Pay-per-click advertising can be daunting, especially for small businesses on a tight budget. It can be hard to know your return on investment if you’ve never run an ad campaign before, and the costs can quickly add up. 

However, managing a successful PPC campaign can be wildly worthwhile. So, when you ask “is PPC worth it”, we have to say yes, it is! It is a pathway to getting in front of customers who are searching for goods or services like yours.

Small and midsized businesses increasingly use PPC to boost their website visibility: 65% of SMBs run PPC ads. PPC provides your business website with visibility in the search results, which helps you compete with giants.

Want to know whether PPC is right for your business or not? Let’s dive in! 

What Is PPC Advertising?

Pay-per-click, or PPC advertising, is an online advertising model. You run ads in Google search results and on web pages; they are displayed above the natural results and marked with a small green box with the word “Ad.” You pay only when people click on your ads.

To begin with PPC, you need a Google Ads account. With the account comes the ability to choose keywords to target. You then bid on them. When people search for the keywords that you picked, Google displays the highest bidders’ ad at the top.

Once the user clicks on your PPC ad, the user is directed to your landing page. That way, people interested in your ad will bring you in traffic only. PPC is the cheapest way to get your website to work.

PPC visitors are 50% more likely to purchase than organic visitors, meaning that your marketing spend on PPC advertising may lead to increased sales. Therefore, PPC investment is the best thing for your company.

Pros And Cons Of PPC Advertising

PPC is not free of drawbacks. So, you will witness your fair share of benefits and drawbacks. Therefore, it’s good to keep both in your mind. 

Benefits OF PPC Advertising

  • Fast ROI: PPC ads generate cash quickly – sometimes in a day. This is quicker than SEO because it allows for performance to be measured and identified nearly immediately, whereas SEO takes longer to yield results.
  • Rankings: PPC offers top placement on SERPs to advertisers, appearing above 100 percent of natural search results. Thus, these ads guarantee your placement among the top SERP positions.
  • Flexibility: PPC allows for easy tweaks. You can quickly update your landing pages, switch off ads, and pause certain keywords.  
  • Precise Targeting: PPC ads can indeed be very targeted. You can choose the tone and subjectiveness of the words on your site and also pick who sees your ads based on geography, demography, or other factors.

Drawbacks Of PPC Advertising 

  • Costs: PPC is potentially expensive, especially if a sector is highly competitive. Higher costs per click because of the competition for top spots in search results can place a strain on a budget. Companies might have to invest substantially if they are to compete.
  • Credibility: Some users prefer a listing that is genuinely the result of their search, not a sponsored one. The 50 percent of people who swipe past PPC advertising because they believe it is too promotional might reduce the effectiveness of your campaign.
  • Fluidity: PPC has to be funded continually. PPC ads stop showing once you stop paying, whereas the content you create for SEO will keep pulling in traffic long after it is made. This means you need to keep investing in company visibility.

Is PPC Worth It?

The ‘yes, it is’ response is quite obvious. Still, it’s natural to be skeptical in the beginning. That’s simply because PPC networks charge you for each time a user clicks on one of your ads. Yet, the click allows a potential customer to interact with your business.

PPC provides an opportunity to bid on keywords related to the products you’re selling and the types of search queries you’ll get in your target market. Depending on how relevant, high-quality, and effective your website is, the position of your advert on the search engine results pages will vary. 

When applied successfully, a PPC ad campaign should increase earned revenue, increase brand familiarity, and generate easy on-the-spot conversions that lead to greater business profits. 

Well-executed pay-per-click can easily lead to profit despite its costs, and good PPC makes no real noise at all. As a result, for many, PPC can be viewed as a sign of success. 

Hence, it is no secret that well-crafted PPC ads manage to blend into the natural search environment spectacularly naturally. 

This, along with the variety of PPC ad formats, which include text only, shopping, display, and video options, means that you can design your ads in ways that cater to your target audience’s tastes.

When Is PPC Most Effective?

PPC is not for everyone. So, if you are wondering when you should use it, here is a lead.

When You Need Immediate Results 

PPC is great if you need short-term results. Unlike SEO, which has to build steadily over an increased back end, PPC ads can begin producing visitors immediately. 

This makes them great for advert invites on short-term seasonal events such as sales, limited-period specials, or even the launch of a new product. 

When Accurate Targeting Is Preferred

With PPC, you can target your ads accurately. You can target people with your ads based on factors such as their age, likes, marital status, or other features—meaning you can speak directly to the exact demographic that is primed to consider your product or service. 

When You’re Looking For Leads  

PPC is also an excellent tool for finding a customer who is ready to make a purchase. While B2C companies can advertise to overly specific audiences, even B2B companies can determine exactly which persons to target with their PPC Ads. Ads that appeal to the wants of almost all buyers are much more likely to be clicked on. 

When You Launch A New Product Or Service

New products and websites cannot propel themselves quickly to the top of organic search results; SEO takes time to build content, search authority, and a measure of visibility. By contrast, PPC gets your adverts to the top of results lists instantly. 

Companies and e-commerce sites with fresh and different products that they need to make visible to the world quickly need PPC ads to do this.  

When SEO Efforts Must Be Supplemented

PPC advertisements can help existing websites promote solid organic SEO campaigns. Both types of search results work well together. PPC will provide quick results, while SEO builds organic online presence and authority over time. 

PPC guarantees that your website will still be visible even if organic results will change at any point. You will have a higher chance to dominate a portion of the total internet space by using both. 

Mistakes That Hinder ROI In Your PPC Campaigns

PPC campaigns can be pretty powerful unless you make the following mistakes: 

Assuming Scaled Results Require Higher Budgets

A common mistake in PPC campaigns is to think that scaling up spending automatically scales up the results – and the money is just being wasted on advertising. Before increasing your budget, ensure you perform a PPC audit and that all the waste is removed. 

Set your goals and ensure you have KPIs in place, for example, a higher CTR or a lower CPA. Ensure you have clear client personas, and that you are targeting the right audience. 

Selecting Inappropriate Keywords

Choosing the wrong keywords can also reduce the effectiveness of PPC. Using a broad or unrelated keyword strategy to waste money and clicks is an act of self-harm. 

Focus instead on highly competitive and industry-specific keywords – and use negative keywords to keep undesirable traffic at bay. In some highly competitive areas, for example, campaigns can outperform forecasts. 

Not Using An Omnichannel Marketing Approach

Relying on just one PPC channel would likely limit the potential outcomes of your campaigns. For this reason, adopting an omnichannel approach should help your customers navigate the whole sales funnel. 

For example, if you are using Google Ads to drive bottom-of-the-funnel conversions, you can also consider using Facebook Ads for brand exposure. This would help prospective buyers discover your brand and increase your product’s awareness.

Focusing On Low Lifetime Value Customers

Sometimes, converting clients with a low lifetime value may be cheaper than going after clients with high LTV. Look at your most loyal customers’ patterns of spending, word-of-mouth recommendations, and shopping habits to see just what kind of people they are. 

Disregarding SEO 

PPC holds hands with SEO, a long-term strategy. Staying persistent for SEO is the best tactic for building PPC search marketing. PPC gives you results instantly, whereas SEO takes time to establish your authority as a brand. 

Instead of just shutting off your SEO efforts, use the information you get from running PPC ads to improve your approach. Identify what makes those ads successful by looking at performing PPC campaigns. 

Inadequate Monitoring Of Performance Metrics

In order for PPC to work well, you need to track your performance closely. You can, of course, use simple Google Analytics metrics to track your performance, but try to have more targets in mind and use deep tracking for in-depth analysis of your work. 

Keeping track of the right details can help you understand which actions lead to which outcomes and where adjustments are needed. 

How To Decide If Pay-Per-Click Marketing Is Right For Your Business?

Before you start a PPC campaign, it’s useful to read up on different industries and the level of competition that exists within them. In some sectors, there simply is a lot more competition, and so the price you pay is likely to be higher. 

You can do some research with your competitors, too, to see if they are using PPC. If they are, then you might want to keep up with them or find yourself being outpaced by others who are following suit. 

PPC can be a huge benefit to you if you have a market with little or no competition, but beware, it might not be as cheap as you thought it would be.

Also, look at your current marketing plans. If you are already seeing success with your SEO, social media, or email marketing efforts, PPC advertising can help support those tactics. 

Make sure you make the most of your PPC traffic by optimizing landing pages so they turn your visitors into paying clients. An optimized website with quick load times, ease of mobile usage, and clear calls to action will improve ROI and increase the chances of PPC ads being effective.

Lastly, PPC requires constant monitoring and tweaking. Be prepared to check up on your campaigns often. Look at the data to determine what is and is not working and make adjustments to improve performance. 

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Is PPC better than SEO?

The relative merits of PPC and SEO vary depending on your company’s objectives. For a long-term, sustainable strategy to increase organic traffic, use SEO. If you require instant visibility and outcomes, go with PPC. In a thorough marketing plan, both can be beneficial to one another.

Is PPC worth the investment?

PPC is indeed worth the financial investment. It provides organizations with one of the finest returns on investment.  

Which is cheaper SEO or PPC?

In general, SEO is less expensive than PPC. When compared to PPC, SEO produces long-term website traffic and revenue at a cheaper cost. Your resources will determine which option is best for you, though.  

Is PPC marketing hard?

PPC marketing can indeed be difficult. Also, PPC management is challenging for even the most seasoned marketing teams because of its complexity and ongoing optimization requirements. Though many companies find PPC advertising difficult, they may be very successful when used with the appropriate approach and resources.

Bottom Line 

So, in the end, when you have the question in mind: Is PPC worth it? We have to admit that it is. But if you have SEO approaches, you shouldn’t completely diminish them. Instead, combine PPC and SEO to get the best ROI and fruitful results.