Put simply, PPC in digital marketing means advertising in search results, like Google, or on a social media platform, like Facebook, to generate traffic to the business’ site. The former delivers ads based on searches people make, whereas the latter delivers ads based on criteria and demographics.
However, it’s important to see these two forms of PPC as complementary, not adversarial. For best results, businesses will use them in tandem, which requires understanding the strengths of each platform.
Paid Search
Google Ads is the world’s largest and most popular PPC platform. A whopping 96 per cent of brands are spending money on Google Ads, which shouldn’t come as a surprise considering Google accounts for over 90 per cent of market share for search engines in Canada.
Paid search targets keywords for text-based advertisements. Advertisers bid on keywords so that their ads will be displayed alongside search results for these queries. If a user clicks on the ad, the advertiser is charged, hence “pay per click.â€
Because Google Ads convert 50 per cent better than organic search results, paid ads have a 200 per cent ROI. Unsurprisingly, 96 per cent of Google’s revenue comes from advertising, so everyone wins.
Paid Social
Instead of using keywords, paid social connects businesses to target customers based on their interests and how they behave online. Because social media users share so much of their lives online and consume or share content that aligns with their interests and values, advertisers have a treasure trove of data to draw from to tailor advertising and target audiences with highly sophisticated granularity.
Facebook, for example, can create “lookalike audiences†for advertisers. By uploading customer information from a business’ database, Facebook applies its own filtering based on its data and information provided by third parties to compile a list of users who match the business’ existing customers.
By default, ads will reach targeted audiences up to two times every day. So, over a four-week campaign, users will see the ad around ten times. Ultimately, the average conversion rate for Facebook ads across all industries is over 9 per cent.
In terms of PPC in digital marketing, it’s clear that a robust campaign will leverage both paid search and paid social. If you’re looking for a growth marketing agency that will enable your business to maximize the best of both worlds, please contact us today.