Pay-per-click, or PPC, is a type of advertising in which you pay a fee to have your website appear on the search engine result page (SERP) when someone types in specific keywords or phrases. The ads you create to direct visitors to your site will appear in the SERP, and the fee you pay is based on how many people click on your ad.
PPC in Canada works just like anywhere in the world. So having a basic knowledge of PPC can help you in spending wisely even if you are targeting PPC Canada for your business online.
When done correctly, PPC can generate high-quality leads. If you can create a seamless user journey your PPC efforts could yield a massive ROI.
Pay-per-click advertising is most common in search engine results pages such as Google or Bing, but it is also used on social media platforms (although CPM is more common).
There are dozens of online spaces where you can spend your hard-earned ad dollars, and the best way to vet them is to examine your potential ROI on each platform.
The most popular advertising platforms are effective because they are simple to use and, more importantly, very popular. However, if you have a limited budget, you might consider a lesser-known alternative to these major players.
Other factors to consider when selecting a platform include the availability of keyword terms, where your target audience spends their time, and your advertising budget.
Here is a list of top PPC platforms in Canada:
Defining your goals for PPC is probably the most important aspect of developing an effective campaign strategy. There are so many different PPC targeting options available today, both within Adwords and outside of it. Defining your goals will assist you in selecting the platforms and ad types best suited to your marketing needs.
Consider the following common PPC objectives:
The key to success with AdWords audience targeting is to target based on intent rather than the most relevant keywords related to your business. The keywords you bid on, the ads you show, and the landing pages you send people to must all correspond to where they are in your sales funnel.
According to conventional PPC wisdom, there are three major categories of search intent keywords:
Creating unique optimized landing pages for your ads can be difficult when targeting a large number of keywords. However, sending visitors to generic product or landing pages is a waste of advertising dollars. Site visitors are not only less likely to convert, but their on-site behavior can also result in lower Quality Scores, making reaching them through PPC even more difficult.
The most effective PPC managers understand the importance of audience targeting and landing page optimization. The more relevant a landing page is to the initial search intent or demographic interest of the audience, the more likely it is that site visitors will click through, sign up, make a purchase, and so on.
Your ads connect search intent/audience interest to the landing pages you’ve already optimized. The goal is to provide value while briefly illustrating your unique selling proposition. To optimize your ads, you should experiment with different copy, visual media, extensions, and other elements.
By creating ad variations in AdWords, you can test different headlines, calls-to-action, extensions, and more. Make your own experiments by duplicating ads and then swapping out text and elements with find and replace. If you enable ad rotation in the Advanced settings, Adwords will automatically identify the most effective ad variants for you over time. Set your ad rotation optimization to prefer the best-performing ads automatically.
When you use the right tools, as previously mentioned, optimizing your ads integrates well into the ad creation process. As a result, the real focus of your analysis should be on determining which keywords and targeting features help drive your campaign goals.
Here are some key metrics to consider for search, display, and/or social ads (depending on your campaign goals):
Click-through rate (CTR): Can assist you in determining how relevant your ad content is to your keyword or audience targeting for social or display.
Conversion rate: A low conversion rate may indicate that your ad spend should be directed toward higher-performing keywords.
Cost per click (CPC): How much are you willing to pay to get a member of your audience’s attention? That is the ideal CPC for you.
Cost per acquisition (CPA): This can indicate how competitive your keyword is and whether it’s worthwhile to invest in it based on conversion profit margins.
(Adwords Quality Score): This metric combines the effectiveness of several factors, such as ad relevance, landing page relevance, and click-through rate.
Return on ad spend (ROAS): This is a bottom-line metric that assesses the effectiveness of overall ad spend in driving financial objectives.
If lead nurturing is your goal, you should also consider on-site engagement metrics such as page views, new or returning visitors, and so on.
These steps are all that is required to begin developing a competitive PPC strategy. The key is to determine where in the sales funnel you want to target your audience, then select the appropriate platforms and ads and optimize your PPC advertising material. Over time, you’ll be able to determine which aspects of your strategy require the most investment to improve your ROAS.
Finally, the amount of relevant consumer data available is far too large for most businesses to analyze, generate insights, and scale their PPC strategies. The most effective PPC advertisers must target ultra-relevant micro-moments with ad placements. Artificial intelligence is already used by PPC platforms to deliver the most relevant ads to users.
Keeping track of key metrics can assist you in determining the relevance and effectiveness of your advertising elements (ad copy, targeting, landing pages, etc.). It can also assist you in determining which keywords and audience targeting strategies are most beneficial for your specific business.
