Pay Per Click is one of the most highly targeted and cost effective of the arrows in the digital marketer's quiver.


What is PPC?

      Pay Per Click (PPC) is an advertising system offered by Search Engines in which an advertiser pays for each click on their advert. PPC adverts can be displayed on Search Engine Results pages
( search targeted) and content websites 
(content targeted).

     Search targeted- refers to search engine results pages (SERPs), where a user has searched for a specific keyword e.g "car" is delivered a page listing relevant PPC adverts that sit alongside the Organic Search results.

   Content targeted- refers to PPC adverts being displayed on content pages e.g. " car for sale" adverts being displayed on a website that contains content about cars PPC adverts are most often displayed at the top, bottom and right- hand side of the SERPs. The position of the advert on the page us determined by a bidding system.


Bidding Wars:

     Although bidding higher amounts of money will generally result in a higher position, some Search Engine consider several factors in the ranking of adverts.
 
  Google for example uses a " Quality Score" which considers the Clicks through rate (CTR) of your advert as well as the relevance of your and text to both the keywords and your website's landing page. The "Quality Score" also helps Google determine your cost per click (CPC). The less relevant your advert and landing page are, the more you will have to pay to display that advert in a high position. 


PPC Strategy- Phase 1: Initial Planning :

    In order to decide how you are going to run your PPC campaign, you need to consider he following:

    The Traditional Stuff Applies!

    Like every other online marketing exercise, you need a full online and an offline analysis of the business,  customer demographic, the industry and competitors. Youneed a brand, an identity and of course a clear unique selling point.

 Define Your Goal:

         The PPC Golden rule: what do you want to achieve with your PPC campaign? Would you like to increase awareness of your site, or are you looking to attract more traffic? In most cases PPC adverts are focused on delivering conversion in the form of filling in an enquiry form or purchasing a product. 

     If you are looking to make money from PPC do you want best return achievement (ROI) or do you want more net profit 

     It is important to make sure you have one very clearly defined goal from PPC. It is not possible to always be seen in the top position for the important keywords and to achieve a good ROI at the same time.



 PPC Strategy- Phase 2: Running the                                Campaign :

 Once you have addressed the above, you can choose how to run your PPC campaign considering all of the following elements:

Define Your Goal:

     Campaign structure, which ensure your budget and stats are correctly focused 

(i.e. according to different products and brand or maybe according to different geographic markets)

    Keyword selection, which should contain the right balance of cost and relevance and should be considered alongside your SEO Keyword selection 

    Ad wording, which needs to communicate to the right market and contain as much detail about what you are offering in as few characters as possible- Landing pages, which leave the customer with no doubt in their mind that they have found what they were looking for

    Tracking, which involves deciding what customer behaviour is important to you. This obviously includes the campaign goal but what else can you track to give you interesting insight into your customer? You've paid for the click- even if  the person exits ypur site without converting, you can get value out of knowing why.



PPC Strategy- Phase 3: Testing and                          optimising:

   Once you have set up your campaign and Tracking, your PPC Strategy moves into the vital testing and optimizaing phase.

Keyword Management:

    Identify your priority keywords the once that convert best as the ones to spend budget and time on. Take a second look at the keywords that don't convert there could be a simple reason whay perhaps you haven't explained your self properly in the advert or the landing page or maybe you need to ensure your advert is only showing for relevant searches through keyword matching.

Advert Management:

    Make sure you test your adverts. Test tone, wording, structure,  offer details and display URLS. It is important to test both click through rate and conversion rate as they both affect your campaign performance and it is a good way to see if you are meeting the customer expectations cerated by the advert.
    
  The smallest change in a landing page can make a big difference to the profitability of your campaign. There are many important rules about ianding page desing ( including these important points)

●    Build a landing page specifically                      designed to what the person has                        searched for

●    Make sure you cover all the information
      a customer might ask for - speak to the
      sales team for this kind of information

●    Use SEO - add some relevant content etc. 
      This especially benefits you in Google 

●    Keep testing changes - use split tests if
      you have enough traffic 

  This can keep going right down to the font and colors you choose to use but the most important bit of advice would be look through your customers eyes. If you can't shake yourself from the technicalities of brilliant design ask a very honest person 
(similar to your customer in demographic) to look at the landing page for you.


Campaign Management:

     PPC keyword research can offer great insight in finding new ways to package or market your paroduct. For example, if you ran a guest house in cape Town, you should see through your keyword research that many people are looking for honeymoons in cape Town and so could put a nice romantic honeymoon package together for them and thus expending your product.


Advantages of PPC over Other Mediums?


You Only Pay For What You Get :
     It's called Pay Per Click beacuse you only pay when someone clicks on your advert. Chances are that if those people are clicking on your advert, they are interested in what you are advertising. Therefore you don't waste advertising budget marketing to people that aren't interested in your product as you so often do in other advertising mediums.

You Only Spend What You Can Afford:
      PPC is cheap to set up and the budget is set by you. You decide how much you want to pay and can make immediate changes if you decide it is going well and want to invest more or vice versa.

Accurate Targeting:
     You don't just put your advert out there for everyone to see. In fact, it's more like customers come looking for you ! Your potential customers types " Durban Hotel" into the search bar beacuse they are looking for a hotel in Durban. PPC marketing can also be targeted more specifically to certain countries, regions within countries, languages and even times of day.

Noboday Is Too Small Or Too " Niche":
     There are no limits on budget so PPC marketing is available to even the smallest of businesses. Due to the fact that you can target specific locations and keywords, even the most niche targeted businesses can find potential customers.

Fast set Up and Immediate Results:
      While SEO can take months before it starts showing results,  PPC can be set up and delivering measurable sales statistics within a day! This makes it particularly ideal for short-term or seasonal promotions. 


Accurate Trackability

      PPC marketing can be tracked accurately and with very little lag time. You can measure which keywords are the most cost effective and which keywords bring in the most conversions. You can also track exactly how much money each keyword brought in and accurately work out your ROI. Using these statistics you can focus your strategy and optimize your campaign to bring in the highest ROI possible.




         Other Methodos Of Adverti Your:

CPM:
    CPM means Cost Per Thousand.  M is the Roman numeral for Thousand and so Cost Per Thousand. 
     This is the amount you will pay the ad- network or website publisher to show your ad a thousand times on their website or across their ad-network.
how much you would pay the ad-network or website every time a visitor clicks on your banner.  CPC rates can be as high as $3 per click or as little as 5 centa per click.  It depends on your product and you market amongst other factors, the more competition there is the higher you will probably end up paying as you compete with competitors. 

CPA:
   CPA means Cost Per Action.  The Action could be any of the following types of action a visitor clicking on your banner coming to your site and filling up a simple enquiry
  (CPR - Cost Per Registration), or if the visitor makes a purchase)
   ( CPS - Cost Per Sale). It could be a flat fee or a percentage commission of the sale made.

CTR:
    CTR is click Through Rate. This is the percentage rate at which people click on your ad banner. If your banner ad is seen by 100 people but clicked by one person then it's CTR is 1% or. 01
   Similarly,  if your ad banner is seen 100,000 times and in the same time period it is clicked 2000 times then your banner CTR is 2% or. 02.

                   
This is How we calculate CTR = Numbers of Clicks ÷ Number of Impressions ×100

CPL :

  CPL means Cost Per Lead- Total cost of online advertisement campaign divided by the number of leads generated. 


CPS;

  CPS means Cost Per Sale - The cost paid per sale generated from an online advertisement or affiliate link.