With a limited marketing budget, every dollar spent needs to deliver a return. Many marketers are using PPC (pay per click) as a way to track the results from their online ads, ensuring they can increase the effectiveness of their communications as well as their spending.
Facebook is, without a doubt, the most popular platform for PPC advertising. While Twitter has the same capabilities, it is claimed that engagement up to 7 times higher on FB. In the end, where you choose to advertise will depend on the audience you’re aiming to attract: Linkedin, though not as popular as GoogleAds or Facebook, is aimed at a highly specific market, so may be the right choice depending on your service or product.
Keep these simple guidelines in mind and they’ll help you leverage your PPC marketing spend.
Focus your spend on your priority
When you’re getting started, don’t go for a scattergun approach. You’ll end up wasting time and money on ads that never had a chance of creating a return. Instead, identify the one product you want customers to learn more about, and focus on creating the curiosity and interest that they’ll need, not just to click, but to actually decide to spend their money.
Budgets are based on the campaign
One of the advantages of PPC is the flexibility you have in terms of target and budget. Keep the budget tight when you’re targeting existing contacts. Allocate a higher budget, and spread the net wider, with a higher budget, when you’re looking to attract new customers from a different demographic.
Start small and test, test, test
Starting small with PPC and taking your time to understand what works and what doesn’t will generate results over the long-term. It will also save you time and money. Investing in some powerful PPC software, such as HotJar or Ruler Analytics can provide real insights into how your efforts can be targeted to generate optimum ROI. When an ad is working, great. When it isn’t, be ready to scrap it immediately and go with an alternative approach.
Use remarketing tools
Don’t fall into the trap of being satisfied with the number of clicks you’re getting. Yes. They’re a sign of interest but unless you can convert them into paying customers, they don’t add value. The challenge is to nudge them to maintain interest until they’re ready to make a purchase. Remarketing, to specific audiences, via Facebook, Google, or Bing, is a powerful strategy that will enable you to keep reaching out to those non-converters who are more likely to buy at some point.
Summary
Pay per click is one of the most flexible ways to leverage your advertising spend, and there is a range of remarkable tools to help you get the most from this approach. Take your time to understand which is the optimum platform for your particular business, to identify the target audience for each ad campaign, and to take a deep dive into your results. Then let the results speak for themselves.
