Adwords Agency

Pay Per Click Advertising: The Good, The Bad and the Downright Ugly

Unlike traditional SEO, the good thing about Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising is literally anyone can set up a Google Ads (formerly Adwords) or Bing Ads account and have a campaign up and running within 20 minutes. The bad thing about running PPC ads, is anyone can set up an account and have a campaign up and running within 20 minutes. The downright awful thing about PPC ads is anyone can set up an account and have a campaign up and running within 20 minutes. Having the possibility to set up ads without experience is bad for the advertiser, as they will almost certainly lose money. It is also bad news for other advertisers, as the sheer number of merchants advertising has led to a high cost per click and lower CTR (click-through rates), which ultimately means fewer conversions.

The Advent of Adwords

Google launched Adwords on October 23rd, 2000. Adwords was a fabulous new concept, an online self-service advertising platform. The system soon developed into a multi-billion-dollar business and the most used advertising platform in the world. Initially, Google Ads only showed in a column on the right-hand side of the page when a user typed in a search phrase.

Google results page from 2005

Advertisers would promote on a self-serve basis, needing to enter how much they were prepared to pay for a thousand impressions. An impression counts for each time an ad is shown. The advertiser who was bidding the highest would show at the top of the list. At this point, there were very few regulations; marketers took advantage of the new platform and advertised affiliate links, low-quality sites, and spammy pages as there was no such thing as a quality score.

In a year, Adwords had made the company $70 million, despite being financially behind Overture PPC ads (later taken over by Yahoo).

In 2002 Google introduced Adwords Select, and began giving more importance to pages that were most relevant to the search term. The company also launched cost-per-click (CPC) pricing, a dynamic pricing system where advertisers were only charged when a user clicked on an ad. An ad's position depended on relevancy and the price the advertiser was able to pay. This led to users being more trusting to businesses with higher-up ads.

Later in 2002, Google bosses entered an agreement with AOL, a big player among online companies at that time. The deal gave advertisers the option to show advertisements on Google partner sites, increasing the ads' reach. This later became the AdSense platform, where webmasters could show Google Ads on their sites and earn a commission every time a visitor clicked on an ad.

With the system's growth, Google added conversion tracking, so advertisers could see which keywords, adverts, and campaigns led to a sale or lead acquisition. Google also launched the keyword tool, so companies could analyse the competition and cost of keywords.

Fast-forward to today, and it has never been so expensive or competitive to advertise on Google Ads. However, Google continues to improve the platform for advertisers and users, with more adjustable settings, more reliable tracking, and Quality Score and spam control.

The Correct Google Ads Procedure

Polishing and improving a PPC campaign is a process. Unlike the good old Adwords Wild West days, when early adopters could choose a bunch of keywords, set a low maximum bid, and sit back watching the profits roll in, advertising with PPC is now a cut-throat business that needs careful monitoring. Fail to do this properly, and you could end up losing the shirt off your back.

Fail to understand PPC advertising correctly, and you could lose the shirt off your back

There are four main components of a winning PPC campaign: researching, evaluating, extending, and improving. When done correctly, you can almost guarantee a decent return on your investment in a PPC advertising program.

Research 
The research stage requires gathering and assessing data, including past PPC campaign data, Web analytics data, and competitor's campaigns. Determining the number of suitable keywords and beating your competition for the highest spots depends on the quality and volume of information acquired in the research phase. Once you have completed the research stage, it is time to produce a PPC test campaign to run for at least two weeks.

Evaluation
The evaluation step consists of monitoring the performance of your test campaign. You need to evaluate your keywords, the text in the ads, and the pages your visitor lands on. The aim is to discover which keywords, ad copy, landing pages, and bid amounts have the most promising potential. The results of your evaluation will become the framework for your future campaigns.

Extend
The extending stage involves leveraging the evaluation phase's insights and increasing the number of keywords to produce enough sales or leads without reducing conversion rates. In your test campaign, you might use 20 keywords, but after separating those that are profitable from the losers, you might be able to come up with several hundred profitable phrases in your extended campaigns.

Improve
The improvement period requires continuous tuning and tweaking of keywords, ad copy, landing page details, and bidding tactics. A/B or multivariant testing is vital. You can test just about every element of a PPC strategy, but not all at the same time. A practical way to optimise PPC advertising is an organised systematic evaluation of each part, one at a time. Once you've completed A/B testing of ad copy (first the heading, then the body), you can move onto each element of the landing page. Testing involves a lot of work and, optimally, software assistance, but is worth the effort for the increased conversion rates. Producing a highly successful PPC campaign is a process that never ends due to changes in ad platforms, industry developments, trends, and your competitor's activity. Because of the inconstancy in business sectors, it is usually necessary sooner or later to return to the initial research phase and test new keyphrases, copy, and landing page elements.

Does all that sound too complicated?
If you think setting up a PPC campaign correctly seems confusing, you are not alone, and it's why as a Google Ads agency, we are in business. Learning how to execute this form of advertising successfully is not something learned overnight. If you don't have the time or inclination to understand the process yourself, a qualified Adword agency is the solution.

We are a Google Ads Agency with Official Google Ads Certification
To begin a new client's strategy in Google Ads, we first establish the goals you want to reach. These goals must be measurable and attainable. Once the new campaign's aim is defined, we decide which channel is optimal for your ads. We have the choice of Search, Shopping, Display, and YouTube. We will set up and launch a test campaign for your business. Once it is running, we carefully monitor the results. When we have enough data, we introduce new phrases, copy, and landing page elements to expand and improve our tactics. A PPC campaign run by a certified Adwords agency will deliver maximum fulfilment of your campaigns. Even with the Google Ads agency fee, you are way likelier to see a healthy profit than going it alone.

Professional Tools

To evaluate each channel and campaign's effectiveness, we rely on Google tools, including the keyword planner and Analytics. We also have access to an entire arsenal of paid external tools and platforms to provide us with data we otherwise would not have and explore brand-new fresh opportunities as they emerge.

Better PPC Performance Is Waiting For You - Are You In?

To find out how Mac McCarthy, a qualified Google Ads certified PPC professional, can make your pay-per-click campaigns highly successful, get in touch today.