Search marketing is a critical part of digital marketing, as most people are online 24/7 on their mobile devices. It complements traditional marketing campaigns and has emerged as a business growth enabler. PPC (Pay-per-click) marketing is a paid search marketing tool designed to give businesses the opportunity to advertise in sponsored listings or partner sites, making payments only when phone contact is generated or an ad is clicked. Businesses gain from top listings in searches that augment organic search strategies and make payments only for valuable searches.
With PPC emerging as the go-to method of online marketing, businesses are keen to have professional expertise in designing search marketing strategies for successful PPC campaigns. Whether you are a small business owner looking to expand your local footprint or a large business wanting to explore new locations for marketing, a PPC strategy can help you boost results and sales.
If you are a student of business management, a marketing professional, or a small business owner, add value to your learning curve with a Pay Per Click Online Course. With an increasing digital transformation of businesses, it has emerged as an integral part of your marketing strategies. And the individual who masters the tips contributes to the business’ growth.
What is PPC Advertising
Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is a form of online marketing that allows you to pay a fee each time a user clicks on your ad display. You can buy visits to your website, in addition to getting featured in organic searches. The ad is placed in a search engine’s sponsored links when a user searches for a requirement with specific keywords.
PPC advertising enables your business to feature on the search engine result page (SERP) when using relevant keywords or phrases. The SERP directs the user to your business website, and you pay a fee each time people click on your ad.
The PPC method functions on the perceived value of a click, the audience or customer type in which the keywords originate. It is used for various marketing campaign goals, including sales, lead generation, and brand awareness.
The advertising model allows you as a business owner and advertiser to place ads on a host platform like a search engine and pay the host when the ad is clicked. Search engines and social media platforms host the ads and lead users to the business website for completing actions relevant to their search.
Local PPC
PPC campaigns for local businesses, known as Local PPC, are customized to locations of the target customer base. Local PPC is paid online advertising where local PPC ads run on search engines or social media within a specific geography. The PPC strategy uses local keywords for geotargeting, and the business pays when a user clicks on the ad.
How does Local PPC work
PPC is an effective way to direct users to your business. What’s more, you pay only when users interact with the ad through clicks or impressions.
PPC advertising is used in SERPs such as Google or Bing, and social channels. However, in Local PPC, a small business owner with tight budgets can also run local PPC campaigns for the right target audience at low costs.
How does your local business benefit?
With local PPC, your ads show up only for the right target audiences as you customize the campaign to target people who bring value to your business. As you do not compete with national or international names, your competition is lean, and you see more clicks and conversions.
These are some benefits of using local PPC for your small business:
- As a local business, you increase brand awareness in your local community.
- Local PPC campaigns yield higher conversions, as people searching online for their location-based problems or needs, find a solution.
- PPC advertising is a flexible model with campaigns tailored to suit limited budgets and the flexibility to scale up as needed. Besides, ads can be based on specific customer behaviors and geographic locations.
- Local PPC ads are more easily trackable than offline marketing strategies like flyers that small businesses often use locally. As they are digital, the impressions, clicks, and conversions can be measured and optimized for higher ROI.
Once your marketing campaign is created and the role of PPC defined, the account activity requires regular management to make it effective. Analyzing the account performance on the go and making suitable adjustments can help earn quality leads and business value.
How to grow your local business with PPC Ads
Local business PPC is all about fine-tuning the search keywords and targeting the right local audiences to generate valuable conversions. When local sentiments, neighborhood analysis, and customer requirements are optimized for PPC strategies, your local businesses can benefit by creating awareness of your products, increasing footfalls to the store, and website visits for online sales.
These are some tips for generating business value with local PPC ads:
1. Generating granularity of ad groups
As a local business, you can create ad groups around specific product lines or top-performing cities to narrow down your target customer base to small local markets and customize the relevance of ad copy to those locations. So you can generate local traffic with hyper-relevant content and customized offers.
2. Using Ad Extensions
Ad extensions are add-ons that add context to your AdWords text ads. They answer specific questions of the individual searching online and provide additional ways to achieve conversions.
Different ad extensions achieve specific types of local engagement, including Location Extensions, Call Extensions, Review Extensions, and Dynamic Sitelink Extensions.
You can design local campaigns to suit neighborhood search results. For instance, list your in-store locations with phone calling for click and dial features to users. Review extensions from members of the local community add value to your ads. Dynamic Sitelinks Extensions feature different pages from your website tailored to the user’s search purpose.
3. Optimizing to mobile devices
Mobile optimization is critical as the majority of users are on mobile devices, with most spending some time on social media. Local business owners can complement the PPC campaign with localized Snapchat Geofilters, Instagram local culture posts, and Facebook proximity ads.
Snapchat Geofilters build brand awareness around local events. You can optimize your Instagram profile for sales, locations, and posts to boost traffic to product pages of your website where the sales happen. Placing Proximity Ads is another method. They trigger when a mobile user is within your location radius. It is ideal for local engagement, promotion of deals, or happy hour sales.
4. Weather triggered ads
Business owners can place ads on mobile devices passing through your location radius, that trigger based on local weather reports.
5. Leveraging local jargon and knowledge
PPC ads with local jargon and cultural icons carry a weightage for users in the neighborhood or proximity of your business. As users can identify with your business they are more prone to engage with your website and visit your stores.
6. Local remarketing
If your business has budgetary constraints, then remarketing is the perfect solution where you add geolocation layers to your PPC campaigns. Your ads are seen by users who previously visited your website or happen to be within your neighborhood. With a narrow audience, your conversion-ready searches are dense, and you pay less for clicks.
Conclusion
The success of local business PPC depends upon the timing. Aligning your ads with the local audience, their needs and interest is the golden rule of search marketing. Small or local brands can make use of the Local PPC method to target users to grow your business.
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