Regardless of how attractive and well-designed your website is, it may seem like […]
You have probably paid a lot of money to have someone build your website. Now you stand in awe, admiring what you think is a true piece of art. However, you're not getting the traffic you expect and deserve. After trying out various guerrilla tactics for attracting attention to the site, you are currently thinking about starting a ppc marketing campaign. In other words, you are here because you are searching for ppc marketing for ecommerce tips.
PPC stands for pay-per-click (advertising). The boiled down version means that you simply set up a digital ad campaign, and only pay when a click has been registered in the advertising system.
The most popular PPC platforms at the moment are, of course, Google’s AdWords, the Yahoo! Bing network, Facebook, and Advertising.com. They all have their unique features, so you should see which platform suits your needs best.
PPC marketing can be very expensive or cheap regarding return on investment - it depends on your knowledge and skills when it comes to creating a campaign according to your business needs, product or service attributes, and the target market.
Hence, what follows is advice that will show you what you need to do to win at PPC marketing.
Focusing your message by targeting the group of people with the highest conversion rate is absolutely crucial. To apply this, you should follow the Pareto principle, which states that 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. Or, translated in terms of conversion: 80% of your sales come from 20% of your clients.
Find those 20% - Do you have the best pasta money can buy? Target people that love pasta. Yes, pizza and burrito lovers are related and advertising to them might turn into website clicks, but your conversion rate will be lower. This will raise the costs of the campaign.
To achieve the desired results, you have to focus on good writing and using the right keywords. Ads are usually very limited in terms of space, so you’ll have to figure out how to convey your message using as few words as possible. To maximize the effect of your ad, make use of emotions. Emotional messaging can really get the attention of potential customers. Just avoid being too melodramatic or cheesy. Aim for strong, clear and succinct messages.
Choosing the right keywords is considered a science on its own. As mentioned above, you should aim at discovering niche keywords that will allow you to push your marketing campaign using keywords that are not that common, thus giving you a competitive edge. However, be careful. Some keywords are marked by search engines and ad services for quality restriction, meaning you’ll have to churn up more money (than usual) to use them.
You've spent $200 on an ad campaign. However, sales have only made you a profit of $50. What do you think? Of course, the results are weak, if not outright bad. The main point of starting a PPC campaign is to increase revenue and get benefits, right?
Therefore, to be efficient, you’ll have to calculate your cost-per-click (CPC) rate. This can be calculated by determining your conversion rate, total clicks and profit-per-conversion. Conversion rate shows how many of the people that clicked on your website through your ad campaign actually purchased something or did what you wanted them to do. It can be calculated.
One way to calculate your CPC rate is by using the following formula:
Cost-per-click = conversion rate x total clicks x profit-per-conversion
Let’s say 0.5% of your visitors actually make a purchase. When you average their purchases, it turns out they spend $10 each. Your campaign brings you 500 clicks per month. You pay 0.5$ for each click, which amounts to $250 in total (500 clicks x $0.5 = $250).
Let’s see the calculation now:
CPC = 0,5% x 500 x $10 = $25
So you earn only $25 through your campaign even though you've spent $250 dollars on it. It’s time to follow the advice in this article and modify or stop your campaign altogether if there is no point in running it.
Search engines optimize their search results according to your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts. The same applies to PPC platforms, especially the ones that are related to search engine giants (such as AdWords and Yahoo! Bing network).
In the end, it all boils down to improving the organic quality of your website. Good SEO includes various practices and tactics to enhance your website, especially in terms of responsiveness, organic and original content, absence of punishable SEO tricks, etc.
Your web designer should build the most intuitive and optimized website possible. If you happen to think that your website takes too long to load (something that could earn you negative points with PPC platforms), you might consider engaging a professional experienced in website optimization. You can also consider transferring your website to another, faster hosting server which will improve your rankings.
So far, you might have noticed that your PPC campaign doesn’t exactly have the best CPC rate possible. When you notice such situations, be ready to make changes and adjustments.
Some platforms let you change your keywords, main ad text, bidding amount and other options even if the campaign has already been started. Do this and sit back for a while, watching as your CPC rate starts changing. Nobody is an expert in PPC marketing right from the start. If you cannot do business with an experienced campaigner, trial and error, along with studying and analysis, are the only tools that will help you achieve your goal.
One more thing to note here: use your best selling points and emphasize them. Avoid showing your shortcomings and make an effort to eliminate them altogether.
You know you have one of the best products or services on the market, but other advertisers get shown more often in ads? Try your best to outbid them. If you really do have an exceptional product or service in your domain of work, it is only a matter of putting it right before the eyes of potential customers, and you can watch as the number of satisfied clients and referrals grows.
Therefore, if you see that the competitors outbid you, try outbidding them by increasing the money spent per click at first. Take some time to see if anything changes. Use different platforms, change the periods and days when your ads are shown, and target different devices, such as tablets, smartphones and desktops.
Be persistent and never forget that success may be just around the corner.
