PPC FAQs: 2023 Edition
If you’re looking for a way to increase your ecommerce website’s visibility and drive more in-market traffic to your business, Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising should definitely be a piece of your marketing mix. But what exactly is PPC, and how does it work? This PPC FAQ blog will answer some of the most common questions about PPC, from what it is to how to set up a campaign, and how to measure success. Whether you’re new to PPC or looking to improve your current campaigns, this guide has you covered.
What is pay-per-click advertising and what are the benefits of PPC ads?
Pay-per-click advertising is a form of online advertising where businesses can bid to have their advertisement displayed on search engines and other websites. When a user clicks on one of these ads, the business pays a small fee to the advertising platform. This type of advertising can be a great way to quickly generate new customers and sales, as businesses only pay when their ad is clicked on by a user.
There are many benefits of pay-per-click advertising, including the ability to reach a large audience, target ads to specific demographics or stage in the marketing funnel, and track the performance of your ads.
Where do PPC ads appear and what do they look like?
PPC advertising encompasses a variety of different ad types and platforms, so there’s no quick answer to this question. Whether you are advertising on search engine result pages, social media platforms, or on another website, will impact the ad types that are available to you and what they look like.
No matter what form an ad takes, its ultimate goal is to get your target audience to click your ad, visit your site, and make a purchase!
How do you set up a PPC campaign?
Whether you choose to launch a PPC ad campaign on Google, Bing, Facebook, or another channel, each platform has easy onboarding steps to follow that will include adding your credit card, creating your first ads and selecting your targeting.
While setting up a PPC campaign is easy, optimizing it for success is a little more complicated. To maximize your return on ad spend (ROAS), you’ll need to have conversion tracking set up so you can monitor performance of your campaign and make adjustments to improve your KPIs. Testing various ad types, copy, bid strategies and more will be critical to maximizing your return. Working with an experienced PPC partner can really give you a leg up when trying to beat out other advertisers in a very competitive space.
What are the components of a PPC search ad?
A PPC search ad consists of three main components:
- The headline, which is the first thing your potential customers will see
- The ad copy, which is the body of the ad that contains the offer and call to action
- The destination URL, which is the landing page where prospects will be taken after clicking the ad
In addition to these main components, there are several search ad extensions that can be used to expand your ad, take up more real estate on search engine result pages (SERPs), and provide your target audience with more information about your business or products.
How much does it cost to run PPC ads?
Most ad platforms don’t have a minimum spend to start running ads, but your specific industry and competition will dictate how much you’ll need to spend to achieve any visibility.
If you work with a PPC agency, you’ll need to factor in an ad management fee to your overall PPC cost. Ad management fees are typically billed as a percentage of your advertising spend and is essentially a service fee for the monitoring, testing, and performance reporting on your PPC campaigns.
How do you measure the success of a PPC campaign?
There are a number of KPIs you can use to measure the success of your PPC campaigns but for ecommerce, the metric that matters the most is ROAS. How much revenue are you generating from your PPC spend? At Above The Fray, we work with ecommerce businesses to determine what return they would need to see from their PPC spend to consider their campaigns successful based on average order value and average customer lifetime value.
Have a question about PPC for ecommerce businesses that we didn’t answer? Reach out!
