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TRANSCRIPT
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Table of Contents
Chapter 1:
What is PPC?...............................................................................4
Chapter 2:
Setting Goals For Your PPC Campaign.......................................8
Chapter 3:
Choosing the Right Keywords....................................................11
Chapter 4:
Creating Your PPC Campaign...................................................18
Chapter 5:
Developing The Perfect Ad Copy...............................................28
Chapter 6:
Creating a Landing Page To Convert.........................................30
Chapter 7 :
Platforms to Advertise On..........................................................33
Introduction
All trends seem to suggest that Paid Per Click
(PPC) advertising is becoming increasingly
ineffective, or even obsolete. Why is this
happening?
Customers are now becoming more tech-savvy
and aware of paid advertising campaigns. In complement with the changing consumer
mindset, there has been a rise in popularity for inbound marketing amongst marketers.
Many marketers have shifted away from paid advertising to more cost-effective means
of advertising by delivering valuable content to consumers.
With all this being said, why is PPC still a popular digital marketing method
amongst many B2C businesses?
PPC ads account for 64.6% of clicks for high commercial intent keyword searches
PPC may not cover all your marketing needs, but there are several scenarios that PPC
is necessary for your digital marketing strategy. PPC campaigns allow you to drive quick
results, address a niche audience, improve your local search presence and address
customers who are already well into the buying process.
This whitepaper will give you a comprehensive understanding of PPC and guide you
through setting up a PPC campaign that be well worth your time and money.
What is PPC?
Everyone on the Internet seems to hate paid online advertising. You've probably
encountered your fair share of annoying pop-ups or YouTube advertisements that you
couldn't skip. These experiences make you feel as though all Internet advertising is
meant to annoy or disrupt you. Paid Per Click is still a form of paid online advertising but
instead of being perceived as annoying or disruptive, PPC campaigns generally have a
more positive connotation. PPC campaigns are able to target customers online by
providing solutions to their problems, rather than being the problem.
Throughout this whitepaper, you will be learning about PPC Campaigns developed
through Google AdWords. However, the basic understanding and practices of PPC
campaigns can be implemented to other paid search engines and platforms.
So what exactly are PPC advertisements? PPC ads are the search results you see on
the top and also to the right of organic search results on the search engine results page.
Whereas organic search results are based on unpaid and natural rankings that are
developed through SEO practices, paid search results are results that marketers pay a
fee to have appear when specific keywords or phrases are searched. The fee that you
would have to pay for your PPC campaign is based on the number of clicks or views
(impressions) that your ad has attracted.
PPC campaigns are highly effective when properly planned and executed with a target
in mind. Although Hubspot studies have shown that only 30% of people click on paid
links versus the 70% that click on organic links, the conversation rate for the 30% of
people who do click the ad is much higher. These consumers are generally conducting a
commercial intent search and are already in the process of a purchasing decision.
When used in moderation with proper SEO practices, PPC can truly solidify your
presence online.
4 Reasons Why PPC Should Be Part of Your Marketing Strategy
It's hard to get over the negative connotation of a paid
advertisement. However, once you do, you'll realize that PPC
campaigns bring many benefits that simply cannot be achieved
with solely SEO practices. Here are 4 reasons why you should be
including PPC into your online marketing strategy:
1. Measure Your Online Marketing Efforts
What good is an online marketing campaign if we aren't able to track its effectiveness?
Google AdWords provides tools and detailed reports that provides you with valuable
insight into your campaign. With the ability to measure the effectiveness of your
campaign, you can make any necessary changes and improve your campaign.
2. Have Complete Ownership of Your Campaign
With PPC Campaigns, you are the god of your advertising efforts. Whereas with SEO
practices you only have some influence on your rankings, with PPC you have control of
your entire campaign. You have the ability to adjust your budget, control your copy and
anything else about your campaign all within Google AdWords.
3. Reach A Hyper Targeted Audience
By designing your PPC campaign for certain buyer personas, you'll be able to target the
right audience based on their buying process status, geographic location, needs and
demographics. When done correctly, PPC ads are highly effective in converting your
targeted audience. Targeting niche markets may also mean that the bidding price of
your keywords is lower- meaning you can reach your desired audience for a low cost.
4. Achieve Quick Results
If you're caught in a time crunch to advertise your product or service and a long-term
SEO strategy just isn't an option, PPC campaigns are here to save you. By setting up a
Google AdWords campaign, you can get your ad displayed amongst other results,
without the long-term process of SEO. However, it's important to remember that
although PPC campaigns are a short-term resource, they cannot replace long-term
SEO strategies. PPC Campaigns should be designed to complement your current SEO
efforts.
Setting Goals For Your PPC Campaign
Like any marketing effort, you have to determine your target audience and end goals
before diving into it. This especially applies to PPC campaigns where you could end up
spending an unjustifiable amount of money attracting the wrong audience.
Defining Your Personas and Understanding Their Intent
This is the most important part of starting your campaign. Your business should
already have defined buyer personas in mind, but it's remember to further define their
intent specifically for the campaign that you're designing. By defining your buyer
personas you will have the exact framework to design your campaign around. This will
ensure that your money is rightly spent by attracting the right audience.
Despite these advantages, here are some things to keep in mind about PPC campaigns:
PPC Campaigns can be very competitive and expensive to bid on
It's easy to spend a lot of money on PPC if not managed properly
It's not a campaign you can create and set aside: it must be constantly
monitored and managed
Powered by Search specializes in paid advertising and can help you develop a
successful PPC campaign, without the hassle.
Buyer Persona: According to Hubspot-
Buyer personas are essentially fictional representations of your ideal customers. They are based on real data about customer demographics and online behavior, along with educated speculation about their personal histories, motivations, and concerns.
Determining their background, demographics, goals, challenges, and how your product
and service can help them will allow you to design a specialized and effective PPC
campaign.
Intent: What is the intent of the people searching the keywords you're bidding on? For
example, let's say you own a company selling organic baby food. Are your ideal buyer
personas just surfing the web to learn more about organic baby food or searching to
specifically purchase organic baby food on Google? By understanding their intent and
where they are in the buying process will allow you to design an ad specifically for your
buyer persona.
vs.
vs.
Key Performance Indicators
Monthly Budget: Determine the amount of money you want to spend on your campaign
per month. There are many factors that will affect your monthly budget including:
Your overall marketing budget
The competitiveness of the keyword you're bidding for
The timeframe of your campaign
Set a monthly budget that fits your needs, but ensure it's reasonable and sustainable.
Conversion Target: This is the number of conversions you want to achieve with your
monthly budget. Although it will be rare to be right on target, it's good to set a
conversion target in order to measure the success of your campaign.
Cost Per Acquisition: This is your monthly budget divided by your conversion target.
The cost per acquisition is how much it costs to convert a visitor into a client through
your PPC campaign. Ensure that you're comparing this cost to how much you will gain
in revenue from each client. You don't want to be spending more than what you'll be
earning through your PPC campaign.
Once you understand your buyer persona and the objectives and restrictions of your
PPC campaign, it's time to start designing the campaign that will achieve your goals.
Choosing the Right Keywords
Before you officially start your campaign, you have to come armed with a list of
awesome keywords. Determining the right keywords can help you target the right
audience and save you a substantial amount of money. To choose the right keywords,
you have to think like your ideal buyer persona. For example,
let's say you're selling organic baby food and your ideal buyer
persona is a health conscious young mother that is tight on
budget. Ask yourself- what would I search if I was that young
mother? Don't be stuck on specific terms that your employees
use to describe your product- think like your buyer persona.
General vs. Specific Keywords
Depending on the goal of your PPC campaign, you may want to go with either general
or specific keywords. If your company sells only organic baby puree, you will likely want
to use long-tail keywords that will make your campaign targeted to what you're selling.
For example, you don't want to bid for the term "baby food" if you can only sell organic
baby puree- you won't be able to serve the entire market of baby food and the clicks will
end up eating your budget.
Long-tail keywords:
Search queries that contain more than 3 keywords.
These keywords are more specific and have lower
search volumes and lower cost per clicks.
On the other hand, if your company sells all types of baby food, you may want to bid for
a more general term that will allow customers to find you despite searching broadly.
Keywords Based on Geography
If you're a local business, it's important to include specific geographical terms in your
keywords. For example, if you're a local floral shop in Toronto, you don't want people in
Vancouver clicking on your ad and costing you money. You might want to use a
keyword such as "floral shop Toronto" rather than bidding on just the term "floral shop".
Baby Products
Food
Organic
Organic Baby Snacks
Organic Baby Puree
Organic Baby Formula
Regular
Baby Snacks
Baby Puree
Baby Formula
Supplies
Feeding Supplies
Strollers
Toys
Toys for newborns
Toys for 1-2 Years
Toys for Toddlers
Know vs. Do Searches
We've probably all had those days where we were just bored and wanted to search
about random topics on Google. These are know searches, which are informational
queries people make when seeking information.
On the other hand, we've also made searches to actually do something. These are do
searches that are transactional queries people make to perhaps buy a product or book a
flight.
With a PPC advertisement, you want to be targeting people who are conducting do
searches. While it may be great that someone doing a know search learned more about
organic baby food through visiting your website, they're not interested in purchasing
your product. It's best to use keywords that someone making a transactional inquiry
would use to target customers who are ready to buy your product.
Type of Search
There are different types of searches your keyword could be included in: broad, phrase
and exact.
Broad: Contains all words searched, can be in any order and include other words.
Phrase: Contains all the words, in order, and may include other words before or after
the phrase.
Exact: Contains only the searched words in the specified order.
You likely don't want to target broad searches, but rather focus on specific searches that
drives the potential customers in that will be more likely to convert.
Tools for Keyword Research
If you need some guidance when coming up with the perfect
keywords, there are several tools out there than can help. The
first tool that you should be using is the Keyword Tool on
Google AdWords.
Did You Know?
Powered by Search is a Google AdWords Certified
Partner. We have helped several clients such as
Volunteer Canada and Primus develop highly
successful PPC Campaigns.
You can then type a list of keywords into the tool to generate more keyword ideas.
Google AdWords will then generate results for you.
In the top left column, you will see the different keywords that you first entered. In this
case it would be- "organic baby food", "natural baby products", and "healthy baby food".
The second column displays the level of competition for these keywords. This column
indicates how many advertisers have been bidding on these keywords. Higher
competition implies that it'll be more difficult to rank on the first page for that specific
keyword.
The third and fourth column show you the global and monthly searches from the past 12
months for each of the keywords you entered. If you're business is locally focused, it's
important to look at local monthly searches as they relate to searches within your
country and language.
Below that table are keyword suggestions that are related to the keywords you entered.
These keywords are additional ideas that may relevant and effective keywords for your
product or service.
Other Keyword Research Tools:
Google Trends:
Tracks the popularity of certain keywords over time.
Ubersuggest:
Helps you find similar/popular keyword variants
SEOmoz Keyword Difficulty Tool:
Estimates how difficult it might be to rank for a particular
keyword on a percentage scale.
Negative Keywords
Negative keywords will allow you to exclude certain keywords from your campaign. This
means that your ad will not appear in search results for these keywords. For example,
the advertising agency, TAXI will not want people searching "taxi driving services
Toronto" to be clicking their ad.
Creating Your PPC Campaign
Once you have a defined persona and a list of awesome
keywords, it's time to start building your PPC Campaign.
As a beginner's guide to PPC, we will just be going over the basic setup of your
campaign through Google AdWords. If you wish to develop an advanced PPC
Campaign, be sure to check out Powered by Search's Paid Search Marketing Services
and contact us at any time if you want further guidance in your PPC campaign!
Campaign Structure
On Google AdWords, you can create many campaigns that consists of different ad
groups. Each ad group then consists of keywords that are all related to a similar topic,
and they can contain ads that can rotate among the keywords you have. You have the
option to base the rotation of your ads on either clicks, conversion rates or have it
evenly distributed.
Setting Up Your Campaign
Once you're in AdWords, click on "Create Your First Campaign."
Campaign
AdGroup 1
(Ad A, Ad B, Ad C)
Keyword Keyword Keyword
AdGroup 2
(Ad A, Ad B, Ad C)
Keyword Keyword Keyword
AdGroup 3
(Ad A, Ad B, Ad C)
Keyword Keyword Keyword
You can then decide what type of campaign you want.
Default: Your ads will appear on both the Google Search Network and Google Display
Network on all devices. This exposes your ad to the most number of potential customers
and should be considered if your goal is to increase CTR quickly. Traffic Building
Search Network Only: Your ads will only appear on Google's search results page and
other sites that are part of Search Network. These sites include Google Maps, Images,
Shopping and AOL.
Display Network Only: Your ads will only appear on sites within the Google Display
Network which includes websites such as YouTube and Gmail.
Display Network Only (Remarketing): Remarketing is the concept of showing ads to
users who have previously visited your website. By choosing this option, your ads will be
displayed on the display network to people have already visited your website. This will
help you target those who are further along in the buying process.
Search and Display Networks (Mobile Devices): If you're trying to target people on
the go, this is a good option. Your ad will only appear to users on mobile devices and
tablets.
Online Video: Your ad will be displayed on YouTube and other relevant sites in the
Google Display Network.
You can then choose a relevant name for your campaign.
Locations and Languages
Determining the location that your ad will appear is very important if you're a business
serving a certain geographic location. If you intend on selling your product or service
anywhere, you can select a broad reach such as "All Countries and Territories" or even
"United States and Canada." However, if you're selling a product or service that is
location-specific, you have the option to choose exactly where your ad will appear and
how many people your ad will reach in the given location. This will allow you to target
specifically those within your geographic reach. You can also enter locations you would
like to exclude from your search. This means that people from the specified location will
not be able to see your ad.
You can then select the language your customers speak. For example, if you're trying to
target Chinese customers, Google will place your ads on search results for people who
have selected Chinese as their primary language. However, it will not help you translate
your ad from English to Chinese- it'll be in the language you wrote your ad copy in.
Networks and Devices
You can also further customize which networks and devices you would like your ad to
appear on.
Bidding and Budget
Once you've selected your campaign settings, it's time to get to the hard part- bidding
and budgeting your campaign. Remember to stick to the goals that you've determined
before setting up your campaign. This will ensure your campaign is a profitable and
successful one.
When you're selecting a bidding option, you can decide if you want to set the bids for
each click, or if you want Google AdWords to help you set bids and maximize clicks
within your budget. The cost of a click on your ad can actually change throughout the
day depending on the volume of advertisers that are bidding on a specific term.
I'll manually set my bids for clicks: By choosing this option, you can choose what you
want the max CPC is for any given keyword. This gives you the freedom to monitor and
control keywords and bidding.
AdWords will set my bids to help maximize clicks within my target budget: By
choosing this option, AdWords has the freedom to set the CPC for your keywords as
long as its within your budget. This will allow you to get the most clicks each day. This is
a good option if you want to maximize your PPC budget and don't have the time to track
and adjust your campaigns.
Metrics To Keep In Mind:
Cost Per Click (CPC):
You will be charged when someone clicks on your ad.
Traffic Building
Cost per Thousand Impressions (CPM):
You will be charged for every thousand impressions
(views) your ad gets.
Brand Exposure
Cost per Acquisition (CPA):
You will be charged when the person who clicked on
your ad converts.
Conversion
Ad Extensions
You then have the options to add ad extensions to your PPC ad. Ad extensions allows
you to provide more relevant information to customers about your business. If you
choose to have ad extensions, ensure that you're choosing one that fits your company,
and you have the existing resources to facilitate the ad extension.
Advanced Settings
Now that you have the basics of your Google PPC campaign set up, it's time to start
customizing your campaign for maximum success.
Schedule: Under schedule, you can choose a start and end date for your campaign.
For example, if you're advertising organic baby food as a great Christmas gift idea, you
may want to start your campaign early in November and end it a few days after
Christmas. You can also customize the timing of when your ad appears throughout the
day. If you're targeting young mothers who generally go on the computer from 8:00 pm -
10:00 pm, you can choose to only have your ad appear during that timeframe.
Ad Delivery: With this option, you can customize how Google displays your ads. You
will have the option to:
Optimize for Clicks: AdWords will display ads that have a higher possibility of
attracting more clicks to your offer. This will allow you to drive traffic to your
website. . Traffic Building
Optimize for Conversions: Google AdWords will display ads that have proven to
have the highest conversion rates. Conversion
Rotate Evenly: If you're still looking to test your different variations of ads, this is
a good option. Rotate Evenly will allow you to rotate all ads evenly for a set
amount of time.
Frequency Capping: Sometimes if users are exposed to an ad too many times
they may find it annoying or frustrating. By setting a frequency cap, you'll limit the
number of times a specific user will see your ad on the display network.
Demographic: To further customize and specialize your campaign, you can choose to
only show your ads to a certain demographic group. This option is only available to
campaigns that are using display networks, as only websites in this category report on
the demographic of their users.
Social Settings: You can also integrate your Google+ following
with your Google AdWords campaign. Through Social Settings,
you can include a +1 button on your ads within display networks. This will encourage
social sharing of your products on their personal social profiles. If you don't already have
an established Google+ business profile, check out our Marketer's Guide to Google+.
Keyword Matching Options: This setting allows you to include misspellings, plural
variations and other close spellings of your keyword to your campaign.
Create an Ad Group
Once you have your campaign set up, you can then begin creating your ad groups. Be
sure to choose a relevant title to ensure your campaign is organized.
Developing the Perfect Ad Copy
You now have your first campaign set up. But how do you go about creating the perfect
ad copy to attract potential customers to actually click on it and give your product or
service a chance?
Google gives you a limited framework to develop your ad copy, so ensure you optimize
it to get the results you want.
Title: You get 25 characters for the title of your ad. This is the anchor text to the landing
page you'll be linking to, so ensure it is relevant to the keyword you're bidding on. This is
an ad, so remember to make it interesting and eye-catching as well.
Display URL: You get 37 characters for the display URL. This is not the link the ad will
be linking to, but it's good to display your company's homepage URL.
Description Lines: You get 2 description lines and a character limit of 35 characters for
each line. Typically, the first line is used for informing your customers of what product or
service you're selling. The second line is then used to display a call-to-action to entice
viewers to click on your ad.
Display URL
Title
Description Line 1
Description Line 2
Remember these three elements when developing your ad copy:
Keyword Relevance: Ensure your ad copy is relevant to both your keywords and
landing pages. This will give your ad a higher quality score, and will help your ad rank
higher in the search engine results page.
Call-To-Action (CTA): This is an essential element to any PPC ad copy. It's not enough
to inform customers of what you do- you have to entice them to actually click on your ad
and convert.
Value: Above all, your ad copy needs to emphasize the value of your product and
service. We're sure that you're selling your product for a reason- you believe in the value
customers receive by using it. Indicate some form of discount, quality or unique benefit
that will encourage them to learn more about your product or service.
Ad extensions will also allow you to include other relevant contact information. One way
to optimize your ad is to include social settings that displays Google+ reviews of your
products. Good ratings and social approval of your product will make your ad stand out
amongst the crowd.
vs.
Good Bad
Creating a Landing Page to Convert
Your potential customer has done a lot
already- they have clicked your ad and
has given you the chance to convince
them into purchasing your product or
service. You've already invested to get
that click- it's time to make your investment worth it! It all comes down to your landing
page now to do its job and convert them to satisfied and paying customers.
The most important factor of a successful landing page is the relevance to the keyword
and ad copy. You may have a great homepage that you want to link to, but what good is
it to someone who just clicked on "Discount Organic Baby Food" to see your homepage
overwhelming them with all types of baby supplies? You want to bring your potential
customer directly to the specific offer your ad copy discusses and give them all the
relevant information.
Besides giving them the relevant information, ensure that your landing page is
actionable. It's great that you're giving them information about organic baby food, but
what if they're ready to purchase it from you? Have the proper directions for potential
customers to be able to take action and purchase your product, or inquire about your
service after they've arrived on your landing page.
Bad Landing Page:
Whereas the ad copy talked about organic baby food, the landing page took us to a
page about organic food in general.
Good Landing Page:
There's a clear image of the product that is relevant to the ad copy, and is very
actionable.
Quality Score:
Google will assign a quality score to your ad based on how useful and relevant it thinks
it is to viewers. Your ad's quality score is very important -having a high quality score will
improve your rankings on the search engine results page. Google takes in consideration
the follow factors when calculating your quality score:
• Relevance to keyword
• Quality and relevance of landing page
• Click through rate
These are factors that you must take into consideration to receive a high quality score.
Learn more about quality scores through Google AdWords.
Platforms To Advertise On
Throughout this whitepaper, you've been learning about optimizing your PPC campaign
for Google AdWords. However, Google is not the only platform that you can create a
successful PPC campaign on. Below is a list of other platforms you can take your newly
learned PPC campaign skills to:
Facebook ads allow you to easily expose your ad to people who fit closely to your buyer
persona. Because Facebook provides an abundance of information about potential
customers, you can ensure that your ad is being seen by qualified buyers.
On Twitter Ads, you can promote exclusive deals to your target demographic. Twitter
ads are perfect for businesses to promote a specific offer that Twitter users may be
interested in.
As the professional network, LinkedIn provides you with a community of qualified
decision makers. If you're a B2B business, LinkedIn Ads provides you with a great
medium to expose your ad to qualified buyers.
Other Search Engines
It's often easy to forget about other search engines- but it doesn't mean they're not
there. Other search engines that you could advertise on include Microsoft's Bing and
Yahoo's search engine. Although they may not be as used as Google, they are still
platforms you can consider.
Canada:
United States:
Conclusion
Congratulations- you now understand the basics of designing your own successful PPC
Campaign! Although it may seem like a step-by-step process, designing a PPC
campaign is much more complicated than just that. This guide has given you a
comprehensive overview of all the components of a PPC campaign, but it also takes
intensive research and a creative outlook on your campaign for it to be successful.
As a smart marketer, you should understand that every type of marketing has its
advantages and disadvantages. Although PPC advertising have typically been viewed
negatively, there are also many benefits that can only be obtained through a PPC
campaign. When done right, it can drive traffic to your website and improve conversion
rates.
That being said, PPC advertising shouldn't be your only strategy. Organic link building
and SEO practices should always be the most significant part of your digital marketing
strategy. PPC acts as a complement to an already existing SEO strategy, and should
not be left as a standalone strategy.
Google is always developing and improving its PPC platform. Be sure to follow updates
of major social platforms to ensure your PPC campaign is optimized for any changes.
Sources:
http://www.hubspot.com
http://www.relentlesstechnology.com
Connect with us!
Dev Basu
Founder & CEO
(416) 840-9044 ext. 301
(+1) (866) 611-5535 ext. 301
Powered by Search
505 Consumers Road, Suite 507
Toronto, Ontario M2J 4V6
Canada
Email: [email protected]
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