pro – Very Quick Results
Your business is able to get traffic within minutes of having the PPC campaign implemented.  Traditional SEO is a strategy which requires time to build.  Getting to the top of the search engines for competitive keywords and phrases typically takes a minimum of three months or even longer.  If your business is wanting quick results, then PPC is a fantastic tool to leverage.  PPC is a great complement to SEO, it fills in the time gap at the beginning.

Pro – Geographic Targeting
PPC advertising allows you to focus your efforts to the specific regions where you do business.  Example:  If you wanted to only target customers who are within 25 miles of your store, you can do so.  Your Pay Per Click ads will only appear in the areas you have defined.

Pro – Nimble Advertising
Marketing and advertising has ebb and flow.  Some other forms of local marketing take time to adjust to the ever changing world of advertising but PPC can be updated very quickly to address any changes to the marketing environment.  It allows your business to be nimble and to remain ahead of the herd.

Pro – You Only Pay When There is a Lead
As you may guess, you only spend when PPC delivers your business a lead.  How many other forms of marketing and advertising do you know of where you pay when they’ve delivered results.  Typically it is the other way around, you pay and hope for a return on your investment.  

Con – Can Be Expensive
Just like bidding on any auction, the cost for the item can go up with each bid.  If a PPC campaign’s budget and ad spend isn’t managed correctly, it can become very expensive.  This is why you’d want to hire a local marketing company to manage this for you.

Con – Turning Off the Campaign – Turns Off the Leads
Think of your PPC campaign as a faucet, when its on, it provides you water.  When its turned off, the sink dries up.  PPC works the same way, you only receive leads through PPC when it is turned on.  If you turn it off, there is no residual ranking capability whereas investing in search engine optimization provides a longer lasting effect.

Con – Poorly Managed Campaigns Cost You Money
Anyone can set up a Pay Per Click advertising campaign, there are tons of websites and YouTube videos on how to get started.  What many of those don’t teach is how to properly setup and manage a campaign.  As we mentioned earlier in this segment, Quality Score is very important to get your ads to not only convert well, it also enables you to reduce your overall cost.  A PPC campaign needs to be managed each and every week to ensure that it is not only the most effective it can be, but also reduce the overall budget.  Most business owners don’t have the time to do this, the result being an ineffective Pay Per Click campaign is created and/or that campaign ends up costing the business owner a small fortune in very little time.

Again, PPC can be an instant traffic generator if implemented correctly.  Call Spark Local Marketing, your Pay Per Click experts, assist you in creating a very effective Pay Per Click ad campaign while keeping it within budget.  

 

Call us today at 864-735-5488 or email us through our Contact Us Page.  

We’d love to help you get more customers through your doors!