How to Incorporate Pay-Per-Click Ads Into Your Digital Marketing Strategy

Paid advertising online is an integral part of many marketing campaigns. Pay-per-click (PPC) ads can potentially capture thousands of customers during their journey to purchase products or services that you offer. Optimizing keywords, ads, and landing pages takes consistent monitoring and effort in order to achieve a good return-on-investment (ROI) and maintain that ROI over time.

Choose Your Keywords: Why Long-Tails Trump Short-Tails

• Short-Tail keywords are non-specific. Example: "Shoes"

a. Many businesses bid for clicks on short-tail keywords that relate to their business in one way or another. Searchers have varying intents during their journey to purchase that may not necessarily be related to some business offerings. Google has been shifting their algorithms recently to ensure the intent of the user matches the content that is served to them. For example: some searchers may be looking for dress shoes, others may be looking for tennis shoes, while others are looking for shoe repair or even horse- shoes!

b. Because there are so many bids on these non-specific keywords, the cost-per-click on these tend to be high.

c. Larger corporations with massive ad budgets are likely to drown out small budget businesses for ad space for short-tail keywords

d. Sadly, if you are lucky enough to have your ads show for a short-tail keyword, the chance of that ad getting a click and having it result in a quality lead is low because the intent of the user may not match the content of your ads or website.

• Long-tail keywords are more targeted. Example: "Buy Men’s Tennis Shoes Online Canada"

a. With these keywords, user intent is clear.

b. There is less competition targeting specific long-tail keywords which causes the cost-per-click to be more affordable.

c. With less bids, there is more opportunity for your ad to be served even with a lower ad budget.

d. Because long-tail keywords are so specific, your ad is more likely to be clicked and result in a quality lead.

Craft Your Ads: Tailor to Your Customers

Pay-per-click ads need to match the intent of the keyword searched as well as the content of the landing page it’s linked to. This should draw the user to click on your ad and increases their likelihood of becoming a lead once on your website. Here are a few tips for crafting quality ads for your buyer persona:

• Focus on customer intent.
• Clearly state who you are and what your business has to offer.
• Use synonyms and acronyms. Google has strict character limits for ad copy. You may have to change your wording to fit within the limited ad space available.
• Include a call-to-action, such as “Book an appointment”, “Request a quote”, or the classic “Call today!”.
• Use A/B testing for multiple ads to see which performs best and eliminate the underperforming ads. This will increase your return-on-investment.

Determine Landing Pages: Point Your Ads to the Right Place

For your pay-per-click campaign to be effective, your ads need to take potential buyers to the right place during their journey to purchase. Creating or choosing landing pages that serve as fluid transitions from your ad content is a big part of running a successful campaign. A successful landing page will be well organized, skimmable, and will provide:

• Details about your advertised product or service
• Important information about how your business will solve their problem
• A way to contact you

A good layout and design will help you achieve the above. Here are some tips:

• Use eye-catching graphics to get attention and break up blocks of text
• Employ bullet points or numbered lists where possible
• Make your contact information stand out using contrasting colours

Start Benefiting from PPC

Pay-per-click advertising can be beneficial to your business in helping drive targeted traffic interested in your products or services to your website to help generate quality leads. Knowing how to run a successful PPC campaign takes knowledge and experience.

Working with a team of certified experts will help you get the most out of PPC advertising. A digital marketing agency will know how to choose the right keywords for your offerings, create ads that hit the sweet spot every time, and build landing pages that cater to your target persona during their buyer journey to convert them into leads. To take your online marketing to the next level, reach out to us today!

Lynne Motkoski, Digital Marketing Strategist

Specialty: Digital Marketing Strategies
Education: MA Communications & Technology, BComm [U Alberta]
Author: The Online Marketing Handbook for Busy Entrepreneurs

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Lynne is known for her strategic approach to marketing communications, technologies, and lead generation. She has a passion for education, keeping up with current marketing trends and practices, and helping clients keep ahead of their competition.