PPC 101: Launch Next-Level PPC Campaigns 

There’s one thing every website owner will say yes to, and that’s more traffic.

But how on earth are you meant to get noticed when the internet is so over-saturated with just about everything else?

If you’re looking for a fool-proof way to drive more traffic to your website and convert those visitors into paying customers, PPC advertising could be just what you need.

Hostinger Academy Webinar: Starting With PPC Ads

Getting Started With PPC: 6 Top Tips

Contrary to popular belief, PPC advertising is no rocket science. Often, you simply need to know who you’re trying to reach and why they should visit your website.

Some of the best practices every PPC marketer should abide by include the following:

1. Decide On Your Channels

Ideally, you should be advertising where your audience likes to hang out.

If you’re selling to suited-up businessmen, chances are you won’t have much luck with an ad campaign on TikTok. Similarly, you won’t reach teens and tweens as easily on sites like LinkedIn as you would on Instagram or Facebook.

There’s “no one-stop-shop for every available audience.” You need to understand who your ideal customer is, where they spend their time online, and where they are in the buyer journey before you can settle on the best PPC channel.

Since every online advertising platform offers some form of pay-per-click solutions, start by creating a user persona and doing customer research to fully understand your customers’ pain points and habits.

Your customers might already be searching for products or services through search engines, or they may need to be introduced to your brand through social media first.

Overall, for most advertisers, it’s easier to create search ads in the beginning and branch out to other channels as you gather more data on your customers.

2. Determine Your Goals

As they say, “well planned is half done”. That applies to PPC advertising, too. Before you launch a single campaign, you should be clear about your goals. Start by asking yourself:

• How and what am I currently doing with my website and online marketing efforts?
• What do I want to achieve with this particular campaign?
• How does this PPC campaign support my other marketing objectives?

Next, you need to determine goals that you can measure:

• Do you want to increase overall traffic to your website?
• Do you want the campaign to result in more sales?
• Are you looking to generate more sales leads instead of full conversions?
• Is the primary focus of your campaign to simply promote an app or offer?
• Do you want to build more brand awareness?

Remember that a single PPC campaign should have one or two main goals. If you want to have more, consider running multiple campaigns with different focuses.

3. Set a Budget

The thing with PPC marketing is that in order to set an effective budget, you need to understand how the bidding process works.

In short, when you set up a PPC campaign, you choose the keywords that best reflect your ad and what you’re offering. How much you pay for each click depends on your field of business, overall competition, and how well the platform considers your ad to reflect the chosen keyword.

The cost per click for different fields can differ a lot. For example, eCommerce search ads run a lot cheaper than legal ones, but the average spend on legal services is often a lot higher than the average order value of a standard eCommerce store.

In order to get the most out of your budget, you should allow the platform to increase or decrease your bids based on performance.

This way, you can make adjustments based on different categories, like the device, overall demographics, users’ language, and so on.

4. Know Your Audience

How likely would you be to click on an ad offering car repairs if you don’t own one? Chances are you’d continue scrolling and not give the ad a second thought.

But if you’re a motorist and have maintenance due, you’re likely to be much more inclined to see how you could save on upcoming repairs.

Successful PPC marketing involves defining your audience – it can make or break your campaign. Ideally, you should do research beforehand to understand who the right audience for your ad is.

This could mean running surveys on your website and conducting interviews with ideal and existing customers to determine what the buying and decision-making process looks like. You should know the general age, location, gender, interests, and usual behaviors of your audience, as well as the type of keywords they use to navigate the internet.

You should also not shy away from utilizing remarketing audiences on platforms like Google and Meta. Remarketing campaigns are a great way of getting customers who have already done business with you in the past to reactivate. Since they already know your brand, you often simply need a good offer to get them to engage with your website again.

5. Copy Is Important

Don’t underestimate the importance of words on your ads or on your landing page.

The best PPC ads speak directly to your target audience member, appealing and offering solutions to potential challenges or pain points the user might have. Give potential customers a reason to do business with you by highlighting your unique selling points in your ad copy.

You should always include the main keywords you’re bidding on in your ad copy and provide a call to action in your messaging. This will help ad platforms determine the overall quality of your ad.

Ideally, your ad should use language that matches your landing page copy for a smooth and cohesive user experience. This way, when users click on it, they won’t get distracted or discouraged from performing the desired action (signing up for a newsletter, making a purchase, scheduling an appointment, and so on).

On the landing page your PPC ad is linking to, you should have a strong headline mirroring it. The copy on the page should be very specific and relevant to the keywords your ad is targeting.

Most importantly, the offer that you are promising in your ad should be clearly present on your landing page, paired with a clear call-to-action button. A clean, intuitive and responsive page design will help your copy stand out and do the heavy lifting.

6. Know Your Competitors

Chances are that you have direct and indirect competitors. But that’s not a bad thing. You should be actively checking your competitors’ websites, landing pages, social media accounts, and PPC activities down to the copy they are using in their ads.

Doing this helps you understand how your competitors are differentiating themselves and how they position themselves in the market overall.

If your main competitor has been around longer than you and can sell their products and services for less, you might want to look for a unique selling point other than the price. For instance, maybe you can offer better customer support or higher-quality products instead.

Get Your PPC Campaign Live Today

Starting PPC advertising is simpler than people often realize.

As long as you know your audience and target the right keywords and channels, you can launch your first campaigns in no time. And the better you can monitor and optimize your ads, the better value you will get for your money.