What is PPC?

PPC stands for Pay-per-Click, a form of advertising that allows you to pay a small fee each time someone clicks on your ad. You only ever pay for an ad if someone clicks on it, and you have complete control over your budget. 

Advertisers bid on keywords relating to their products or services or keywords that their target audience is searching for. When someone clicks on the ad, they are sent to a landing page on the advertiser's website. For details on creating a PPC landing page, check out this blog: ‘Top 10 tips for creating an effective PPC landing page’. 

The most popular PPC advertising platform is Google Ads which is unsurprising as Google controls 71% of the search engine market. There are 9 different types of Google Ads, but the most commonly used ones are Search Ads, Display Ads, and Video Ads. 

How can PPC help your business?

Many small businesses think they’re not big enough to run effective PPC campaigns. However, PPC campaigns can be a useful tool for businesses of all sizes. According to 2023 data, 65% of small to medium-sized businesses run PPC campaigns.

There are loads of benefits to PPC advertising. Small businesses can use PPC advertising to get their website in front of more potential customers easily and quickly. Driving relevant traffic to your website can increase conversions and sales to help grow your business.

Read on for 8 key benefits of PPC marketing for small businesses:

1. Cost effective

If PPC advertising is done well, it is highly cost-effective for small businesses. Because PPC is easy to measure, you can easily optimise your PPC campaigns to ensure that you effectively use your limited budget. Once you know your campaign is profitable, you can focus your budget on targeting the keywords generating the most leads or conversions for your business. 

2. Fast results 

Some types of digital marketing take time to be effective. An SEO strategy can be incredibly effective over the long term, but it takes time to start seeing results. However, with PPC, you can start seeing results almost instantly. Once you’ve set up a Google Ads account, you can set up your ads and start running them. PPC ads are the quickest way to generate more traffic, leads and sales.   

3. Measurable results 

Every aspect of a PPC campaign can be measured and tracked, including views, clicks, visits, costs and profits. You can see detailed reports on how all your ads are performing, how much money you’re spending, and which keywords are most effective. It’s easy to fully optimise your campaign to get the most out of your small budget. You can even measure your PPC Return on Investment (ROI) by setting up conversion data within Google Analytics. 

4. Control over your budget 

It’s easy to control your ad spending with pay-per-click advertising, helping to ensure you don’t go over budget. You decide how much you want to spend per day and your maximum cost per click (CPC). It’s easy to adjust your budget whenever you need to or even pause your PPC campaigns. 

5. Reach the right audience 

You decide who your PPC ads are shown to based on loads of factors, such as keywords, location, time, device and date. This ensures that your ads are only shown to your target audience. You can also segment your target audience and show different ads to different audience segments to create an effective PPC strategy. 

6. Improve brand awareness

Bidding on keywords relating to your industry means that people searching for those terms can see your ads. Even if they don’t click on your ads or they don’t generate a conversion or a sale, these ads will help increase brand awareness. This can help your small business’s online presence and establish your business as an authority in your industry. 

7. You only pay per click 

You won’t pay any money for ads that no one sees because you only pay each time someone clicks on your ads. You only spend money when you have the chance to convert a potential custom. PPC advertising can be extremely effective for small businesses in industries where ranking organically in search results is challenging. 

8. Highly focused 

PPC campaigns are incredibly focussed on specific keywords or opportunities. Small businesses can focus their PPC efforts on products or services that are most profitable or on a specific target audience segment. You don’t need to waste money on irrelevant or unprofitable keywords. 

When should small businesses get outside help with PPC?

Even though you don’t need a massive budget to run PPC campaigns, when you have a smaller budget, you must be laser-focused when choosing keywords and optimising your campaign. Knowing exactly who to target and how is the key to running effective PPC campaigns for small-medium sized businesses

An experienced digital marketing agency can help manage your PPC campaigns and ensure you get the most out of your advertising budget. At Logica Digital, we have over 15 years of experience running successful PPC campaigns for businesses of all sizes. After a free initial audit, our team of paid search experts will help determine the best marketing strategy for your small business to help maximise your ROI! 

Contact the team today to learn more about what we do and how we can help you succeed with PPC Ads. Or take advantage of our 100% free digital marketing audit for a breakdown of your current PPC performance and see what area you need to focus on to improve!

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