10 PPC Strategies That Will Help Your Brand Thrive

Paid media opportunities are an integral part of any well-rounded marketing strategy, and pay-per-click (PPC) ads are some of the most prominent in the industry. PPC ads are available on every major platform there is, and they’re continuing to become more and more expensive every year.

The rising cost of entry and high level of competition in the PPC market makes it crucial that you do everything you can to create successful campaigns that lead to conversions. Given how many different platforms you have to work with, that is by no means an easy task. So here are 10 PPC strategies that you can implement to drive results and help your brand thrive.

1. Diversifying your Search Engine Strategy

It’s no secret that Alphabet, Inc is the biggest player in the search engine market. Between Google and Youtube, it’s safe to say that their market superiority is set in stone for the foreseeable future. After all, each of their two engines processes billions of search queries every single day. While it’s true that you’ll receive the majority of your visits from Google, don’t leave money on the table by failing to optimize your website for other search engines as well.

While Google certainly gets the most significant share of the pie, the Microsoft Search Network—which is comprised of Bing, Yahoo, MSN, and other partner sites—is nothing to be scoffed at. In the U.S. alone, the Microsoft Search Network makes up 37.5% of desktop searches and is comprised of 117 million unique searchers—that’s more than ⅓ of the entire U.S. population!

To make up for the lower market share, the cost of running PPC ads on the Microsoft Search Network is cheaper than running them on Google. Since the competition is nowhere near as fierce for most industries, the average CPC for advertising through Microsoft is only $0.84. So while you shouldn’t dedicate your entire SEM budget to Microsoft, running smaller campaigns on the network can get you access to customers you’d have otherwise missed. Just make sure you optimize your website for Bing and Yahoo as well so you can pick up organic traffic too.

2. Integrate Affiliate Marketing Into Your Strategy

Affiliate marketing has been around for a long time, but it’s still a viable PPC strategy that can help bring in new customers. Let’s face it. While new strategies like influencer marketing are commanding a lot of attention across the industry, the prices for working with influencers are akin to highway robbery, depending on your industry. While it’s certainly a strategy that’s worth considering, it’s entirely possible that you’ll cough up hundreds or even thousands of dollars for content that might not lead to a meaningful number of conversions. Affiliate marketing is much lower risk and requires fewer upfront expenses.

The affiliate marketing industry has also evolved significantly over the last decade. While placing ads on affiliate websites and blogs is still a thing, many brands are finding that they can recruit content creators as affiliate marketers. So not only are you taking fewer risks, but you’re gaining access to an existing audience at the same time.

This type of affiliate marketing has become prolific on Youtube. While some brands have certainly gained notoriety by bombarding users with spammy ads and sponsored content, others have provided immense value to both the content creators and their audience.

3. Leaning Into Video Content

While static ads aren’t going away any time soon, a large percentage of younger demographics are spending their time watching videos instead of scrolling through text or still images. So naturally, your PPC strategy needs to start adapting to reach these audiences. Thankfully, there are plenty of different avenues you can take to implement video into your PPC campaigns.

As we previously discussed, affiliate marketers can be a great PPC option if they’re done right. There’s a growing PPC affiliate marketing scene growing on Youtube where content creators can either create their own content to advertise your product/service or show pre-made content provided by your brand.

Speaking of Youtube, video ads are a viable option too. The platform is the second largest search engine in the world and receives billions of search queries each day. It’s important to note that ads on youtube are all technically PPC. For “in-stream ads,” you’ll either pay every time a user clicks on an interactable aspect of your ads or when they watch it for 30 seconds. On the other hand, you’ll only be charged for “in-feed ads” when a user clicks on your ad thumbnail. The CPV and CPC for both ad types is a maximum of $0.25.

4. Increase Your Ad Quality Score

Another PPC strategy is your ad quality score. Your ad quality score can make or break your entire PPC campaign. Whether you’re advertising on Google, Meta’s platforms, TikTok, or somewhere else, your ad quality score needs to be high for your brand to benefit.

Why is ad quality score so important? Well, there are several reasons.

First off, the quality score of your ads correlates directly to your overall ad rank. Ads that rank the highest—and are therefore shown higher up on the search engine results page (SERP)—have a higher quality score, higher bid, or both a higher quality score and a higher bid, than their competitors. So producing higher quality ads means you’re more likely to have a good ad rank.

This also means that a higher quality score should lead to a lower total CPC. Having a higher ad quality score means that your content can outrank competitors producing low-quality ads even if they have a higher bid than you. So not only will you be ranking better, but you’ll have to bid less, which leads to a lower CPC.

On a less technical note, if your ad is given a high-quality score by the likes of Google or Facebook, then that means it’s more likely that your ads will lead to conversions—which is the entire purpose of paying for ads to begin with.

5. Adding Pinterest to Your Marketing Strategy

Pinterest is a platform that many marketers have ignored for years. It is kind of unique in the fact that it doubles as both a social media platform and a search engine. And despite its dual functionality, it has remained off the radar as far as most brands are concerned. But it hasn’t fallen into obscurity among consumers, and there is a large audience just waiting to be tapped into. In fact, Pinterest saw a record number of users during the pandemic. And while the active monthly user base declined throughout 2021, the platform is still accessed by nearly half a billion people!

Businesses also have several different options for running ads. On the PPC side, Pinterest offers some of the lowest rates in the industry with an astoundingly low $1.50 CPC. The return isn’t too shabby either, as Pinterest Business brags that the average retain brand gets a 2x higher ROI on Pinterest than on other platforms. Other campaign objectives you can choose from on Interest include brand awareness (CPM), video views (CPV), and conversions (CPA).

6. Implementing Voice Search

Another creation from Apple is continuing to make waves across the marketing industry. While they certainly aren’t the only company with Ai personal assistants or voice search anymore, the Release of Siri on the iPhone 4S a decade ago changed how consumers interact with the web forever. Over the past ten years, voice search has penetrated the household of nearly every American. More than ⅓ of Americans now have a smart speaker in their house, and nearly ⅔’s are using the voice search feature in some capacity—whether that be on their phone, speaker, car, or other smart devices.

Since a majority of consumers are already using voice search—and that number will continue to grow in the years to come—optimizing your campaigns for voice search is a crucial aspect of your overall PPC strategy. According to the Search Engine Journal, voice search is highly conversational, so most of the valuable queries will revolve around “who,” “what,” “when,” and “where.”

Dialing in keyword phrases—and negative keyword phrases—will help you dial in the right voice search terms to bid on. For instance, if you own a sushi restaurant, “find sushi near me” would be a great term to bid. Meanwhile, “what is sushi” is probably a phrase you should add to your negative keywords.

7. Add Automation to Your Campaigns

Building a PPC campaign takes a lot of work and can involve a myriad of different people. Writing ad copy, creating captivating visuals, narrowing down the audience—all these things can be very time-consuming for the parties involved. Thankfully, once you have those essential components created, you can start adding automation to your campaigns to cut down on the extra time needed to optimize your ads. And if saving time wasn’t enough, automation is one of the best PPC strategies you can implement to maximize your conversions.

Most of the major platforms have their own forms of automation readily accessible for users to implement. For instance, the Google Ads platform gives businesses the ability to automate their bidding strategy. You choose the goals for your campaigns; then AI and machine learning tools place bids within your budget that will maximize your results. These goals could be anything from increasing site traffic to increasing ROAS.

Facebook offers another excellent example of the various automation tools you can implement into your PPC strategy. Facebook’s ad automation can do everything from creating multiple versions of your ads—complete with copy and CTAs—to suggesting a target audience so you can put your ads in front of people who are more likely to convert.

These two examples are only the tip of the iceberg. There are tons of automation tools available that can help your PPC campaigns become more successful.

8. Optimizing Your Ad Copy

There are two basic components of every ad: visuals and copy. Stunning visuals are going to grab the attention of someone scrolling through their social media or SERP, but you need excellent copy to drive sales home. If you’re noticing that your ad performance is starting to dip, it’s probably time to look back over your copy and see what needs to be revamped.

You should be constantly A/B testing your copy to discover what CTAs, headlines, landing pages, etc. are performing the best. If your results are starting to dip, start experimenting with new combinations of the copy.

If you’re noticing that traffic is falling off, it might be time to shift your PPC strategy to target new keywords that fall within your niche.

9. Simply Maintaining Your Presence

It’s pretty clear that if we’re not in a recession yet, we’re on track to be in one. As inflation rises and the cost of goods and services continues to climb, consumers are going to be much more conscious about how they’re spending their money. Luxury purchases will be put on hold as people spend more on necessities. That’s simply the reality we live in.

During economic downturns like the one we’re currently experiencing, it can be very tempting to halt investments into your PPC strategies and campaigns. We’re not going to pretend that consumer or business spending is as high While that might help you save a few bucks in the short run, it’s going to cost you dearly down the road.

After the financial crisis of 2008, Harvard Business Review found that companies who overreacted by slashing their marketing budgets had to spend more to recover after the crisis concluded. Assess your exposure and optimize your spending where you can, but unless it is crucial to your business’s survival, do not flush your marketing budget down the toilet.

10. Find a Partner Who Can Take Your PPC Strategy to the Next Level

If you want to create PPC campaigns that will help your business thrive throughout the remainder of 2022 and beyond, finding the right strategic partner is a critical next step. If you’re ready to work with an agency that is driven by results and has the track record to back it up, then Fidelitas is the strategic partner for you.

Our dedicated team is ready to help push your business to the next level. Whether you need help maximizing your PPC results, want to expand your email marketing efforts, or need to reposition your company and overhaul your branding, Fidelitas is ready to work alongside you.

If you’re ready to create PPC strategies that drive results, contact Fidelitas today.

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