Wondering If PPC Ads Are Still Worth It? Read This.
Understanding the Benefits vs. Rising Costs of Paid Advertising
Pay-Per-Click (PPC) ads aren’t as cheap as they used to be.
You can thank new privacy regulations, higher competition, and tighter audience restrictions for that.
Right now, even veteran marketers are questioning whether PPC ads are still worth it.
But even in this tough market, PPC is a powerful way of reaching and engaging with your audience.
The Data Doesn’t Lie: PPC Advertising Still Works
Study after study has shown us that PPC ads continue to offer some of the best returns on investment of any marketing channel.
We know that:
- PPC ads return $2 for every $1 spent for an ROI of 200%.
- 74% of brands rely heavily on PPC to drive their business.
- PPC visitors are 50% more likely to buy than organic visitors.
For most businesses, there is simply no substitute for PPC as a means of getting you leads, sales, and revenue.
Here’s the catch:
More than ever, proper PPC management is what makes or breaks your campaign. No exceptions.
And in the world of PPC ads, mistakes come with a high price tag.
Knowing what to look for can save you a lot of headaches, so read on to learn key background info and tips to make sure that PPC ads are worth your investment.
We’ll tell you what you should look out for, what the risks are and how to avoid them.
Why Use PPC Ads to Promote Your Business?
PPC ads are a great way to reach your target audience across Google and social media.
- Incredible ROI: A PPC campaign returns $2 for every dollar spent, which is a 200% return on investment.
- High conversion rate: PPC visitors have a 50% higher likelihood of purchasing than organic visitors.
- Fast deployment: PPC ads can be launched quickly and start bringing in results immediately, unlike search engine optimization (SEO), which can take months to really get rolling.
- Unlimited flexibility: You can switch the ads on and off easily, which is perfect for small businesses or those working on a budget. And if your market conditions change, you can immediately adjust your PPC strategy to adapt.
What You Need to Know Before Launching PPC Ads
There are many other PPC advertising platforms, but these are some of the most popular:
- Google and other search engines: you can display your website in the search engine results page (SERP) when someone types in specific keywords or phrases. Visitors will see the ads you create to direct them to your site, and you pay based on whether they click on the ads.
- Google Display ads: show up as banner ads on a huge variety of websites across Google’s advertising network, including YouTube.
- Social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram: PPC ads usually appear in the audience’s main newsfeed, with the word “Sponsored” or “Promoted” tagged at the top or bottom of the post. You can also have your ads appear on videos (at the beginning, middle, or end of a video), in Facebook Marketplace, or in the Facebook sidebar.
What you need to know is that every platform demands a different approach. It isn’t possible to create one ad and run it across all PPC advertising platforms.
It takes time to experiment with which ad designs and platforms work best for your product or service industry. Not every ad will be as successful as the next.
Moreover, PPC advertising constantly changes. Keeping up with the latest trends and practices is essential if you want to stay competitive and convert those clicks to sales.
How Privacy Changes Affect Your PPC Advertising Strategy
One more thing you should know before you start doing PPC:
New privacy laws have made audience targeting harder for PPC ads.
In response to these laws and privacy concerns, a lot of the big ad platforms, including Google and Facebook, have limited how you can reach your audiences with PPC ads.
For example:
- Apple has prevented advertisers from collecting consumer data through both Safari searches and certain applications on Apple devices.
- Google plans to remove third-party cookie tracking from the Chrome browser in 2023, which will account for about 65% of the global web browser share.
These changes will make it harder to target ads to very specific segments of customers, or track conversions accurately.
Without getting into the weeds here, the bottom line is that PPC advertising is going to depend more and more on a holistic digital marketing strategy that includes other channels like SEO, Email Marketing, and Content Marketing.
PPC Ads are Worth the Time and Money
There’s no doubt that PPC advertising is still valuable. But as costs rise and challenges increase, a carefully managed PPC campaign becomes even more critical to success.
You get wildly different results based on the platform you choose, the content of your ads, and audience you are trying to target, as well as the efficacy of your overall PPC advertising strategy.
You must also optimize and monitor your PPC ads throughout the process.
To learn more about running a successful PPC ad campaign, feel free to consult with our team of digital marketing professionals who can walk you through the entire process, from planning to execution.
