PPC (Pay Per Click) What Are My Options?

When it comes to advertising online you have many options at your disposal. It can easily be confusing where to start or what options are more suited to your business and end goal, be it sale transaction or a form completion and submission.

One of the main options for marketing your business online is PPC or pay per click as it’s known, sometimes called sponsored listings. This is the process where you pay for each click a website sends to your business website. There are many PPC platforms so we thought we would  go through some of the main ones to give you an idea of what’s available.

Google Adwords:

It’s no surprise that the search engine Google has the biggest and most popular platform for pay per click.  The reach alone makes it far and away the stand out targeted PPC platform.  The good thing about Google Adwords is you can be highly targeted, down to post code, keyword typed in and age, gender, device and even income. This means you have total control over everything including your budget. You can only choose to bid on keywords you want to so you get to engage your potential customer at the point they are looking to perform an action, be it purchase online or complete a form for a quote. You can have standard text adverts or image adverts for display networks. The cost per click depends on your industry and how competitive it is.

Bing Microsoft Ads:

Many people who use Google Adwords also use Bing Microsoft Ads too. Reason being is they have a fantastic import feature that lets you import your Google Adwords campaigns quickly and easily. They usually also offer a free voucher  so you can get clicks too  at no cost  so you can trial the Bing platform too. The downside is the traffic is a lot less then Google as you would expect. So don’t expect hundreds of clicks a day though this does depend on the industry as products like insurance and finance do get thousands of searches a day still.  Cost per click is based on competition and industry.

Facebook:

As you might expect with the top social network platform, Facebook has a massive reach. Over 2.5 billion people use Facebook.  Whilst the reach is huge the targeting options are not as accurate as say Google or Bing. You can’t target via keyword only interests, behaviour, gender, age, location etc. This is great for building Brand awareness and if volume of traffic is your goal but it makes it hard to target  people at the point of looking to purchase or get a quote for example, as you can’t specifically place an advert in front of them when they type in “life insurance quote” for example. You can however target by interests and behaviour so you can advertise to them in a generic way. You can use basic text adverts, images and also mobile adverts too for the Facebook network.  Traffic is cheap too in comparison to say Google so you can get hundreds of clicks at a cost of a few pence each, obviously subject to the industry you are targeting.

Twitter:

Twitter adverts are kept entirely on Twitter and no other networks or websites.  One popular option is promoted Tweets. Pricing is CPC (cost per click) and you can also get help from a Twitter sales representative. The success of this campaign will depend on your Twitter skills and having engaging content. This type of pay per click is not suited to every business so seek the help of an expert before setting up any Twitter advertising account.

Instagram:

Now with over 1 billion active users, Instagram is growing fast. Users tend to be younger then Facebook users. Instagram is owned by Facebook so you actually manage your campaigns through  your Facebook ad management admin. You can use single images, videos or carousel ads to promote your business. The cost depends on your desired action, bid amount and other factors such as ad quality and estimated action rates. Instagram is useful if your product or service is targeted to a younger audience.

YouTube:

YouTube  has over 2 billion people logged in each month worldwide. Obviously any and every interest has it’s place on YouTube. You actually manage your advertising on here via your Google Adwords account.  You can be a little more targeted in terms of your audience reach then say Twitter or Facebook. If you have a business video obviously this would be an excellent way to promote this. Pricing is CPV and CPM too. You can use the same targeting options as the Display Network in Google

Linkedin:

Microsoft owns Linkedin now and this is a source of millions of professionals. You can target people by profession, job title, company and more. It does tend to be more of a B2B option but this depends on  the product or service you  provide. There are approximately 500 million professionals on Linkedin at present.

So, which one is right for your business? The answer all depends on  the industry and product or service you are in. If you want to be as targeted as you can be then Google Adwords is the one for you. You can choose when your advert appears only when certain keywords are searched. So you have total control over your campaigns.  Facebook can bring you volume and cheaper clicks but you can’t target via keyword, it would be interests, behaviour etc.

Best thing to do is contact Dorset Tech and we can evaluate your business and website and then advise and recommend which PPC platform would suit you best. We can then set up your advertising too to get you started. Contact us today with any questions you may have.