Introduction
PPC advertising can be incredibly valuable if you know how to use it effectively. As a former B2B Growth Marketer and current entrepreneur, I’ve learned plenty of lessons about how to successfully use paid advertising to grow our business and convert visitors into customers.
Online advertising is an extremely powerful tool that businesses can use to target specific audiences and grow their business. However, it’s important to note that PPC (pay-per-click) advertising can be quite tricky, especially when used in a B2B (business-to-business) setting where companies are selling products and services directly to other businesses instead of consumers.
In this article, I’ll be sharing some of my favorite PPC strategies that will help you succeed with AdWords and other advertising platforms like Facebook Ads and LinkedIn Ads. If you’re just starting out with your paid advertising campaigns, here are 10 PPC advertising lessons from a B2B growth marketer that will help you grow your business.
What is PPC Advertising?
PPC advertising is a form of online advertising in which businesses pay to have their ads displayed on websites. The goal of PPC advertising is to drive traffic to your website and generate leads or sales. In order to be successful with PPC advertising, you need to have a clear understanding of how it works and what goes into creating a successful campaign.
Importance of PPC Advertising
In today’s business world, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is an essential part of any marketing strategy. It allows you to reach a wider audience with your message and can be customized to target specific demographics. Additionally, PPC advertising is an effective way to track your marketing efforts and measure your ROI.
Here are 10 lessons from a B2B growth marketer that will help you grow your business with PPC advertising:
10 Lessons of PPC Advertising
1) Showcase your brand’s personality
Brand personality is one of the most important aspects of any business, and it should be reflected in everything from your website to your social media presence. Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is no exception. In fact, your brand’s personality should be front and center in your PPC ads.
Here are important tips from a B2B growth marketer that will help you create PPC ads that reflect your brand’s personality and help you grow your business.
Be clear about what you’re selling Marketing often boils down to a struggle between fear and desire. Fear focuses on why we shouldn’t buy something, while desire focuses on why we should buy something. With pay-per-click advertising, it’s essential that we target our desired audience with compelling copy so they’ll click through to our landing page where they can learn more about what we have to offer them–especially if we want them to fill out an inquiry form or request a demo.
An example of a successful use of emotion comes from MeetEdgar, who used phrases like Escape the chaos and Get back control in their PPC ads. If you know exactly what your product does for customers and how it will make their lives better, there’s no reason not to tell people how great it is!
2) Delight your users with relevant content
Content is key when it comes to PPC advertising. You need to create ads that are relevant to your target audience and offer them something of value. If you can do this, you’ll be well on your way to success. Don’t forget about location: Take into account the location where your business operates.
A service-based company may want to advertise in their own city or state while other businesses might want to focus on national exposure. Consider how much time people spend online: The average person spends around 5 hours online per day – which means there’s plenty of time for marketing! Test different ad formats: Test out different types of advertisements such as video or display ads.
3) Make sure you have an exit intent pop-up
One of the most important things you can do when running a PPC campaign is to make sure you have an exit intent pop-up. This will ensure that you capture leads who are interested in your product or service but may not be ready to buy just yet.
Next, add call extensions: Call extensions are designed to convert more visitors into phone calls and they work really well.
Third, test different ad formats: The Google Display Network has six different ad formats, so it’s worth testing them all and seeing which one converts best for you.
Fourth, think about video ads: Video ads are fantastic for increasing brand awareness, but don’t forget about adding a strong call-to-action button at the end of each video!
4) Optimize for quick conversions
Quick conversions are the key to success in any PPC campaign, but especially in a B2B context. Here are some lessons from a growth marketer that will help you optimize your campaigns for quick conversions and maximum ROI.
-Follow up with every customer: Always make sure to follow up with each customer who made a purchase or converted on an offer, even if it was only for one dollar. You never know when they might have more needs or interest in your product/service and you don’t want them to forget about you!
-Offer customers coupons: Customers love discounts! Offer coupons and promotions on products or services to incentivize potential customers to try out your brand. Offer coupon codes via social media posts, newsletters, email blasts, etc., as well as through paid ads. Coupons are also great for driving sales during non-peak times of the year like after the holidays when people tend to return their gifts.
-Pay attention to ad copy: Paying attention to ad copy is crucial because you need people clicking through in order for your ads to work at all. Research what type of ad copy other companies in your industry are using to attract new customers and test different approaches until you find what works best for your company.
5) Create campaigns with clear objectives
Every campaign you create should have a clear objective. What are you trying to achieve? Without a clear objective, it will be difficult to measure the success of your campaign. Try using tools like Google Analytics to track metrics such as clicks and conversions.
Keep an eye on your budget: It’s important to stay within budget so that you don’t spend too much on ads without knowing whether or not they’re actually working for you. If you do find yourself overspending, pause your campaigns until you’re ready to spend more money.
Adjust bids according to conversion rates: Remember when we talked about how setting up conversion tracking is essential in making sure our campaigns are successful? As mentioned before, if a particular keyword has a low conversion rate then the bid can be adjusted accordingly. Test different keywords & ad text combinations: One way to grow traffic is by testing different combinations of keywords and ad text in order to see what works best for you and your company.
6) Make sure you test different ad copy variations
Ad copy is one of the most important aspects of a successful PPC campaign. You need to test different ad copy variations to find what works best for your business. For example, you may find that you have better conversion rates with expert than specialist. Don’t be afraid to experiment and figure out what generates conversions for your particular product or service.
Do not neglect mobile advertising. In some industries like retailing, smartphone users are quickly becoming just as valuable as those on desktop computers because they’re in their shopping moods when they browse. The same goes for anyone researching purchases such as home remodeling. Marketers who don’t include mobile in their campaigns are missing an opportunity to capture consumers at an early stage where it’s easier to influence them with ads.
7) Use ad extensions as appropriate
Ad extensions are one of the most important aspects of a successful PPC campaign. They allow you to show more information about your product or service, and can help improve your click-through rate and quality score.
Some essential tips from a B2B growth marketer may help you make the most of ad extensions.
-Provide an image:
people like to see what they’re getting into before they click on it.
Link to landing pages with relevant content:
Instead of linking straight back to your homepage, link back to a page on your site with useful content for that type of person who clicked on the ad.
-Optimize your call-to-action button text: Make sure that your call-to-action button is short and clear to ensure that people know exactly what they’ll get if they click on it.
-Use the Use my location option when appropriate:
When someone clicks on a map, PPC ads use their location to determine which ads to show them.
8) Leverage dynamic keyword insertion
Dynamic keyword insertion is a feature that allows you to insert keywords into your ad copy, and it can be a powerful tool for increasing your click-through rate. If you’re not using dynamic keyword insertion, you’re missing out on an opportunity to improve your ad performance.
-Know what the best time of day to post is: Typically, 9am EST gets the most clicks in most industries. But it’s worth testing different times of day to see if there are differences in click-through rates at other times. It’s also important to note that the amount of competition for any given keyword will affect the level of success you’ll have with any given time period or geographic location.
For example, keywords such as investment services may get more than 3 million impressions per month and may only receive 1 click per day. So you might want to adjust accordingly when experimenting with different time periods.
9) Experiment with negative keywords
Negative keywords are words or phrases that you add to your campaign so that your ad doesn’t show up when people search for those terms. This can be helpful if you’re selling a product that has a lot of different uses, or if you’re targeting a specific audience.
For example, say you sell makeup kits that work well for both men and women. You could create two campaigns – one targeting men and the other targeting women – and then exclude men from the campaign targeting women so that they don’t see ads with male models wearing makeup.
Negative keywords also make it easier to keep track of which keywords your ads are showing up for. Google Analytics will let you know which keyword phrases triggered an impression or click in your account.
10) Keep it simple, stupid!
In the world of online advertising, it’s easy to get caught up in all the bells and whistles that platforms like Google AdWords offer. But at the end of the day, your ads need to be simple and effective if you want them to perform well.You are required to keep following things in mind while keeping ad simple:
-Do not use too many words
– Keep your keyword list concise
– Don’t start bidding too high or competing for too many keywords
– Use ad extensions to increase clickthroughs on mobile devices
– Create different campaigns with different goals (lead generation vs. lead conversion) and bids (low
vs. high)
– Experiment with headline text variations
– Add negative keywords to prevent your ads from showing up on irrelevant searches
Wrapping Up
As you can see, there are a lot of things to consider when running a PPC campaign. But by following these 10 lessons from a B2B growth marketer, you can set your business up for success. Just remember to always be testing and optimizing your campaigns so that you can continue to grow your business at a rapid pace. And if you want help with this or any other part of the marketing mix, please feel free to reach out! We’re here to help.
Image Credits: https://www.istockphoto.com/
