With the new year comes the opportunity to make a resolution to increase your business’ exposure and customer conversion rate–and in 2019, the best way to fulfill this resolution may be through the use of paid advertising. Why will paid advertising be so critical to marketing success in the coming year? Simply put, paid advertising, like pay-per-click marketing and sponsored advertising, have the potential to reach a much greater number of interested customers than unpaid marketing methods do.
To understand why let’s take a quick look at how these two paid advertising methods work.
Pay-per-click advertising, also known as PPC, is more or less exactly what it sounds like: you’ll pay each time a potential customer clicks on your advertisement. These PPC ads come in many forms and are available on a variety of platforms, namely on social media sites and Google. Google PPC ads appear at the top of the search engine results for a particular keyword search query, or they can follow a targeted user as they search on a multidate of websites that are a part of the Google Display Network. PPC on social media sites, like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, show up on targeted users’ social media feeds, story, or online marketplace.
In either case, PPC advertising is typically conversion heavy thanks to its visibility and ability to be highly targeted. It is particularly successful if you’re careful to direct those that click on your PPC ad towards a landing page that encourages them to make a purchase, sign up for your mailing list, schedule a call or any number of specific business KPIs.
Sponsored advertising can operate on a PPC model, but it also can be subtler and is usually more focused on brand awareness. Such ads can be an integral part of any social media campaign, with the charge usually attached to the number of views (or impressions) that each sponsored ad receives. Sponsored ads can take advantage of the creative potential of social media networks like Facebook and Instagram by allowing you to use original and informative content like videos, pictures, and blog posts.
So now you know how paid advertising works–let’s take a look at why it’s so effective as a part of any online marketing campaign with these three major benefits of paid advertising.
One of the reasons why some businesses are reluctant to take advantage of PPC advertising is the “paid” part of it. These same companies, however, often spend a significant amount of marketing dollars boosting their organic search results using tactics such as search engine optimization (SEO). While organic marketing is an important part of an online marketing campaign, you have to accept that you’ll end up spending money getting your webpage in front of individuals outside of your business’ target demographics.
In this way, paid advertising can actually be a more cost-effective marketing method. Yes, you’ll pay for each click, but there are going to be even more impressions behind that click that are basically free advertising! If you consider some PPC campaigns get only a few clicks per every 1,000 impressions, that’s basically paying pennies for brand awareness on the top of Google’s search engine results page (SERP). Plus, since paid advertising target audiences can be so specific, the clicks you do pay for are more likely to convert into leads than organic clicks are.
This higher than normal conversion rate is because you can target your PPC ads by demographics, location, income level and more. This means you’ll only be paying to advertise to those you know are interested in your product or service–thus saving you from wasting time and money on leads outside of your target market and improving conversions overall.
As you may have noticed, AdWords PPC ads now occupy the first two to four spots on Google’s SERP. This is a critical position to have your website link as most users never go past the first SERP. In other words, unless you take advantage of Google AdWords PPC advertising, the average Google user is unlikely to ever even see your website.
Being at the top of the SERP also helps provide consistent traffic to your website or landing page. This consistent web traffic provided by the PPC ads will help boost your SEO and organic search engine rankings, which is a huge added bonus. In the end, putting more money into PPC and keeping up the consistent traffic flow will allow you to eventually spend less on SEO efforts as your website will rank higher thanks to PPC traffic.
Almost every social media outlet from Facebook and Instagram to Reddit and Spotify offers a paid advertising platform that allows businesses to reach custom audiences through a variety of paid media models. Utilizing these paid options is key for making the most of your business’ social media presence since organic reach on such sites is plummeting, even as social media becomes more important than ever for advertisers.
To make the most of your paid advertising on social media, figure out which sites your target demographic frequents. Boost your effectiveness even further by flexing your creative muscles and highlighting your brand with videos, images, and written content that is more eye-catching and engaging than traditional ads. By taking advantage of the PPC models offered by many social media platforms, you can broadly increase brand awareness while still only paying for those users who actually click through to your website–making this paid advertising avenue a win-win!
Ultimately, whether you’re looking to convert more web users, improve your Google search rankings, or want to increase brand exposure and your social media effectiveness, paid advertising is your best tool for all that and more. However, it’s not always easy or straight-forward to figure out exactly what forms of paid advertising are best for your business’ particular goals.
That’s where Zero Gravity Marketing can help! As an online marketing agency with extensive experience with PPC management and social media marketing, we can help you build a custom paid advertising plan for 2019 that will get you the results you want without the headache. Contact us today to find out more.