Strategic pay-per-click advertising

Pay per click advertising is a type of digital ads that imply you’ll be paying a specific fee for every click on your link in the promoted section. They come up first when people search for related topics on Google or other engines, and as most tend to buy from the first few links on the front page, you’re drastically increasing the volume of visitors and sales. You’re essentially “purchasing” those visitors instead of getting them organically – however, both SEO and PPC efforts combined show the best results, it’s just that search engine optimization for eCommerce is a long-term process as opposed to instantaneous conversion from buying ads on Google.

There are several options for PPC advertising – Search, Display, Social Media, Remarketing, and Google Shopping ads. All of them serve specific purposes, so choosing the approach to PPC will depend on the goals and needs your eCommerce brand is experiencing. For instance, if you’re seeing a steady influx of visitors to your business’s platform, but only a very small fraction of them actually goes through with a purchase, Remarketing ads help target those who already took interest in your product and motivate them to come back and buy. Search ads are the most common type – those you see when making a Google search, displayed on top of the page, marketing relevant businesses to users looking for a certain product.

Developing an effective PPC campaign is a multi-step process that always starts with the most important insight – knowing your target audience, and strategizing how to reach them with your ads. Seasoned pay per click advertising specialists know where to look, and are able to gauge how to shift towards a customer base that’ll buy more, and often. After figuring out who to actually market your product to, PPC ads require conducting thorough keyword research, to make sure those are best for getting in touch with your target audience, organizing them and including negative keywords (highlighting the potential search queries that would bring irrelevant traffic, as an example). Then, you need to figure out the budget: what is optimal to reach enough people, without depleting your total marketing funds? Afterward, you’re going to write convincing copy – that’s the text users will be getting in the ad next to the link to your platform on search engine results. One more important thing: before launching a PPC campaign, it’s best to check that your platform is in its best shape, making sure that the content, visuals, navigation, and speed are all up to par. Otherwise, your lead might leave before making a purchase.

Pay per click advertising presents many opportunities and boosts to eCommerce businesses – first of all, with good PPC bid management, your ad is likely to be displayed at the very top of the first few SERPs, allowing you to bypass the competition and score relevant leads, even if you haven’t been making an effort with SEO long-term. Moreover, features like remarketing empower you to launch campaigns specifically targeting people who have already taken an interest and visited your brand’s website, and therefore is way more likely to finalize a purchase, which potentially saves you huge amounts in the ad spending. Sales are arguably the most important goal for any eCommerce business, and PPC allows you to acquire them faster, easier, and often get customers to come back for more.

As we’ve mentioned previously, PPC works best when combined with Search Engine Optimization, which is the long-term solution to increasing traffic, scoring more sales, building up the customer base, and improving user experience on the platform. SEO is highly effective, but it does take a significant amount of time to show drastic results due to the search engines’ algorithms and protocols. On the contrary, pay per click advertising is a great option for targeting specific goals your eCommerce business has set and pushing to reach certain milestones. For instance: if you’re launching a new product, or having a big sale, it would be a great option to launch a major PPC campaign to drive traffic to your website, because in combination with a convincing offer on the platform itself, pay per click advertising can show instantaneous results in raising sales significantly.

Short answer: they both are great at different things. As we’ve discussed above, search engine optimization is a great long-term solution that is more complex than just increasing brand recognition or generating sales. SEO also involves platform optimization – overhauling content according to Google’s guidelines, increasing page speed and ease of navigation, making efforts to climb up in rank for different keywords, and much more. PPC is more of a quick shot at hitting certain goals or trying to raise metrics in the shortest term possible. Think of it this way: without a proper website that is professional-looking and good at selling to your target customer, pay per click advertising leads may visit your platform, but wouldn’t stay or become a repeat buyer

PPC advertising management service providers are easy to come by, but truly capable specialists are rare and valuable. To us, a good eCommerce PPC experts are considerate of the clients’ budget boundaries, holistically-thinking and aiming to stay on top of many variables, transparent in their practices, flexible when it comes to trying approaches and changing goals, and also focused on the long-term success of your business. To gauge the success of your PPC campaign, cross-reference your previously set goals and the KPI of the pay per click launch. Did you get the number of sales you were aiming at? Did the traffic increase meet your expectations? How many people who’d viewed the ad actually clicked on it? Troubleshooting performance and making improvements is a necessary part of all future PPC campaigns for your eCommerce brand.

Although there are quite a few tutorials on how to try and set up AdWords campaigns out there, it’s definitely not as easy as it may seem. Google Ad management specialists have ideally been launching PPC campaigns for years, and have earned much invaluable insight that will help mitigate any unforeseen issues for your business. Also, eCommerce PPC experts are experienced in creating campaigns for your specific type of business and are aware of how important scoring sales is for any online shop. Google AdWords managers will take responsibility for the results of the campaigns they’ve launched, provide comprehensive reports, troubleshoot problems or underperformance and have advice on how to improve your campaigns going forward – that’s definitely worth hiring one.

Prices for PPC ad services vary dramatically across the board, but there are affordable PPC management options out there. eCommerce businesses often opt to outsource PPC specialists, as hiring one in-house makes the costs spike up dramatically, as you’ll be paying them full-time. WiserBrand offers flexible service plans and options suitable to any budget, providing opportunities to try out different options and budget spending to find the optimal setup for your eCommerce platform. Generally speaking, we invoice anywhere from $2,000 and up, but do note that the ad budget is calculated separately.