How Effective is PPC Advertising? (The Truth)

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is a model of paid advertising that means you pay for clicks through to your website and not just impressions.

Paid advertising takes up to 65% of clicks when ads are optimised for high-intent keywords and paired with quality copy. So, how effective is PPC advertising for your business?

Why choose PPC Advertising? 

PPC or pay-per-click advertising allows you to place ads on search engine results pages through Google, Bing and other search engines. The PPC model means that you pay for an ad once someone clicks through to your website from an ad. 

PPC marketing campaigns can be done by businesses in house teams or by an agency; however, the monitoring and management of ad accounts are often too much for in-house teams with other things on their plate.

PPC agencies have teams of skilled professionals working on your ad campaigns, ensuring they’re being monitored and managed to optimise your ads to the most valued audience for your budget. 

For more on PPC Advertising, check out our free ebook – Why hire a PPC Agency | The Ultimate Guide 

How effective is PPC advertising?

Your business has the means and the budget to run a PPC campaign, but you might find the senior managers asking, “How effective is PPC advertising?” 

Really effectiveness is based on what you’re trying to gain from running ads and the time you have available to manage the campaign once it’s set live. If your plan is to hide your business away from the world, PPC is not the channel for you. 

PPC can link to and assist in reaching multiple business goals, but which ones add the most value to your business? 

Conversions 

When asked how effective is PPC Advertising, the first thing that comes to mind is increased conversion rate. PPC with effective ad copy and targeting leads users directly to a specified page or to a sales-focused landing page, making it even easier for users to convert through your chosen conversion points. Whether it’s a form submission, a purchase, a phone call or an enquiry.

Additionally, platforms like Google and Bing Ads can compile the data from ad campaigns and, with the help of a tag manager, can be pulled through to Google Analytics. This allows you to view your data all in one place so that you can see website data alongside the campaign data to truly assess the value of your campaigns. A good conversion rate to aim for is about 10%, with some of the top performers on Google Ads achieving 11.45% average.

Quick entry 

One of the key benefits of PPC is that you can set up a campaign with minimum external resources and a relatively small budget. PPC campaigns give businesses the opportunity to boost their website in search engine results where they may not already rank for search engine optimisation (SEO).

For businesses in a saturated market, it’s harder to build a presence in search, but with PPC ads, and the right spend, you can see your business in the ad content of page one in search engine results. 

Building a digital marketing strategy

Having all branches of digital marketing linked together can build a strong and focused strategy to build your business’s authority as a leader in the industry. 

PPC advertising can blend really well with other branches of digital marketing, especially SEO. Using targeted keywords in both your PPC and SEO can show both your ads and your optimised pages for a given search. When done right, this means you can take over a sizeable chunk of search engine results pages.  

If you’re looking for more on optimising your own PPC campaigns, see our blog here. 

Plenty of resources 

Choosing to do PPC yourself may feel like a jump into the deep end initially. However, there are plenty of resources out there designed to help you develop your skills and knowledge of PPC. Almost all search engines and platforms that offer ads have a skills or training page for you to build your knowledge of their platform specifically. 

Google Skillshop teaches the basics and need-to-know information on how to effectively run ads with Google Ads. Microsoft has learning labs with dedicated Microsoft advertising certifications. Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, also have Meta for Business, which includes short courses and certifications on how to use the platform to its full potential.

Conclusion

Well, knowing exactly what you hope to get out of it is a good place to start, whether you’re running a brand awareness campaign or trying to boost quality leads PPC can work for your business. 

However, as with everything in this life, PPC does have some drawbacks. 

In competitive industries, the cost-per-click on the quality keywords you want to use can be high. This may mean you get less for your budget. The silver lining of this is that if you narrow down your targeting correctly, every click may be a serious potential lead. 

Doing it yourself may take some trial and error as you get used to the platforms and how the ads run. Trial and error when it comes to paid ads aren’t particularly cost-effective. Knowing which keywords, what times and what budget are hard enough, but adding in managing and optimising ads can be a lot, even for a designated marketing team. 

If you’re ready to take your digital marketing to the next level, book a call with one of our specialists today