In the world of digital marketing, there are two conventional methods for driving new business to your company and website. Each has tradeoffs, but both are similar in their end result of working to increase a company’s lead volume and more revenue.

  1. SEO:
    • Methodical
    • Focused on long-term acquisition of market share in the digital marketplace
    • Results seen over long period of time, not immediately
    • Cost-conscious and affordable for most businesses at various levels
  2. PPC:
    • Aggressive
    • Short-term gain of clicks, impressions and leads
    • Results can be sustained, but realized very quickly
    • Expensive and sometimes cost prohibitive based on industry

SEO is incredibly important to every company’s long-term success, and there are great ways in which SEO and PPC can work together to create even stronger results. But, this article is a focus on the proper strategies for building up PPC campaigns, how to structure them and when to use them most effectively.

Types of PPC Channels

While PPC might sound like one specific strategy, there’s a lot more that goes into the process of even picking which is the proper channel to engage in with paid ads. Even then, various channels and platforms offer different ways of delivering your ad to users across the web.

The most popular channels that see significant PPC spending is the paid search and paid social media space. While we will address the positives as well as shortcomings of each further in this article, there are many options to consider. From Google to Microsoft or LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter) and more, there are plenty of channels that could help promote your brand and drive more business.

What Kinds of PPC Campaigns go on Which Channels?

Each platform or channel offers many types of advertising. There are a few basics that dominate most of the ad spend with small, medium and large businesses and are the most popular across business scale and industry.

1. Paid Search Ads

These are most common on search engines, think Google Ads or Microsoft Advertising. Paid Search Ads essentially overpower the traditional search results on a Google search result page (SERP) and push your ads that look just like normal, organic search results. Advertisers pay by the click of each of these, but automatically have a “bid” of how much they are willing to pay for a click for the ad to appear. Higher budgets usually lead to more appearances of the ads, leading to more clicks and more conversions. High competition can drive prices up, but finding the right keywords can make this type of advertising very fruitful for any business. It’s no wonder why this is by far the most common form of digital advertising today.

2. Social Media Sponsored Ads

These ads showcase your business in various ways on social media feeds. These are often made to look like a normal post from a friend or business, but only it’s sponsored and with the proper demographic targeting data, can get a product or service in front of the right eyes. This type of advertising is functional for very specific types of businesses, like e-commerce or companies with content/services that have particular virality. Most businesses, even if they think they might, don’t have this very rare asset, and find social media advertising most beneficial for Remarketing.

3. Shopping Ads

Shopping ads are specifically for e-commerce businesses that offer products for sale directly online from their website. With the proper setup, these ads can help drive users to your products without knowing what your business is, but knows they need a product you sell. These ads can help drive new, untapped business without the user even needing to get to your website to purchase.

4. Display Ads

This form of advertising is much more visual and requires more setup work than Paid Search Ads, for example. Display ads often involve some well-produced video content or image assets that help portray your business through visual media, like YouTube or other video streaming. A lot like Discovery Ads on social media platforms, you’re giving your business an identity and a chance to explain what you are trying to sell, with the intention of a user being captivated in the short time they have to convert.

5. Email Display Ads

Not to be confused with Email Marketing with list building and expansive campaigns, Email Display Advertising is somewhat of a hybrid between various forms already mentioned. It combines the emphasis on text content like Paid Search Ads, but shows up in a more passive sense like Social Media Ads. These ads appear in users inboxes, like Gmail inboxes, with a small “ad” tag to differentiate between real, spam and advertising mail. Google charges by the click to open the message. This form of advertising can be used best with specific demographic and audience attributes tailored to who might be the most interested in your product or service.

6. Local Services Ads

One of the newest forms of advertising on Google, these ads put Paid Search Ads to shame with their heightened importance and prevalence on a SERP. These ads appear in the same place as normal Paid Search Ads, but often bump those traditional ads down and showcase at the very top of the page. These ads are available for specific industries that are common enough for search results to generate a Local Services (or often seen as Google Guaranteed) section. This section provides a green checkmark, large info about a business, even an image of the logo or primary contact at the business.

This type of ad requires much more vetting on the backend from Google with verification and identification, but the benefit is that Google gives your ads prime real-estate on the SERP to gather leads. Budgeting is separate from traditional Google Ads, but can be set at any limit, and you are charged per phone call to your business through the ads. In the backend, there are options to see call duration, topic, and at times even a transcript of the initial call to your business.

7. Discovery Ads

This type of advertising is in the same type of virality-necessary type of ad. Showcased in various social media platforms explore pages, this type of ad capitalizes on trending activity and the potential for a completely uninterested person finding your products or services and becoming interested within a timeframe to convert with your business.

What Are Some Downsides to These Types Of PPC Ads?

There are a number of downsides, inefficiencies and items to consider about each type of advertising to make sure it would make the best sense for your business to be spending its hard-earned money. It only makes sense to run ads if it makes a difference for your business and helps improve your bottom line, increasing leads and traffic.

The biggest thing to consider about your business is its recognizability in the marketplace. Are you an established brand with a good reputation in your community beyond just your clients? If so, you have the blessing of being able to be more adventurous in your ads. With brand viability, you can engage in email and display advertising, as well as social media advertising. Those can be difficult for companies to use when starting out as a new business or one with little name recognition, meaning the place to start is almost always Paid Search Ads.

While display ads use the continued emergence of video across the web, the best chance to convert is with clips of well-produced video. A lot of businesses either 1) don’t have video ready to use or 2) don’t have the content or capacity to create such videos. It can be a losing effort to push hard for the video content when it has a more difficult chance of converting users to new leads.

The Social Media Ads Asterisk*

Social media ads are controversial. Many businesses think of this type of advertising first, but without certain brand recognition, conversion rates are untenable. Given the passive nature of social media, getting someone to click on your ad who wasn’t particularly looking for what your business can provide is a monumental task, and one that has proven time and time again that it doesn’t work for a majority of businesses.

One aspect where it can provide some value on the offensive, is more awareness with a Retargeting campaign through social media ads.

Retargeting campaigns take a tracking pixel associated with users who already visited your site at some point, and finds ways to show them ads for your business, keeping your company at top of mind for someone who has interest in your services or products and is more likely to convert. Your digital marketing partner will be able to set these ads up in short order and bring some value to social media ads.

PPC Ads In A Nutshell

It’s a major commitment for any business to make the leap and start running digital advertisements. It’s important business leaders have the right information, strategies and team in place to implement any ads that are aiming to drive more leads and revenue.

Paid Search Ads are a great place to start, and these can be easily set up with little background information and the help of a digital marketing. When venturing into the more advanced forms of advertising, it’s important to realistically understand where your business is in the marketplace from a reputation, awareness and competitive standpoint.

If you’re ready to jump in to PPC advertising, contact our expert team at DigitalParc to help you get started right away.