Google’s pay-per-click advertising strategy, implemented through the Google Adwords platform. Google’s PPC program enables you to appear near the top of the results list when potential customers search for businesses similar to yours on both Google Search and Maps.
This means that you only pay for clicks on your ad, not for how many times your ad is shown. Your advertising budget will be used for the clicks received on your website or calls made to your business through ads. There are three types of channels that are commonly used for online marketing: owned, earned, and paid. You own your website and all the content you publish on it. Your SEO efforts are also considered “owned” because you have control over them.
While those strategies are important for inbound marketing, they require a lot of time and patience. Google can take over three months to crawl a webpage. This means that anything you do to make your website more visible in the search engines will take time to have an effect.
Paid media is any advertising that you directly pay for, which can be a useful way to improve your owned and earned channels. There are many paid channels that online marketers can use, but one of the most popular is Google PPC Advertising.
Google PPC advertising
Google AdWords is a type of advertising that allows businesses to pay to have their ads appear on Google’s search engine and other Google-affiliated websites. Google AdWords advertising is also referred to as Google PPC (pay-per-click) advertising.
The place you are most likely to see AdWords ads is on the Google search engine results page. They are often placed above the natural results, at the top of the local results map, and sometimes to the side of the main results.
Google AdWords is responsible for the ads that are seen on more than 2 million websites and apps that are part of Google’s display network.
TheDisplay network includes all the well-known Google properties you would expect, like Gmail and YouTube, as well as a huge number of third-party websites that make money by displaying ads.
Pros of Using Google PPC Advertising
1. You can reach a large audience
A key marketing principle is to target your audience where they are. Well, Google is where pretty much everyone is. The search engine sees billions of searches every day. This number is just from the search engine itself and does not include other places where people search online.
Many Google products have billions of users. Sites in Google’s Display Network reach more than 90 percent of Internet users worldwide.
Your website and content will only be effective if people can see them. PPC advertising is a way to get more users to your site. Google and its partner sites have a lot of users, and PPC advertising allows you to tap into that.
2. Keyword marketing means your ads are always relevant
Marketers are most interested in reaching people who are interested in their product. The relevance and size of the audience are two factors that make Google PPC advertising a good choice for businesses.
If you want your ads to show up for certain keywords when someone searches, you can specify them using the Google AdWords keyword tool.
There is more than one way to get your content to appear in the results of a search, with SEO being just one method. However, this process can take a while, especially if you are trying to rank for competitive keywords.
PPC is a way to get your webpages to show up in the search results for relevant keywords more quickly and easily. It also allows you to show up for keywords that would be out of your reach in the natural results.
3. Demographic targeting helps you reach the right audience
You can use Google Adwords advertising to target people in your target audience, not just with keywords but with demographic targeting options. You can limit the audience for your ads by:
- Age
- Gender
- Device type
- Geographic location
This means that you can use Google to advertise to people who have searched for products similar to yours in the past.
By focusing your advertising on people who are most likely to buy from you, you can more efficiently use your resources and convert more leads into sales.
4. You only pay for clicks
Even though Google PPC advertising offers a lot of different ways to target your ads, the large audience size could mean that your ads are being seen by people who are not interested in your products or content.
You don’t have to worry about the cost of Google AdWords. You only pay when someone clicks on your ad.
You only pay when someone visits your website. When you advertise on a click-based network, you are paying for people who have already proven interested in what you have to offer by clicking on your ad.
5. Remarketing allows you to maintain a connection with past visitors
Many businesses, especially those that sell to other businesses, will need to have more than one interaction with a potential customer before converting them to an actual customer.
It’s great if someone visits your website, but it’s even better if they come back again. This can be the difference between a lead and a potential customer.
Google AdWords allows you to show ads to people who have already visited your website. This ensures that you remain top of mind for someone who is already interested in your product and is more likely to interact with your brand again.
6. Analytics give you insights to constantly improve
Any marketing tactic you try will only be successful if you can execute it well, which depends on the data you have to learn and improve from.
Google AdWords offers information on how each ad and campaign performs so you can gradually figure out what is effective and what is not. The information provided includes:
- The number of clicks for each ad and data on who clicked
- The number of leads each ad and campaign generate
- The amount of traffic AdWords drives to your website
- The keywords you target that get the most clicks and leads
- The cost per lead
This information can be used to improve your PPC campaigns so that they are more effective and produce a higher ROI.
7. PPC is targeted
If you want to use paid ads to attract traffic, make sure your ads are targeted. You can use PPC Google ads, social media ads, and similar platforms to reach a specific audience.
It is not a secret that mass media barely exists any more. Fifty years ago, one could depend on television, radio, and even newspapers to have a large impact, but with so many channels, websites, and stations, it is now impossible to reach everyone through just one method.
Targeted ads that are laser-focused on a specific audience have proven to be more effective than general ads.
Your ad could potentially reach thousands of people, but if it’s not the right audience, it’s a waste of money. Pay-per-click advertising allows you to target your desired audience so you never waste a dollar on someone who is not interested in your business.
Cons of Using Google AdWords Advertising
1. People trust natural results over ads
Google PPC can be useful for promoting your brand with keywords that would be difficult to rank for with SEO. Although ads may show up on a search engine results page, they are not as effective as organic results.
Many people trust organic results more and click on them at higher rates than paid advertisements, though this may begin to change as Google makes ads look more like natural results.
PPC ads can help increase your brand visibility, bringing you new traffic. However, they won’t have as much of an effect as SEO, especially if you manage to get good placement for relevant search terms.
Many consumers tend to ignore sponsored ads. Many customers scroll quickly past Google’s PPC ads and social platform’s sponsored social media posts to get to the organic results.
This isn’t all bad. Even if someone only sees your business name on their screen, it will help build brand recognition. You will only have to pay for that exposure if it leads to a click.
PPC is not a “cure-all” for generating leads and sales, it is just one part of a digital marketing strategy.
PPC can help generate traffic quickly, but you will only get the most out of it when you have a well-rounded inbound strategy.
2. High-value keywords are competitive
The amount you pay for Google AdWords advertising depends on the keywords and targeting options you select. You are competing against every other brand for the keyword on Google.
If more businesses are willing to spend money to advertise for a certain term, then you will have to spend more money to have your ads show up for that term.
You’ll spend a lot of money if you want your ad to show up every time someone searches for general keywords like “accounting software” or transactional keywords like “accounting software free trial.”
3. No longevity
The benefit of pay per click is that it gives you immediate visibility. However, the downside is that the number of leads declines when you stop paying for Google or social media advertising. PPC can be expensive for some companies, thus it might not be a long-term strategy.
There are positive and negative aspects to paid advertising, which typically leads us to suggest that businesses use it alongside other digital marketing strategies.
Once you create content for content marketing, you will need to continue to invest time in it to keep it climb the search results. However, once it does reach a high position, it will continue to reach prospects without you having to spend additional money on paid advertising.
4. Bidding wars
PPC is not always expensive, but it does give you control over your spending. Everyone including your competition wants to be at the top of Google search results.
When two or more companies are paying for the same keyword in their PPC campaigns, it can result in a bidding war.
Whenever you find yourself in competition with another business, remember that your goal should be to attract traffic, not to compete with the other business. Instead of spending a lot of money to win a small battle, it is better to save money and win the war.
We need to consider the advantages and disadvantages of paid advertising for each client. Google advertising is not competitive for some industries, making Pay-Per-Click an easy win for businesses as they get their digital marketing strategy off the ground.
We recommend other options with better long-term growth to those for whom the competition makes it too expensive.
This is a reminder that it is important to use both PPC and organic inbound strategies to grow the number of clicks you get from appearing in search results.
5. You pay for each click
When you start a pay-per-click campaign, you pay for each click on your ad. The clicks on your ad could be coming from people who are interested in your product, or from people who are competing against you, or even from people who clicked on your ad by mistake.
Either way, you pay. Make sure your keywords and ads are relevant to your target audience. Make sure you get the most out of your investment by knowing how to capture and nurture leads when they come to your site.
After all, the click is only half the battle. If a potential customer clicks on your ad but then leaves your landing page because it is irrelevant, confusing, or overwhelming, you will lose both the chance to make a sale and the money you spent on the advertisement.
An effective PPC strategy should funnel people into your inbound strategy, rather than serve as an alternative to it.
6. Creative assets
With Google ads, it’s all about the keywords. There are a few other things to consider when we’re talking about Facebook ad costs and Instagram ad costs.
Social ads are more effective than just having a title and meta description because they present a more complete picture to the audience. This means that you have to consider a graphic, illustration, or other visual element when planning and budgeting.
If you have a lot of images and videos to choose from for your business, you won’t have any problems. However, if you want something that is both appealing and unique, it is worth investing in. Make sure your visual is compatible with both desktop and mobile viewing.
Conclusion
We hope that after you have considered the advantages and disadvantages of paid advertising, you can see that pay-per-click advertising can be an effective way to increase your visibility, expand your audience, and generate leads in a short amount of time. While on one hand it can be expensive, being well-informed is the key to success.
We would usually suggest combining PPC with organic SEO through content marketing, so that you can achieve your marketing goals without spending too much money.
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