Managed correctly, Pay Per Click (PPC) campaigns are an extremely effective way for small businesses to market their business online. PPC advertising is an attractive marketing medium, as a charge is only applied when your ad is clicked on and visitors are directed to your website.

Unlike most standard forms of advertising, PPC search-engine marketing enables you to target potential customers who are looking specifically for your service. If done right, a PPC campaign can pay for itself many times over.<!–more–>

Sharpening the PPC Saw
Pay Per Click is now a fundamental part of the online marketing mix of many SMEs. This doesn’t mean the paid search arena is saturated, or that many of these companies achieve a maximum return on their investment.

The PPC market place is huge, and provides ample opportunity for advertisers of all sizes; and just because your top key terms are beyond your budget doesn’t mean you cannot have a successful, cost- effective PPC campaign. Here are four tips for taking your paid search marketing activities to the next level.

1. Plan Your Campaign
The straightforward tools for setting up a paid search advertising campaign make it easy to get started. But taking your time with a more planned approach will allow you to apply tools that will optimise the effectiveness of your campaigns.

A well-prepared campaign will include the following elements:

• Keyword research
• Organising the selected keywords into ad groups
• Preparing creative, targeted ad copy
• Tailored landing pages that relate to your ads
• Tracking
• Analysis

While you can be up and running with your ad campaign in minutes, you will achieve the best return on your investment by working through these important managed steps.

2. Pre-qualify Your Visitors
One of PPC marketing’s strengths is the ability to pre-qualify those who click on your ads: Craft a well-worded ad to include your keywords and some details about your product. Done well, this will deter the ‘tyre kickers’ and encourage those who are ready to buy.

You may also consider offering a free download, White Paper, email course or webinar as an incentive for clicking on your ad. This will capture contact data from a high percentage of those clicking on your ads.

3. Boosting Your Budget
Bidding to have your ad positioned at the top of the search results is not always the best strategy. More traffic often comes from the second, third or even fourth position, which will save you a significant amount of money.

You can also make your budget go a little further by setting up conversion tracking. This not only allows you to identify what keywords are working best for you, but also demonstrates to the search engine that your content is relevant. This can result in your ads benefiting from better positioning without increasing your bid amount.

4. Don’t Suffer from Analysis Paralysis
Web advertising provides excellent visitor activity tracking, allowing you to achieve a greater return on your PPC advertising investment by identifying what is working and what needs tweaking.

Be careful, though, the wealth of website data can be overwhelming, especially if you are not well versed in the technology, tools and terminology of PPC marketing. The key is being able to hone in on the important stats, and then understand how to interpret them.

If you would like more help implementing successful PPC marketing campaigns, please call us on 01484 690430.