Pay Per Click Management, let’s talk about it!

Is it worth the investment?

Ok, so for those unfamiliar with Pay Per Click advertising or PPC for short,  I am going to run through what they are, what companies offer them and what they offer you. We can talk about Pay Per Click Management and if it might be something you should look into a little later!

If you are looking for tips and tricks for running your Google Adwords campaign or Facebook Ads campaigns this post is not going to go in depth with the systems, but watch this space, we will be posting a PPC tips and tricks post as soon as it is ready!

What is PPC?

PPC is exactly what it says on the tin! Pay Per Click advertising, it is usually done on a bidding system, you set your maximum bid per click and the lowest amount you can pay whilst still out bidding your competitors.

For example if you decide that each person coming to your site is worth £1.50 but a competitor is only willing to pay £0.90 then your bid will be accepted for the top position however Google isn’t going to take your money if it’s not necessary.

As you have bidden £1.50 and your competitor only bid 90p your bid would automatically be adjusted to around £1 and of course be shown above your competitors ad; Google can help you out and be friendly you know!

It’s time to mix things up a bit…

If a third competitor entered the fray, and decided he could pay £2.00 for each click, he would be beating you to the top spot, your ad would still get shown but wouldn’t be the first advertisement.

There are some other factors that affect your adverts ranking such as relevancy, optimisation and a few other factors relating to your landing pages, but we can talk more about that later.

PPC Systems; Facebook & Google

The main 2 PPC systems I am going to focus on are Facebook ads and Google AdWords both of which if utilised correctly can massively improve traffic and sales on your website so I would recommend getting stuck in with both of them if you are looking to start PPC campaigns!

So let’s start with Facebook ads, all you need to get started with Facebook ads is admin access on a page, preferably one that is related to your brand or business! Oh, and a credit or debit card.

To access Facebook ads it’s simple.

Go to the drop down arrow in the top right of the navigation bar of Facebook and select “Create Adverts” it should look like below!

If it’s your first time using Facebook ads then it may take a minute or so to configure your ad manager and set itself up, just give it some time and you should end up on a screen similar to below.

This is what your Facebook ad manager will look like once it has finished setting up, as you can see it is very intuitive and makes advertising almost too easy!

Next up we have Google Adwords, similar to Facebook you don’t need much to get started in AdWords, just a Google account and a debit or credit card is enough to get you advertising!

Initially Google is going to try and get you to set up an ad immediately using AdWords express which is a more automated version of AdWords; forget about this.
To skip the initial setup once you get to this screen just click the link, it should look like the image below.

Once you skip the step above it should load you into Google AdWords campaign manager shown below.

 

Now I won’t lie to you, Google AdWords is a complicated tool, but once you get the hang of it, it is an incredible tool!

Be persistent when learning how to use it, make use of videos and blogs when you get stuck.

One thing I can’t stress enough is to understand that you aren’t going to get immediate results from using adwords.

Once you are ready to start showing ads it’s going to take 2-3 months of tweaking campaigns to start seeing real results.

Pay Per Click Management

A lot of online marketing companies now offer PPC services, a few have even made the move to becoming a full time adwords management company!

This is mainly due to the rise in popularity of PPC with more and more people starting to see the value in advertising on Google and Facebook.

Pay Per Click Management is becoming bigger and bigger, and having someone experience in using Google AdWords or Facebook ads is now a huge hiring point for most companies.

There are the obvious perks to using a Facebook ads or AdWords management company, such as:

• More time to focus on running your business
• Someone experienced managing your campaigns
• Don’t need to spend the time educating yourself on the systems

It is worth saying that shopping around for a reputable AdWords management company is advised, as some companies will promise the world but can leave you pulling your hair out!

Once you have found a company that offers PPC services that suit your budget you will then start to see some of the big differences that pay per click management has to offer!

Using their understanding of the tools and your knowledge of your business or brand you can quickly target locations, demographics and even people who have previously visited your site!

There is also the optimisation of ads which a good AdWords management company will always do!

This is one of the other factors in determining your adverts ranking in the Google bid system.

If your advert is linking back to a non relevant or poorly optimised page, Google will deem it not worthy to be shown.

This is where pay per click management really comes into its own.

Properly optimised ads using ad extensions are always looked at more favourably and advert optimisation only comes with experience and gives you an immediate head start on another business doing their own PPC.

That’s not to say you can’t do that yourself, trying to use a tool like AdWords to its full extent can take a couple of months to get to grasps with.

Is PPC a DIY job or should I use professional services?

I wish this was as simple as a yes or no answer but it totally depends on a multitude of factors.

Break it down for yourself;

• Have I got the time to spend learning how to use AdWords and/or Facebook ads?
• Have I got the time to invest into managing ad campaigns to get the results you want?
• Can I afford to use some of our advertising budget to get pay per click management?

Bear in mind that if you were to try advertising using AdWords or Facebook ads on your own with no experience it is going to be a risk.

You are going to have to spend money whilst you are tweaking adverts to get the best return of investment and you are going to make mistakes; can you afford these mistakes!?

So now it’s my turn to ask the question, do you think pay per click management is something you need?

If the answer is yes then it may be something we can help you with!

You can contact us and we can have a chat about what we can do to help your business achieve online success.

PPC might not be the online investment you’re looking for, maybe our SEO services could be better suited to your business.

Keep up to date with our other blog posts, you may learn a thing or two!