Why would you want to use pay per click services? They work to bring you more business.
Not everyone sees results in pay per click advertising, however. There are plenty of stories of site owners who spend money on PPC services and don’t see results.
There are some common mistakes that advertisers make when they use pay per click advertising. Read on to find out what they are and how you can avoid them.
Where to Buy PPC Ads?
It used to be that Google was the only PPC game in town. It’s still a dominant player, but the PPC landscape is starting to shift. Advertisers aren’t aware of this shift and they can be investing pay per click dollars in the wrong place.
Facebook, Amazon, and Bing all offer pay per click services. Where you should advertise depends on your business goals.
More ecommerce and retail sellers are recognizing that people are turning to Amazon more than Google to research products before they buy. With this change in consumer behavior comes a change in how budgets are allocated.
Your first step is to decide where you need to spend your budget. An FBA seller or retailer selling on Amazon should advertise on Amazon. An ecommerce site could advertise on Google or Bing to drive traffic to the site.
Social media advertising like Facebook has a pay per click service that you can use to create brand awareness. This is a smart use of resources if you just repositioned your brand and you want to introduce your brand to a new audience. It also gives you an opportunity to tell more of a story that people can relate to.
Keyword Research & Targeting
The one consistent piece across pay per click services is that you have to know your target audience. You have to understand how they search for your products and services so you can appropriately target them.
Are they limited to certain geographic areas? You’ll need to specify this in Google, Bing, and Facebook.
In Facebook, you don’t target your audience by keywords, but by interests. You have to know what products and services your audience follows. For example, if you’re a fitness brand, you can target people who follow fitness brands like Weight Watchers or TRX.
If you were to target these keywords in Google, be aware that there is a gray area targeting trademarked branded terms.
The keywords you use should strike a balance between search volume and competition. You want to have enough search volume in your keywords and have a little competition. That will improve your chances to get your ads seen.
You could bid on a keyword for one cent a click, but that won’t generate enough traffic to be worth your while.
There are some tools that you can use to do your keyword research. Google’s Keyword Research tool and Ubersuggest are good for researching keywords on Google. Bing has its own keyword research tool.
For Amazon research, there are a number of tools to use, such as JungleScout and Merchant Words.
Creating a Compelling Amazon Ad
Amazon’s main form of advertising is the sponsored product ad. These are pay per click ads. You bid on certain search terms that are related to your product.
Your bid should be high enough to get your product towards the top of search results. The key components will be your product headline, product images, and product page.
All of these should have your main keyword. Your images need to be within guidelines, but they can be more lifestyle images that showcase your product.
You can learn more about creating a winning sponsored ad campaign by reading this article. This will outline the process step-by-step.
Writing Ads for Google and Bing
You have very little space to make a big impression. Your ad copy has to be stellar in order to make an impact.
Do searches on Google for keywords similar to yours. Take a look at the top ads and notice if the text is good or not. Would you click through? Ask yourself why or why not.
Your ad copy starts with your headline. You want to speak directly to the person reading your ad.
You also want to tell people who your service is for. Mention specific groups like corporations, men or women.
Don’t forget the most important part – the call to action. You have to tell the reader what the next step is.
After you craft your ad, you will find that you can always improve. Test different elements of your ad, such as the headline or the call to action.
The Landing Page Matters
One of the biggest mistakes that advertisers make with PPC ads is that they send traffic to their website’s home page. They do this assuming that people will pick up the phone or schedule an appointment.
You want to create a simple landing page to capture your visitor’s email address. This can be done by offering a white paper or free ebook to download in exchange for the email address.
You can communicate with the user regularly via email to build credibility and trust, making them more likely to buy from you in the future.
The copy on your landing page has to validate the user’s click. In other words, the experience has to be seamless and make sense to the user. If your ad copy is about weight loss, and the user clicks through to text about using a kettlebell, that might not make sense to them and they’ll leave.
Pay Per Click Services Can Build Your Business
Using pay per click services can be an ideal way to increase sales and leads. The way to maximize your advertising budget is to advertising with the right service.
You also have to be great at copywriting and understand how your target market searches for your products and services. If you can do those things and maintain your budget, you can be successful no matter where you advertise.
Are you ready to learn more about marketing? Take a look at this article about mobile advertising strategies.