Digital marketing is an important aspect of your business if you decide to transition to the online environment. This method of promoting your branding, products, and services allows you to reach your target audience in a cost-effective, efficient, and measurable way.
You can engage in digital marketing in two ways. The first one, SEO, is the most common strategy used by startups and other businesses. It is done by optimizing your website for search engines, such as Google and Bing, without additional costs. Doing so allows you to rank in search engine results pages (SERPs) and gain organic traffic to your website whenever a user searches for a keyword that you targeted.
On the other hand, you can try launching a pay-per-click (PPC) campaign. This digital marketing strategy will help you acquire your desired results faster.
What is PPC?
PPC is a marketing technique where you create ads for your brand and display it online to reach your target audience. Every time a user clicks on one of your ads, you pay a fee—thus its name. Basically, you can consider it as a way of buying visits or traffic to your website instead of earning them organically through SEO.
How to Spend Your PPC Marketing Budget Wisely
As a startup or small business owner, you know that your company does not have that much cash inflow yet. This means that every marketing move you make is crucial to how your business will perform.
Additionally, since PPC is not free, you must be wise in how you spend your marketing budget. To help you make the best decisions for your business, here are some insightful tips.
Know the Value of Your Lead
Your lead value can serve as your yardstick for determining the right amount of marketing budget for your PPC campaign. Knowing this number allows you to make more informed decisions regarding your paid ad strategy. It can also help you ensure that you are not paying more for advertising than how much your leads are actually worth.
You can compute your lead value by first knowing your average cost per lead. You can use this formula to do so:
Cost per lead = Total cost to acquire leads ÷ Total leads acquired
Therefore, if you spent a total of $10,000 to acquire 100 leads, your cost per lead is $100.
Then, let’s say that 20 people out of your 100 leads converted and bought the $450 phone that you sell. That leaves you with $9,000 in sales.
To compute your lead value, you have to take your total sales and divide it with the total number of your leads. Let’s apply this formula to the example given above:
Lead value: $9,000 ÷ 100 = $90
Now, you know that each of your leads is worth $90. This means that you are overspending for your marketing efforts to acquire one lead. To address this, you must optimize your ad spend and ensure that it does not cost more than your lead value.
Use Display Network
Using PPC to promote your products or services may seem simple. However, learning about and implementing different paid advertising models without taking advantage of any AdWords management services can be intimidating to a novice.
To make everything more manageable, you should start by utilizing the Google Display Network. Since this system reaches over 90% of internet users around the world, it is perfect for startups and small- to medium-sized businesses that would like to build brand awareness.
The Google Display Network is also ideal for smaller businesses because of its lower cost per click (CPC) compared to search ads. According to WordStream, the average CPC for display ads is $0.63 while search ads typically cost $2.69 per click.
However, you should manage your expectations when using the Google Display Network. Yes, it is cheaper, but it would not always be reliable in increasing your conversion rates.
Display ads are mostly designed to target top-funnel market and make users aware of your brand and what you offer. Most of what you will gain from display ads are leads, and it is very rare that a user who saw and clicked on your display ad will immediately convert to a sale.
Target Niche Keywords
The PPC arena is riddled with small businesses and large corporations from various industries, making it a competitive field. Chances are, one of your competitors is a large company with a big marketing budget.
Since, most likely, you would not be able to beat their bids on broader and short-tail keywords, you have to think thoroughly about your strategy. One thing you can do is opt for niche or long-tail keywords.
Bidding on more specific keywords will allow you to reach your target audience without competing against larger corporations. This will also help you obtain a higher click-through rate (CTR) for your website.
Additionally, choosing less competitive keywords will bring your CPC down. Since there are fewer businesses that are targeting the keywords you have chosen, you do not have to raise your bid to have your ads displayed.
Come Up With a Compelling Ad Copy
Once you are more comfortable with running paid ad campaigns, you might consider launching search ads. There are several things you have to think about when creating your ads, such as the keywords to target and your budget. Additionally, since search ads are mostly text, you should ensure that your ad copy will entice users to click on it.
The first thing you should work on is your headlines. This part is the first thing that users see when they encounter your search ads. It will play a large role in how individuals will perceive your ad and how well it will perform.
Make sure that your headline focuses on the benefits that users will enjoy once they choose your brand. You should avoid using generic advantages that other businesses include in their ad copy. Make your brand stand out by incorporating benefits that users will not find anywhere else.
Next, ensure that your ad’s description supports the idea that you communicated in your headline. Having misaligned messages may confuse users, forcing them to ignore your ad and look elsewhere.
You should also include a call to action in your ad copy. Having a specific call to action to end your ad’s description will help you increase engagement. Avoid using generic examples as they may turn users away from your ad.
Remember that you should make sure your copy is really good to entice people to click on your ad. Doing so will allow you to increase your CTR and make every cent that you pay for your ad count.
Optimize Your Landing Page
Once a user clicks on your ad, you should direct them to a really nice landing page that fulfills the promise of your ad. This means that the messaging on your landing page should be consistent with your ad copy. Achieving this will increase your chances of converting a lead into a customer.
Having an optimized landing page will also allow you to save money. This becomes possible because when your landing page is great, you will provide users with a better experience, which Google appreciates. Once the search engine notices that individuals prefer clicking on your ad because of the great user experience you offer, you will be given a high quality score.
The higher your quality score—at least 7—the less you would have to bid on your target keywords. This is because Google trusts that you will provide its audience with a great ad and user experience, so you do not have to prove your relevance and authority through money.
To optimize your landing pages, here are some things that you can do:
- Make your offer clear by keeping your headlines bold and short
- Write a convincing copy
- Utilize relevant images
- Use eye-catching and enticing CTAs
- Highlight your unique selling point
- Improve your landing page’s loading speed
- Optimize your form fields
- A/B test your landing pages
Utilize Remarketing
Remarketing refers to a paid ad marketing strategy where you connect with users on the Google Display Network who have already encountered your brand through your website or mobile app. This technique is useful in chasing individuals throughout the internet with your ads until they are ready to buy your product or pay for your service.
Through remarketing, you can retarget a user who has browsed through your website and looked at the products or services that you offer. Once you determine the certain product or service that they are interested in, you can promote the same offers to them through display ads.
For example, a user clicked on a dress that you sell on your website and left. You can create a display ad for the same product and show it to the user as they browse other websites and platforms on the internet. If your remarketing is successful, they will purchase the dress and maybe even more of your products.
You can also use remarketing to continue selling products to your existing customers. Let us go back to the previous example.
So, the user has bought a dress from your shop. Now, you can show them display ads containing items that are related to the product that they bought. You can sell them accessories that go with the dress they got or other apparel that matches the item, such as shoes and jackets.
When you remarket, you would not have to spend too much effort in trying to convince the user to convert. They already know about your brand and have shown interest in the product or service that you offer. You only need to give them a little nudge to go through with the transaction and make a purchase.
In addition to being a great conversion strategy, remarketing is also cost-effective. Similar to regular display ads, remarketing ads have lower CPC compared to search ads.
So, if your website receives a significant amount of traffic (>1,000 visits), you should definitely utilize remarketing. This strategy will allow you to see higher conversion rates without spending too much effort and money.
Watch Out for Overdelivery
When setting up your PPC ads, you can set your average daily budget per ad group to manage your expense for the entire month. However, when one of your ad groups is performing really well, Google may show it to users more frequently, causing it to take up more than your allotted daily budget.
If you fail to notice this, you can use up your budget for the month pretty quickly. This means that you might not have enough money to run your ads for the rest of the month, causing you to lose prospects and traffic to your website.
You can avoid this from happening by making sure to monitor your ads at least 2-3 times a week. Doing so will allow you to see if any of your ad groups are overspending.
If one of your ad groups is spending more than your daily budget, you can choose to reduce your budget for your other ads or your entire campaign. You can also reallocate your money towards the ad group that is performing well. Doing this will allow you to run the great ad group much frequently and longer.
PPC is Not for the Faint of Heart
Utilizing paid ads to promote your business allows you to enjoy various benefits. Through PPC, you can gain significant traffic to your website without waiting for too long and acquire qualified leads that you can easily convert into customers.
Being successful in PPC is not always guaranteed. You have to go through a lot of trial and error before you find the strategy that works best for your company. But once you find the right PPC approach for your business, you will continue thriving without wasting any of your marketing budget.
