What is PPC and How Should You Manage it?

Let’s cut to the chase. In a nutshell, pay-per-click (PPC) is a form of online advertising available through platforms such as Google & Microsoft Advertising. PPC is a cost-effective advertising strategy which straightforwardly means charges only occur when your audience sees or clicks on your ad (depending on your strategy). It enables marketers to put their ads in front of the right audience at the right time, helping them reach their marketing goals. 

PPC allows users to set a budget and control spending.  It is one of the most inclusive forms of advertising as it enables businesses of all sizes to promote their products online and subsequently grow their business.

In addition to receiving results quickly and in real-time, the platforms collect a vast amount of data to measure performance. The key metrics are impressions, clicks, click-through rate (CTR), cost-per-click (CPC), conversions, and cost-per-conversion or lead (CPL). This allows businesses to measure the success of their campaigns and assess their return on investment.

PPC platforms use machine learning to learn the most about your goals and audiences to get the best results possible. Machine learning incorporates the use of audience targeting that plays a significant role in getting your ad in front of the right audience – helping secure the results you need. Ultimately, due to the algorithms and processes, a vast amount of data is accumulated via the PPC platforms. This is important as it provides a deeper understanding of customers and provides valuable insights to improve your future marketing strategies.

To run a successful PPC campaign, it’s crucial to dedicate time to running the account. Each task that goes into developing a PPC campaign (for example, ad copy, keyword research, budgets & bidding, etc) requires sufficient hours. You’ll also need to assign time to monitor and track spending, performance and to make relevant adjustments to different elements on a daily, weekly and monthly basis.

Like other digital marketing methods, PPC has limitations as it relies on its target audiences to search for their brand or a related term to their business. Without anyone searching, your ads will not have the opportunity to be shown. When search trends are low, your business won’t receive a high traffic volume (although, in this instance, you may wish to focus on higher quality leads). 

As PPC is an increasingly important component of a digital marketing strategy, your competitors are most likely utilising it as well. The more competitive the landscape, the potentially higher the CPC (where optimisation comes in to reduce CPC). 

Should you do your own PPC or hire a PPC agency?

When running your own PPC campaigns, you can control how quickly they are likely to be implemented and executed. As you won’t need to confer with an agency regarding ad copy approvals, campaigns can run at the optimal time. However, this means that you must have a proficient level of understanding and practice to successfully comply with PPC processes. 

When hiring a PPC agency, you are harnessing a wealth of experience and knowledge to ensure that you are getting the most out of your spending. You will receive results quicker as PPC agency employees are highly knowledgeable and familiar with which strategies are most beneficial for your business. They also understand how best to execute the campaign from end to end. Having a team of experts is helpful for more than just their experience, as it also means your account will have someone to manage it daily. If, for example, you are managing your own PPC account and fall ill or go on holiday, who will watch over it? With an agency, there is always someone available to monitor and ensure consistent performance.

How to choose the right PPC agency?

All agencies are aligned to different niches – or are more experienced in some areas than others. For example, some agencies focus on e-commerce related clients and therefore have intel on online e-commerce business sales, whereas others specialise in service-based businesses. Contacting the agency or perusing the case studies and previous work showcased on their website will help you gain a better insight into the capabilities and experience of the agency.

As you form a relationship with your agency it’s best to look for an excellent cultural fit for your business. This is determined through the introductory and proposal stages of the hiring process – also giving you an indication of the agency’s reliability.

The agency should be able to provide analytical data and insights post-campaign. Whilst hiring one will help you reach your goals and increase digital performance, they should also provide insight into your audience that will help your business as a whole in terms of indicating trends. You should be able to leverage the data provided to improve or inform other business decisions. After all, PPC is based on what your audience is looking for.

Any good digital marketing strategy should have an integrated approach. PPC agencies can implement a full-funnel approach using other services, such as paid social, display and programmatic platforms. Using more than one channel will further assist the buyer’s journey down the funnel whilst also ensuring a contingency plan if one platform is not performing. This integrated approach may also include non PPC activities such as SEO or traditional advertising (TV or out-of-home (OOH)) which can also be included in the overall strategy (depending on the budget).

As an effective digital marketing channel, PPC is an essential part of the modern digital strategy. It’s important to select an experienced PCC Specialist partner like Tug Agency, based in Sydney, Australia, who will provide all necessary services. [Contact Tug Now]

Yes. Tug provides an end-to-end service consisting of an initial proposal outlining a detailed strategy. It includes all digital channels – as per your preference – or according to suggestions made by  Tug’s PPC team. Whichever method you choose, you can be sure we will help you reach your objectives.

In addition to PPC services, Tug Sydney offers paid social, programmatic, display, and traditional advertising services (e.g. OOH, TV). From a non-advertising standpoint, Tug also offers SEO services to improve your business’s website search page ranking.

Due to the vast range of experience and resources of the Tug team across a range of digital capabilities, we can help you grow your business. A personalised strategic approach outlining a cross-channel integration of digital solutions to reach new and/or existing customers can help you receive the results you deserve.