In 2021, Canadian businesses spent a total of $9.58 billion of their budgets on advertising, with the number expected to rise to $12.19 billion next year. As most of that money was spent on digital ads, one popular form of slashing that budget is using Pay-Per-Click advertising (PPC). PPC is basically exactly what it sounds like: you pay every time a visitor to the website clicks on your ad. This can be an especially lucrative campaign method when applied correctly. They can come in various forms and sizes, and the difficult job of getting your brand noticed will be half-done. There are a lot of forms of PPC advertising, but the most popular platforms currently are Google Ads, Microsoft Ads and Facebook Ads. The most popular, by far, however, is Google Ads.
Here are some of the benefits of PPC advertising.
It’s Cost-Effective
You only pay when someone clicks on the ad, and the payment should be minimal. This means the normal fees that come with digital real estate online don’t apply. When a visitor clicks, the cost is immediately deducted from the PPC campaign budget. This also gives you complete control of the budget, letting you set minimum and maximum daily charges with the website. Older Cost Per Impression models (CPM) meant that you paid per “1000 impressions your ad receives”. There are no such vagaries with PPC, you only pay after those impressions turn into interest.
It’s Simple
Finding an organic phrase or keyword to help your brand climb the search rankings can often take months of research and hard work. With PPC, even if your site isn’t ranked well in searches, advertising slots are already available at the top of Google, and they’re a great way for businesses to claim new customers quickly. It’s especially useful for startups and new companies who require immediate attention. Longer, more in-depth campaigns are still necessary, but a PPC campaign can act as a quick fix in the meantime.
The Right People Will See Your Ad
It’s truly awesome how far digital marketing has come, with the ability to fine-tune ads directly to the desired audience. You can even tweak them for the right audience at a specific time of day. If you, for instance, run an ice cream parlour, your ads can be set to appear in the early-to-late evening, around the time people might be thinking about dessert. It gets even more specific than that: that ad could be set to be seen by people within a mile radius of your shop.
It’s Measurable
One can see how this translates to easy-to-understand, measurable Return On Investment ROI. In models dealing with impressions, the picture isn’t as clear, but with PPC, you can track every dollar spent on every keyword. You’ll also be able to track the campaign’s success in real time, something of which CPM is incapable of. The analytics can help you further tweak the ad to generate more revenue.
PPC visitors are 50 per cent more likely to make a purchase than those that come through an organic method. The jump-start it provides start-ups, as well as the cost-effectiveness for more deep-rooted businesses, is hard to deny.
Kenny Hedges | Contributing Writer
