Pay-per-click advertising, or PPC in marketing jargon, is a way to boost traffic to your website. Essentially every time your ad is clicked, you pay for that click. From every PPC campaign you run, you can gain important information about your target audience, which will help capitalize on your marketing.

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Understand the process

PPC starts with a bidding system/auction where you bid on specific keywords relevant to your business. When your bid wins, your business will pay the agreed fee every time that ad gets clicked. PPC is a phenomenal way to reach your target audience FAST.

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Types of PPC

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Paid social media ads

Instagram and Facebook offer PPC advertising along with numerous other campaign types. Social media advertising is a great way to capture the attention of new customers, even if they aren’t even searching for your product or service.

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Search ads

Search ads are one of the most common types of paid advertising. This method is essential because your business needs to be near the top of the page when a customer is actively looking for a product or service online. Paid search ads help you jump the line and appear in the top search results for the phrases and keywords you’re bidding on. These ads will appear based on the user’s specific search.

Pro tip: Make your website simple and easy to navigate. You don’t want people to turn away from your website because it is confusing.

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Shopping ads

Shopping ads are ads on a search engine results page that show the user a picture of the product, the title, the price and more. An appealing image and a reasonable price are required to do well with shopping ads. Putting a review star count will likely boost your website traffic. These ads will appear based on different niches.

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Advantages of PPC

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Fast

Results from a PPC campaign come very quickly. Because your ads are placed on the first page of the google results page, people see them more frequently.

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Measurable/customizable

What is your return on ad spend (ROAS)? PPC campaigns can show you how effective your campaigns are through analytics. Not only that, but you can make minor adjustments to improve your campaign based on data.

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Cost-effective

One of the most attractive features of paid online ads is that you only spend money when your ad gets clicked. When a PPC campaign is implemented correctly, this can be an excellent investment for your marketing dollars.

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Disadvantages of PPC

Although there are a lot of significant advantages to running a PPC campaign, there are also disadvantages, like time, skills, and cost.

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Time invested

Unfortunately, you can’t leave your PPC campaign after you set it up. To have a “successful” campaign, you must optimize and constantly improve it. Similarly, you only see results in traffic and sales so long as you’re running these campaigns.

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Skills

Top ad platforms like Google constantly change, and good ad specialists regularly update their skills and knowledge. Because of the need to be well-informed and up-to-date on the latest changes and best practices, most businesses go through an ad agency specialist. It takes valuable time and practice to run a PPC campaign effectively.

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Cost add ups

You have to be on top of your campaign. If not, money could go to waste due to no optimization and a lack of knowledge about how the campaign is doing.

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What about SEO?

For people that don’t know what SEO means, it stands for Search Engine Optimization. SEO is an organic marketing strategy. Organic marketing is essentially no money spent.

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Does PPC affect your SEO?

PPC doesn’t negatively affect your SEO but can indirectly affect your SEO. PPC allows you to collect valuable data from your audience. You can also test your keyword strategy before making a long-term SEO plan.

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Key Takeaways

PPC advertising is an efficient and effective way to get traffic to your website. Even though it's a fast method of building awareness and finding potential customers, managing and optimizing a successful campaign takes time. The best approach to PPC is to use it with an SEO-optimized content marketing plan for longevity.

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