We are starting a series on Pay-per-Click (PPC) advertising, a classic online advertising model that has existed since the early days of Google (who also pioneered it). Our goal is to give you some guidance on this vast and intricate marketing strategy - which has helped countless small businesses to mature into the industry giants you know today. In this blog, we will talking about getting conversion with lower CPC.
This blog in particular will jump straight into the basic mechanics of PPC and how it uses your ad spend to lead potential customers to your website, in order to help you gain conversions. If you are still unfamiliar with PPC advertising, feel free to read our beginner?s guide (What is PPC (Pay-per-Click) Marketing?).
PPC vs SEO
Generally, there are two ways that your website can get the exposure it needs: paid advertising using PPC (as well as other paid ads), and organic search result ranking via SEO tactics.
The latter involves building up original and relevant content consistently, by posting news (or blogs), videos, and backlinks from other websites. It costs no money to do this, but it is a long-term marketing game, that may not work for startups.
Cost-per-click (CPC) is the money you spend every time a user clicks on your ad. In itself, PPC advertising is more advantageous compared to pay-per-1000 impressions, for example. You don?t pay anything before a user clicks on your link. You get the ?free exposure? at the top half of the search engine results page.
How you compete with other advertisers
Most online ad platforms compete for the top ranks by the highest bid or as known as Auction System.
You set your maximum bid for a CPC (maximum CPC) for a specific set of keywords. This means a competitive keyword (having been searched many times) would most likely have high CPC.
But in most cases, CPC bids lower than your maximum CPC for moderately competitive keywords - you need to be strategic about your keyword choices in the first place.
But there are a few tricks to level the playing field against the high-bidders. Ranks are also determined by the quality score, that is, the quality of your ad and landing page.
While this is done automatically with bots, you can control your ad and landing page in the hopes of increasing the quality score. Do this with minimal CPC bidding, and you can rank high for a bargained price and a lower CPC.
Ad relevance
One way to lower cpc is to improve your ad relevance. Does your ad reach the correct audience? In some platforms, you can control your target audience manually. Sometimes it?s as simple as using the correct words on your ad description - well, ad copywriting is an art form in itself.
A more counter-intuitive way is to first broaden your target audience. Ad platforms keep their reputation by having intelligent learning machines to recognize which audience group would truly appreciate the ad. You will also get to learn who reacts positively to your ad, so that you can make further adjustments.
Landing page experience
You have greater control over this one, it's an easy way to get a lower CPC. Your landing page should contain the same keywords as your ad is targeting - otherwise it could be dubbed as a misleading link and you could get a poor quality score. Apart from that, the landing page should contain original content (yes, ad platforms can check for plagiarism).
The page should be safe, and have a precise number of links. Ease of navigation and site speed are human factors that can also factor in to your quality score.
SEO + PPC Combo
Allow some of your ads to reach a promotional blog homepage. This is useful if you have accumulated enough high quality content that is automatically relevant to your ad text. In addition, you can also kick start your long-term SEO marketing game through this combination. But don?t just get hung up on blog content.
Your prospective customers might appreciate other kinds of content, so be creative! If you can offer informational value, whilst blurring the line between entertaining and selling, then this strategy is perfect for you.
Need help with your PPC Management?
Increasing your ad relevance and landing page quality are just a couple of ways you can possibly out-compete high bidders and lower your CPC in PPC advertising. A combination of paid advertising and quality content creation can work wonders to reduce marketing costs in the long run.
Feel free to consult with us at Juicebox on these matters! We have the capabilities to run PPC Advertising not only on Google, but also Bing/Microsoft Ads and Yandex Advertising as well!
