PPC advertising services are incredible marketing tools that help e-commerce businesses potentially achieve more sales, improve brand awareness, and reach more of their goals. PPC (or pay-per-click) advertising can show a relevant audience why a company’s products are appealing and something worthwhile. However, reaching those individuals starts with understanding PPC advertising and how to run good campaigns.
In this detailed guide, we’ll go over what PPC advertising is and why it’s an essential tool for e-commerce businesses to convert ad viewers into sales. You’ll also learn the advantages of running PPC ads for e-commerce, steps to running a campaign, helpful tips, and key considerations. After learning all about e-commerce PPC advertising, give our e-commerce PPC agency, Bear North Digital, a call to discuss your marketing efforts.
What Is PPC Advertising?
Pay-per-click is a form of advertising where a business pays for every person who clicks on their ad. You may have a thousand viewers for your ad, but if you have 100 clicks, that’s the only thing you pay for. Not all clicks translate to product sales, so keep that in mind during campaigns.
You’ll find many PPC ads throughout Facebook and in many Google Search results. A click-through rate (CTR) is the number of clicks on your ad compared to the number of people who saw your ad (or impressions). Higher CTRs show your ads as more relevant to targeted users and can help your campaign efforts, but CTRs are not typically high percentages, often 2.0% or less.
Why PPC for E-Commerce Is Valuable
E-commerce businesses find PPC advertising services helpful in reaching their sales and marketing goals. They might experience booming sales and see numbers at an all-time high. Consider the following perks of trying out pay-per-click advertising campaigns for your e-commerce site.
1. Increase Your ROI (Return on Investment)
Every company wants to have a high return on investment, or get more money from their advertising efforts than they’re putting in. PPC campaigns allow you to monitor your efforts and tweak campaigns to yield a better ROI.
2. Improve Brand Awareness
Successful PPC campaigns can help e-commerce companies like yours sell more products and reach a larger audience. People who might love and want your products but have no idea who you are can find your business with the help of a PPC advertisement. When your advertisements appear in the top search results for various keywords, you may beat competitors and drive more attention to your e-commerce business.
After running PPC campaigns, you could explore which products your customers are purchasing the most. Your business can see what aspects of your previous campaigns are doing well and implement these for products that aren’t selling as much. PPC and other marketing techniques work well together and may help build brand awareness, but PPC advertising services alone aren’t always enough to do so.
3. Precisely Target a Specific Audience
Your e-commerce company can reach your target audience easier by customizing the keywords, ad copy, and product your ad focuses on. If you’re trying to push a new product, crafting an ad for people who are likely to buy it is fast and simple with PPC ads. Your target audience may include people who have searched for products that are similar to what you offer and fit key demographics (location, age, and more) for your products.
How To Run a PPC Advertising Campaign
After creating a Google Merchant Center account (or an account on other PPC advertising platforms for e-commerce site), you can begin your campaign efforts. Using one email address for your marketing efforts can make accessing multiple accounts and sites much easier. You should optimize the settings on your GMC account and turn on automatic updates.
Once you connect your Google Ads and Google Merchant Center accounts, you’re ready to start. You’ll need to complete information about each of your products, their prices, descriptions, and more. Ensure that all information is current and error-free before moving into the ad process.
1. Create Your Ads
Most ads contain a headline, a link to your landing page, and some ad copy (often two lines or less). Some campaigns might include an image to help you attract viewers and show a little more about your product. Although it’s relatively simple to create an ad, you have to make the most of it.
Your ad copy needs to quickly grab the attention of viewers, hopefully transforming them from views into clicks into conversions. Making a purchase is the end goal of these ad efforts, but it’s not the only one. You’ll need to have an optimized landing page and an appealing and strong headline.
2. Choose Your Keywords
It’s an excellent idea to perform some keyword research before going live with your PPC campaigns. Why? Finding keywords that are relevant to your business and the products you’re trying to sell uses your budget well and helps you waste less time on ill-fitting terms. Knowing what keywords your target audience is searching for can help your ads pop up when a user searches for exact or similar terms in your ad copy.
Consider what keywords fit your product best by thinking about your industry and the types of goods you sell. What is your target audience searching for, and how does your store deliver what they need? You can also consider how your products relate to specific seasons of the year.
3. Bidding for Ads and Keywords
Once you’ve constructed your ad and found the right keywords to use, the bidding process begins. Remember that other businesses are competing for some of the same keywords as you and might look to reach a similar target audience. Consider how competitive a keyword is and decide whether bidding for it is worthwhile to pursue, as keywords with extreme competition are going to cost you more and eat your budget.
A lower volume keyword is potentially easier to win and can help your advertisements. If you’re unsure about which keywords to use or where to target your PPC campaign efforts, consulting with an experienced and reputable digital marketing company can help. A business that helps e-commerce companies and thoroughly understands the best PPC strategies is someone you want in your corner and is a valuable resource.
Tips for More Successful Ecommerce PPC Advertising
E-commerce businesses exist in numerous niches and sell millions of goods each year. If you’re interested in furthering your growth, consider the following tips for getting started with PPC advertising services:
- Test Multiple Ad Elements: Comparing your call-to-action, image, and ad copy elements and making slight changes is more helpful than you might realize. A/B elements can show you which concepts audiences like and dislike and help you modify your efforts. You won’t have to guess what your audience will like, but rather, you can learn from data and make changes accordingly.
- Landing Page Optimization: Your landing page needs to grab the attention of those seeing your PPC advertisements. A poorly written headline, slow loading speed, and uninteresting copy will send potential buyers and site visitors away from your website.
- Try Other Search Engines for PPC Ads: While we often think of Google Ads as the dominating and most common place to run PPC advertising campaigns, it’s not the only one you have to use. If you’re seeing success with Google, you can transfer some of your efforts and strategies and run Amazon and Microsoft (formerly Bing) PPC advertising campaigns. Who knows what will happen?
- Update Your Product Feed: If you’re advertising multiple products, it’s important to update information as things change. If you’ve added another color or size, you must make changes accordingly. Additionally, you have to note when a product is out of stock or no longer available, but checking your settings can help these changes appear automatically.
- Ensure Prices Are Accurate: Google is strict about having product prices match across PPC ad campaigns, landing pages, and a customer’s shopping cart. While you’ll have some time to resolve any discrepancies (about four weeks), you must quickly take action. Some accounts receive suspensions and lose sales because Google takes note of this issue.
Remember that having a lot of clicks for your e-commerce ads is great but isn’t always favorable if your conversation rate is low. This likely means that your advertisements are reaching people and causing them to click, but some other factor (such as site speed or ad copy) is stopping them from converting. Once you identify potential areas of weakness, you can strengthen these spots and revamp your e-commerce PPC advertising efforts.
Before Starting With PPC Advertising
Businesses, e-commerce or not, must understand the importance of having a digital marketing strategy, as operating blindly will not bring them closer to their goals. If you know how PPC advertising works and want to implement it for your e-commerce business, that’s great. However, you should know that PPC is one of many digital marketing tools that can help your business succeed, so try to use others alongside it, such as:
- Email marketing
- Social media marketing (Facebook, Instagram, and more)
- Search engine optimization (SEO)
- Website design
Remember that PPC campaigns require careful ad campaign management, so you must commit time, energy, and money to adjust them as necessary. When one strategy doesn’t work, you can make small changes and see what sticks. Not everyone enjoys using PPC campaigns; working with a trusted digital marketing business, such as Bear North Digital, can make it easier to find what works for you.
Finally, your business should also have a clear budget in mind, as it’s easy to spend a lot of money on PPC campaigns. Deciding how and where to delegate your budget can help you waste less money and concentrate your efforts. Budgeting helps you get more out of your PPC campaigns.
Learn More About PPC Advertising With Bear North Digital
Now that you understand how PPC advertising can help e-commerce sites, you’re likely considering this tool to grow your business and engage with more customers. Bear North Digital also has excellent information on setting a PPC budget and other marketing topics. If you’re involved in e-commerce or have a business looking to learn more about PPC and how to get started, Bear North Digital is ready to help you.
Are you ready to level up your e-commerce business with an award-winning agency that has helped countless clients? Reach out to Bear North Digital to schedule your introductory call with our team! Call us at (218) 216-8692 to discuss our PPC advertising services and your needs.
