What Is

What Is A PPC Campaign

PPC is a method of advertising created around 1996 and gained popularity in 2000’s when Google began using it. It is the main source of revenue for Google and most search engines. It is a simple way for business owners to advertise their website when someone is using a search engine.

PPC or Pay-Per-Click, also known as CPC or Cost-Per-Click, is a method of internet advertising that is used to direct traffic from search results or web pages to business’s websites. When the ad is clicked, the publisher of the advertisement will pay for that visit to their site. Sometimes websites and search engines can also offer Pay-Per -Conversion advertisements which are the same principle, only that the advertiser doesn’t pay until the site visitor converts or accomplishes the defined goal by the advertiser. 

Successful PPC Structure

A successful and profitable PPC campaign is one that is detailed and organized. The way PPC is organized is through a website AdWords account. AdWords accounts can be run on a variety of platforms such as Bing, Google, Amazon, Facebook, and many more. The first level of the hierarchy within the account will be the ad campaign.

Ad Campaign:

An ad campaign is the top level of your account. It is the first level which your ads will be categorized into. From here it will continue to get more detailed in each step. Examples of Ad campaigns are residential services, commercial services, corporate, branding/competitors, and any other broad term that can classify a group of your ads. 

If you are new to AdWords, start with about three or four unique campaigns. Campaigns should be different subheadings of things or areas that you want to target with your advertising. A campaign created for residential services will have ad groups that contain your company’s specific residential services. 

Ad Groups:

Ad groups are the next subcategory of breakdown. These are more detailed from campaigns since they are within a respected campaign. Within a campaign of residential services, one might have ad groups of heater repair, air duct cleaning, air containing and any other service that the company would provide (HVAC company). If you are a bakery and the campaign is simply products, your ad groups could be donuts, pastries, cupcakes, and whatever other products you want to promote. 

Ad groups are used to filter it down to specific areas that you want to write actual ads for.

Ads:

Ads are what is shown by the search engine. You will need a relevant ad that matches keywords with search queries in order to be shown on the search engine’s results page. Keywords can be applied to specific ads, ad groups or campaigns.  It is important to be refined and monitor your ad success with A|B testing.

Testing ads with this method will give you results on variations of the advertisement and which one is shown to be more effective. It is writing two similar ads and seeing which gets clicked on more or shows up and has better conversion data. You can also test out different landing pages that are the destination to which the person who clicks on them will be sent. Here is a visualization of an Google Ads account structure:

As you can see above, the campaign is the first step in determining a successful PPC structure. 

P.S. Need some landing page design inspiration? Check out this article!

Data In PPC Campaigns

There is a lot of data once you have a well-structured Google Ads account created and you might become lost or overwhelmed with information. Google Ads helps the user by defining each filter and metric simply by hovering over the heading tab. Here are some of the most common ones:

Budget:
This is where you will set your overall account budget per day. If certain campaigns are performing well, then you can reallocate the funds to favor that campaign. It will help you rank higher in quality score. You can also use negative keywords in Google Ads to optimize your ad spend by preventing your ads from appearing in low-quality searches, like for “free” products.

Status:
Status shows you the current effectiveness of your campaign. If it says “eligible” then you are using most of the budget you have set. If it says “Limited by budget” it means that your ads aren’t showing as often as they could. Raising your budget can help ensure you don’t lose out on potential customers.

Campaign Type:
Search, Display, or both are the three campaign types which your ads could be. Search means that they are text ads that will show on the intended search engine results page. Display ads are ones that are pictures that may show on the sides of web pages or wherever applicable with the searcher’s cookies settings. 

Impression:
Each time your ad is shown on search engine results page or other sites on the Google Network (in Google Ads). Impressions can gauge how many people view your ad but not click on it.

Click or Interaction:
When someone clicks on your ad, which is the blue hypertext of a search ad. Clicks can be where you have to pay Google or the search engine. You want these to be relevant and have the ability to drive successful conversions.

Quality Score:
Google’s rating or any other search engine’s rating of quality and relevance of both your keywords and PPC ads. A higher quality score means that your advertisement will be shown to more viewers and appear higher on results pages.

Why Should Your Business Use PPC?

Your business should utilize PPC if you are competing for a common key term or have a large number of industry competitors in the area. You could also use PPC to compete with competitors who have a slightly higher domain authority than you do. Businesses that often utilize PPC are e-commerce sites, HVAC companies, energy companies and many more businesses that have high competition.

Also, you could learn how can PPC ads affect SEO and discover how these two strategies work together.

Unsure if your business should use PPC? Test it out first! You can test PPC by limiting your budget or if you want to see if competitors in your industry are advertising via PPC contact an SEO marketing agency for internet marketers who are highly experienced in creating and maintaining successful PPC campaigns.

Check out our other relevant articles:

• How PPC Ads Affect Your SEO
• SEO vs. PPC: What’s the Difference?
• Which is Better for Your Business: SEO or PPC?
• What Are Negative Keywords?

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