PPC: simplified

PPC (pay-per-click) is a form of paid search marketing where the advertiser only pays the host of the ad when it is clicked. Search Ads appear above the organic search results when a keyword or search term is entered into a search engine.

Google Ads aims to serve users with highly relevant ads to their search terms to encourage clicks through to the site to complete a specified conversion. The main benefit of PPC is the fact that you only pay when a user clicks, which can help your budget follow more qualified leads.

A conversion is one of the main goals of any campaign, you are trying to encourage users to click your ad to complete a specified conversion on your site. Conversions can be defined as the action you want a user to complete after clicking on your ad. These can vary depending on the business type, common conversions include:

• Newsletter sign up
• Purchasing product
• Calling the business
• Completing an enquiry form 

It is important to track the conversions obtained from your ads as this can help you determine which ads have been successful and identify which keywords may not be performing so you can adjust and optimise your campaigns. 

Google Ads allows you to track your conversions by allowing you to place a snippet of code onto your conversion tracking page, for example an order confirmation/thank you page. Once a conversion is completed the information will be sent back to your Google Ads Account.

However, it can be difficult to track conversions as the customer journey is rarely as simple as clicking on an ad and purchasing. It often consists of multiple searches, looking through reviews, phone calls and even store visits before committing to a purchase. Therefore, it is also beneficial to use Google Analytics when using PPC as it can help you identify how credit is attributed to your ads. 

There are different ways that you can target your ad campaigns to ensure that they are meeting your target audience. It is important to enable your ads to show to a more targeted audience as this is a more qualified audience for your product or service and are therefore more likely to click on your ad and complete a transaction or set conversion.

Location is one of the ways you can target your ads. You can set up a radius and a distance target from your store or site, so you only target people in a set location. This is especially useful if your business requires people to travel to your location, there is no point using your budget targeting customers who are too far away, they would not be qualified leads.

Device type is another way that you can segment your audience. You can identify what type of device people are clicking your ad from and target them. This may be useful if you are seeking app downloads or have identified mobile-specific audiences that are relevant to you.  

Demographic targeting can help you put your ads in front of the right audience. For example, if you own a wedding dress shop, you would be looking to target people based on their relationship status, you would not target the married population. Therefore, demographics can help you narrow your audience based on personal factors, helping you find the right interest for your product. 

Alternatively, you can use Assets (formerly Ad extensions) to help enrich your text ads by showing extra information about the product or service, for example, phone numbers, price and locations. For example, a location extension would show the user distance from their location, and can even link to Maps for directions. This all gives the user more information about your business, and more value to click on your ad if it is highly relevant to them. 

As part of your management of your ad campaign, look through the keywords and search terms that are serving your ads. You can use negative keywords to stop your ads from appearing for certain terms or searches which may not be your target audience or have the right intent and therefore may be wasting some of your available budget. 

For each ad group, create a unique list of keywords, and help match your ad with the right user. By measuring the volume of ad clicks and click-through rate, it helps you determine which keywords are working well. 

Use match types to configure your keywords to relate to your business goals. Certain match types, for example, broad match will serve your ad for a multitude of different variations of your keyword. Whereas, exact match will limit these to only keywords that match your keyword or have slight spelling variations. This can be beneficial for different scenarios and business products. Match Types can also be changed, so if the broad match is not displaying for suitable terms you can alter it to phrase or exact at any stage of your campaign. 

In order for your ad to be displayed, it has to win the private auction that automatically takes place. An automatic private auction is performed every time a person performs a search. The auction determines which paid ads will show above the organic search result. This is influenced by a few factors, by quality and your bid. Your ad rank is affected by its quality.

The ad quality is determined by:

Expected Click-Through Rate – this is a prediction of how often an ad would be clicked on after it’s shown. 

Ad Landing Page Experience – The experience that a user finds on the landing page after clicking your ad. A high-quality landing page will answer a user’s questions and complete their task. 

Ad Relevance  – this determines how well the ad matches what the user is searching for, it helps make sure only useful ads are shown that would be beneficial to the user. 

How Ad Rank influences your CPC (average cost per conversion), varies from auction to auction and depends on factors like the context of each of your client’s search and intent. Higher-quality ads typically lead to lower costs, and better ad positions and therefore tend to have higher click rates.

Alternatively, you can use Assets (formerly Ad extensions) to help enrich your text ads by showing extra information about the product or service, for example, phone numbers, price and locations. For example, a location extension would show the user distance from their location, and can even link to Maps for directions. This all gives the user more information about your business, and more value to click on your ad if it is highly relevant to them. 

Budgets and bids are completely controlled by you. They can be adjusted at any time depending on how the ads are performing to get the most out of your campaign. Your budget is the amount you’re comfortable with spending on your campaign each day.

The maximum amount you are willing to pay for the bid is the MAX CPC (max-cost-per-click). 

There are different types of bid strategies that you would choose to meet your business goals. 

Automated bidding is also possible where machine learning algorithmically helps you set appropriate bids for each auction,  this helps you get the most out of your budget. 

ROAS – Return on Ad Spend – is a marketing metric that helps you get more conversion value or revenue on the return on ad spend. It helps you to evaluate which methods are working and helps you make informed decisions on where to invest your money and improve efficiency. 

Google Performance Planner can help you forecast how your ads will perform in the next quarter, which can help you determine optimal bids and average daily budget allocations, and uses a combination of machine learning and account history to predict these.

As with everything search, relevance is highly important, take time to go through your ad account to keep things relevant, take out poorly performing keywords and add those that you might not have found, occasionally you may also want to increase or lower your budget. All of which can help keep your ad appearing as it will be deemed more relevant to search terms used to search your products.

If you would like help in setting up a Google Ads campaign, or would like us to take a look at your account to see if it is running to its full potential then get in-touch for a no obligation chat.