To spend wisely on Google Ads and increase conversions, focus your budget on the best-performing keywords, use appropriate match types, set up accurate conversion tracking, and optimize landing pages. Experiment with A/B testing ads, leverage smart campaigns, and regularly monitor metrics to maximize ROI.
The leading strategies to establish yourself in the online market are SEO and SEM, and specifically talking about Google, PPC (Pay per Click) campaigns.
Google remains the most used search engine in the world in 2024, and it’s one of the most important showcases to make your company, product, or service known.
Don’t believe, however, that it’s enough to invest money or increase the budget to be successful. Specific skills, extensive experience, and a solid strategy are needed.
Our daily goal at Qreativa is to spend by maximizing every cent of the advertising budget to transform it into conversions. And surely that’s what you want as an advertiser too, because the concept that money isn’t peanuts is always valid, right?
Read our guide where you’ll find the definition of PPC and practical advice on how to optimize spending in Google Ads and maximize conversions, transforming PPC from an advertising expense to a strategic investment for your digital success.
What is PPC Pay per Click and Why It’s Important in Digital Marketing
With PPC (Pay Per Click), the advertiser only pays when a user clicks on their ad. This type of advertising is typical of platforms like Google Ads and Facebook Ads and has the advantage of guaranteeing immediate visibility.
Let’s say you need to promote an inauguration, an upcoming event, and you can’t wait to improve your organic positioning on the web with Search Engine Optimization (SEO). That’s where PPC comes in!
Using the right tools, you can also check in real-time “the progress of the” ad and adjust if necessary to optimize ROI.
And don’t worry because you also have the possibility to set a daily spending limit for campaigns, so you won’t pay more than you want. Additionally, you can pause or modify campaigns at any time, thanks to the flexibility that is one of the main features of the PPC mode.
By making the most of PPC campaigns on Google, you can achieve various goals, such as acquiring leads, selling, or improving brand awareness.
The possibilities for your business are truly many, and above all, you can invest sustainable amounts, without having to scrape the barrel!
How PPC Campaigns Work on Google Ads
Ads created by advertisers appear in Google search results and on its network of partner sites, through an auction system that evaluates the relevance of the “ad to the user’s search query”.
Thanks to PPC campaigns on Google Ads, your ad can reach your target audience at the right time, with a high degree of control over costs and performance.
However, creating the ad won’t be enough; you’ll need to continuously optimize it and adapt it by evaluating results in real-time and what you can do to improve performance.
What Types of Campaigns Are Available on Google
You can choose from different types of campaigns, based on your business objectives and the audience you’re targeting:
Search Network Campaigns
Your ads appear in Google search results when users search for terms that match your keywords.
If you want to increase the sale of products or services, these campaigns are excellent because they are designed to reach users who already have a “purchase intention”, as ads are shown based on their search queries.
Display Campaigns
These are campaigns with photos/videos that are shown on a vast network of websites partnered with Google. Ideal if you’re looking to increase brand awareness on search engines for a keyword or a specific topic.
Video Campaigns
Ads are shown on YouTube and other websites before or during video content. The video format is definitely one of the most effective in 2024 and always has great appeal to users.
App Campaigns
You can promote your App on various Google channels, including Search, Play Store, YouTube, and the Display Network.
Shopping Campaigns
Thanks to shopping campaigns, you can display detailed product cards with images, prices, and descriptions on Google and Google Shopping.
Demand Gen Campaigns
They create awareness and interest in a company’s products or services and are excellent for acquiring leads that can meanwhile turn into customers. If you want to expand your customer base and increase sales, you just have to test them!
Hotel Campaigns
These campaigns allow hotels to bid to appear in privileged positions when a traveler searches for accommodation through Google Search or Google Maps.
Google guides explain that hotel campaigns are managed in a Hotel Center account linked to your Google Ads account to publish hotel campaigns and manage budget, campaigns, ad groups, hotel groups, bids, and reports.
Performance Max Campaigns
Performance Max is one of the new entries in Big G’s house and allows access to all of Google’s advertising spaces from a “single campaign, using Google’s” machine learning to optimize performance based on the goals you indicate.
Call Campaigns
They are designed for ads that appear on mobile devices. This type of advertising campaign is optimized to encourage potential customers to call the “company directly through a call button integrated into the” ad itself.
Excellent for hotels, restaurants, emergency services, or consultations, this type of advertising strategy works well when integrated with other digital marketing campaigns.
Cost per Click: How It Affects Your Campaigns and Its Impact on PPC
CPC is the metric that indicates how much you pay each time a user clicks on your ad. It obviously affects the overall cost of your advertising campaign and its effectiveness in terms of Return on Investment (ROI).
If the CPC is high, it means you pay more for each click and therefore can get fewer with the allocated budget. Conversely, a low CPC allows you to get more clicks and potentially more conversions with the same spend.
Optimizing CPC is equivalent to controlling expenses and improving the overall performance of your online advertising campaigns. Don’t take it lightly!
Strategies to Optimize CPC in Your PPC Campaigns
We propose some effective strategies to optimize CPC and have a better return in terms of ROI while containing costs:
Keep an Eye on Google Ads Quality Score
The quality score indicates the relevance and quality of your ads, keywords, and landing pages.
A high quality score is essential to reduce CPC because Google rewards relevant content that meets users’ needs.
Before publishing, pay close attention to the keywords you use and optimize landing pages. Don’t put mediocre or useless and misleading content on the web; Google misses nothing and will certainly not reward you.
Stay Away from Non-Performing Keywords
It’s pointless to waste time on keywords that generate many clicks but few conversions. If you stay away from them, you’ll be able to reduce CPC and engage your budget on keywords that actually contribute to your conversion goals.
Aim to increase the CTR (Click-Through Rate)
A high CTR indicates that your ad is relevant and pertinent to users. Conduct A/B tests on your ad creatives, from images to copy to CTA, and evaluate which ones perform better.
A good CTR will lower the Cost per Click and help maximize the return on investment!
Pay attention to desktop and mobile performance
Keep an eye on your Google Ads campaigns and adjust bids based on device type to reduce CPC. If you realize that mobile conversions are more expensive or less effective, reduce bids for mobile devices compared to desktop.
Modulate your bid by testing best times and days
Schedule ads by evaluating the time and days of the week when they perform better, thus optimizing CPC and saving money when engagement is low.
Rely on Google’s automated bidding and Smart Bidding
Who better than Google knows what the best bids are and when to make them? Let it and its machine learning do the work and see if and how bids improve in real-time.
Smart Bidding uses Google’s AI to make the best bids. Target CPA, Target ROAS, Maximize Conversions and Maximize Conversion Value are the Smart Bidding strategies at your disposal to increase online visibility, sales, and profits!
How CPC integrates into the overall Google Ads strategy
Cost per Click is a fundamental element of your Google Ads strategy and not just a metric to measure costs.
It’s used to manage the budget efficiently and reserve it for the best-performing keywords and ads:
- when you have control over CPC, you can invest in ads that generate conversions and less in those that are ineffective. This is particularly important in competitive markets where ad costs are high.
- You can decide to set higher CPCs for specific audience targets that have shown higher conversion or engagement rates, or adjust your bids for different devices or geographic locations.
- Constantly analyze CPC data and determine which campaign elements work best and which need adjustments. To achieve online marketing goals, it’s necessary to be flexible and dynamic, never static!
Key steps to create an effective PPC campaign on Google
You’ve learned the main concepts about PPC and CPC, but now comes the exciting part. Let’s look at the fundamental steps to put into practice:
Immediately choose the objectives of your Google Ads campaign
First of all, establish whether your campaign should increase sales, acquire leads, improve brand visibility, or increase traffic to the website.
Having well-defined objectives allows you to measure the effectiveness of your campaign and not fumble in the dark.
Research useful keywords for your industry
Do a thorough keyword research and select which keywords are relevant to your industry and the products or services you offer. Use tools like Google Keyword Planner and also carefully analyze long-tail keywords.
Organize your account structure in the best way
Divide campaigns and ad groups, paying close attention to how you name them and how you organize them based on the product or service you offer.
A good account structure won’t let you drown in total chaos and will have huge benefits on ad relevance too! The keyword here is = logical and clear structure!
Create relevant and impactful ads
Write persuasive ads incorporating the selected keywords and highlight the benefits and your unique selling proposition. Test different messages and formats to see what works best with your audience.
Make your Landing Pages a masterpiece
The landing pages for users who have clicked on the ad must be relevant and contain a clear and effective call-to-action (CTA).
Your landing pages must address user needs and facilitate their stay on your site with fast loading times and responsive design.
Decide your bidding strategies for keywords
If you have some experience with Google Ads, you can choose manual bidding, although trusting automatic bidding, which lets Big G optimize to reach your conversion goal, is advice we give you with our hand on our heart. Who better than Google can optimize in their own house?
Always monitor and optimize
Analyze KPIs such as CTR, CPC, conversions, and cost per conversion. Don’t let it run expecting a miracle! If you notice weaknesses and aspects to improve, act immediately!
Eliminate underperforming keywords, adjust bids, test new ads, and improve landing pages. If you are not or don’t want to be dynamic, forget about online advertising and entrust it to industry experts like us at Qreativa. You’ll save time and money and see tangible results.
Leverage the magical world of Google Ads and its advanced features
Google Ads offers advanced features, such as location targeting, ad scheduling, dynamic ads, and ad extensions, which significantly improve the visibility and effectiveness of ads.
A very important thing we advise you to do is to follow Google Ads guidelines to avoid penalties!
Advanced techniques to increase conversions through Google Ads
Standing out with your ads on Google requires refined technique and a certain skill in the industry. The most effective practices you can use to improve your campaign performance are:
- Purchase intent targeting to be used to reach users who have already expressed concrete interest in products or services similar to yours.
- Mobile-optimized landing pages that load quickly and offer an agile and pleasant user experience.
- Use Dynamic Search Ads (DSA), particularly useful for websites with a vast product inventory. These ads use your website content to target your campaigns towards relevant searches, allowing you to cover more search queries without having to enter them manually.
- Remarketing helps you increase conversions by targeting your ads to users who have already visited your site but haven’t completed any action.
- Conduct A/B tests on different elements of your campaigns, such as texts, images, and landing pages.
- Use extensions such as location, callout, structured snippets, and others to provide more useful information that can convince users to click on your ad.
- Finally, evaluate smart bidding strategies, such as target CPA, target ROAS, and optimization for clicks or conversion, which use Google’s “machine learning and AI” to optimize bids in real-time.
Thanks to these advanced techniques, you’ll manage your budget better and make your Google campaigns effective!
How a PPC consultant can transform your Google Ads campaigns
A consultant, or an agency, specialized in Google Ads is able to establish a solid strategy and maximize results. In practice, they manage the budget without waste and achieve established business objectives without bloodbaths and financial losses.
An Ads consultant is a strategist but also a skilled operative who knows where and how to put their hands. They can also provide training to help the internal team better understand and manage PPC campaigns in the future.
Without beating around the bush, everything we do at Qreativa!
The synergy between PPC Marketing, SEO, and Social Media Marketing
Here we are facing three pillars of web marketing. When skillfully integrated into a personalized strategy, PPC marketing (Pay Per Click), SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and Social Media Marketing can skyrocket your business in terms of visibility:
- PPC generates immediate and targeted traffic to the website or a specific page, while SEO works meticulously to increase organic traffic in the long term through content optimization and site structure.
- Meanwhile, with Social Media Marketing you increase engagement and brand awareness, as well as receive very important real-time feedback and information.
Let’s take a practical example:
The keywords that perform well in a PPC campaign can be incorporated into the SEO strategy to improve organic ranking. Similarly, SEO performance analysis can suggest improvements and optimizations for PPC campaigns.
Furthermore, you can use social media advertising campaigns to test the effectiveness of different messages or offers, which you can then optimize for PPC campaigns or to improve website content from an SEO perspective.
But that’s not all, and we’ll leave you with another gem
With PPC retargeting, you can reach users who have interacted with site content from social media or organic search results, but who haven’t taken a significant action.
This allows you to re-engage an audience already close to the brand, increasing the chances of conversion.
See how valuable the synergy between these three top players is? With certain skill and experience, you’ll be able to create a virtuous link between organic traffic, paid traffic, and engagement, which will make your online presence increasingly solid and fruitful.
PPC for specific sectors: from hospitality to retail
Contextualizing helps to better understand the theory. So let’s see how the Pay per Click strategy is useful in specific sectors such as hospitality and retail, for example:
- in the hotel industry, PPC is useful for attracting bookings and increasing the visibility of special offers and vacation packages. Think about the importance of keywords like
hotels in Milan
orhotel deals in New York
.
- In the retail sector, thanks to Pay per Click, you can promote or launch products and boost sales during holidays or Black Friday, for example. In retail, Google Shopping ads are widely used, showing the product image, price, and a brief description. This type of ad is particularly effective in attracting consumers who are already thinking about making a purchase.
Remember, in every sector, you must first define the target audience! Only then will you optimize the campaign budget and improve ROI.
Guide to PPC optimization and management tools
- Google Ads Editor is Google’s free resource that allows you to manage Ads campaigns with advanced features.
- SEMrush is a powerful SEO tool, but it also provides specific features for PPC keyword research and competitor analysis.
- SpyFu is useful for analyzing competitors’ PPC strategies, keywords, ads, and budget spent by competitors.
- Ahrefs, the well-known SEO tool, also provides useful data for PPC analysis, such as keyword search volume and cost per click.
Make sure your toolbox is full of useful tools to best manage your PPC campaigns and achieve your business goals!
Improve your knowledge of Google Pay per Click: invest your advertising budget wisely and maximize ROI
PPC in digital marketing is a very powerful weapon, but only if you know how to manage campaigns effectively and have a considerable amount of information and practice.
Start with Qreativa’s free and online Google Ads Basic Course 2024. You’ll learn all the fundamental aspects of PPC on Google, from campaign creation and management to data analysis for performance optimization.
Conclusions
To effectively use Pay Per Click (PPC) on Google Ads, optimize your advertising budget and maximize conversions. Choose keywords relevant to your audience and apply advanced strategies to increase conversions.
To further develop these skills, or if you need practical support, Qreativa offers you a free consultation with our team of certified and award-winning experts.
Contact us now! In the meantime, you can start improving your skills and familiarize yourself with the subject through our Google Ads Basic Course 2024!
