Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaigns are one of most powerful tools at any website’s disposal. By paying for search engine appearances, site awareness, and traffic increase. This makes it a more direct and results-oriented way to market a website.
Multiple platforms allow for PPC campaigns. Social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn all allow for forms of PPC campaigns to be launched on their platforms. However, the more popular platform to launch these campaigns is on Google. Google’s AdWords service is a very easy, useful, and generally high performing. A successful campaign starts with picking the correct platform. Pricing varies over the platforms, and the purpose of your campaign is paramount in choosing your platform. Social media allows for a cheaper option with a decent amount of exposure, making it a great choice for first-time and targeted campaigns. AdWords campaigns can quickly become expensive when the individual managing the campaigns is inexperienced, or the overall strategy does not line up with the intended audience.
Strategies can be generalized into a few different categories based on the goals of the campaign. These strategies are based around the way the bids for searches are placed. There are conversion based strategies, meant to lead visitors to a certain call to action or informational page. Impression based strategies are all about showing up at the top of search results. These can be as simple as showing up at the top of a page, to paying to outrank specific domains. Click based strategies are all about getting into specific keyword searches. Finally, if the ad is specifically a video, a cost per view bid can be employed to specify a cap on per-play ad cost.
The next thing to take into account is time and place. PPC campaigns can be complex and specific enough to show up only in certain times in specific geographic regions. To play a long game with a PPC campaign, allow the ads to run 24/7 at first. Study the results of the times that the ad was visible, and adjust the timing accordingly. This option is a front-loaded investment because running an ad constantly costs more than those targeted times. However, the long-term payoff is an overall cheaper campaign. You can also choose whether your campaign is local, regional, nationwide, or even global. This allows for your campaigns to either grow as you do or reach the largest audience possible from day 1.
After the initial campaign launch, there are still things to keep in consideration. Always remember that the high priced keywords mean the most exposure. That is the obvious reason that they cost more. Also, remember that you can narrow down your ads to appear on specific devices. PPC campaigns can be set to exclusively appear on mobile or desktop. They can also direct traffic specifically to a site, or direct traffic to place a call.
You can also direct your campaign through specific keywords and throttle usage. You can direct higher priority to certain keywords in your budget to target more relevant uses. Campaigns can even pause, or exclude certain keywords so that they don’t take up massive amounts of the budget.
Finally, like any skill or strategy, keep working at it. Once the campaign is launched and has been live for some time, it makes it easier to tweak and make the most out of your budget. You can also reference many professionals to either get tips or help in launching and managing a PPC campaign.