4277 2
PPC 22 min read January 4, 2023

Paid Advertising: How to Use Ads Effectively

Paid Advertising: How to Use Ads Effectively
Kateryna Hordiienko
Research Editor at Serpstat
Paid advertisements are still there. Moreover, this is a well-liked and sought-after type of web advertising. According to the surveys, 93% of all online interactions start with a search engine, and with those odds, you can catch the audience's attention.

You have encountered these advertisements — the top search results, followed by an "Ad" icon. The categorization varies, but what about the utilization itself? What is PPC from a practical standpoint? These and other questions are discussed and solved by the expert team — join in to delve deeper and understand the nature of paid advertising better. Onwards!

Became a part of #serpstat_chat to discuss practical tips, trends, and updates with SEO experts.
We manage these events every Thursday at 2 pm ET | 11 am PT on our Twitter channel by hashtag #serpstat_chat.
The following experts provided comments on this topic:
  • Avast Zumac
    Entrepreneur, helps B2B companies shorten a sales cycle
  • Olena Prokhoda
    Social Media and Community Specialist at Serpstat
  • Joey Trend
    Co-Founder of Hum JAM
  • Lyndon NA
    Internet business consultant, (SEM (SEO/PPC)
    CM & SMM, with UX, CRO & ORM)

What is Paid Advertising?

PPC is an online-based process where an advertiser covers the cost of the service — their ads are to be placed on target platforms on the internet. Its main performance principle uses the bidding system to define the auction's winner as rewarded with the desired ad space.
Avast Zumac
Avast Zumac

Entrepreneur, helps B2B companies shorten a sales cycle


Advertisers have the advantage of to sell towards an audience that needs a particular product/service. Take the pandemic as an example, masks were advertised to different organizations, institutions, and so on, because a need was there.

What is paid advertisement? This term is used to define any sort of internet promotion that a business or a marketer pays for. In turn, they essentially rent a digital space, including Google SERPs.
Joey Trend
Joey Trend

Co-Founder of Hum JAM


You can eat peanut butter and jelly every day, but will you be healthy? It’s best to have multiple streams of traffic. Paid ads are a way to get targeted customers to view your products or services.

There are different categories of advertising campaigns, which enable interested parties to create ads that are maximally personalized and customized for their goals:

  • Display ads are created based on particular keywords aligned to the hosting portal's subject matter and displayed within apps, videos, and website banners.
  • PPC ads — the pay-per-click promotion model drives on-site traffic through the number of visits through the published link.
  • Digital advertising on social media — the main peculiarity of the method is that social media channels are hosts of advertising links.
  • Video advertising — this subtype is highlighted separately for ads shown on streaming platforms like YouTube and Vimeo.
  • Remarketing/retargeting — one of the most efficient and confusing styles — we will explain it later.
  • Native ads — promoted listings, search and in-feed ads, as well as recommendation widgets, form this paid promotion model, where the advertisement design fits the content style and functionality of the hosting platform.
  • Influencer marketing — brands can pay well-known social media or related individuals to promote their goods through testimonials.
This has boosted the transformation of several sites into successful platforms for promotion activities. Keep scrolling down the post for more details!

How to Reach Influencers: 5 Core Tips for Influencer Marketing Campaign

Benefits of Paid Promotion

Depending on your online business type, industry, and global performance objectives, the efficacy of paid promotion differs. Please take into account the following to research the credibility of this advertising tool in your case:

  • The industry click-through rate is 10-11% on average, so a dream CTR for companies would be up to 12%. However, this efficiency is close to extremes. The rate might fall to 4-6% and more. All things considered, it is best when your CTR isn’t lower than 6-7%. The typical rate for paid ads displayed in the top spot of the search feed is around 8%, while lower ranks for positions 6-10 might be only 0.2%.
  • Nearly half (46%) of the surveyed audience could not tell the difference between paid promotions and organic results on the page.
  • The return on investment for pay-per-click ads is around 200%.
Joey Trend
Joey Trend

Co-Founder of Hum JAM


Advertisers get exposure to new audiences, and consumers get exposed to new products they might need.

Running paid ads will surely contribute to your marketing team’s efficacy thanks to:

  • Instant results — unlike organic methods, advertisers immediately get the first results of their marketing PPC efforts.
  • High scalability depends on your project budget, but paid promotion activities have fewer limitations than organic marketing.
  • Measurability — you get access to detailed analytics, which lets you understand your marketing campaign's genuine efficiency.
  • Advanced targeting — paid advertisement provides multiple target options.
Benefits of paid promotion
Joseph S. Kahn
Joseph S. Kahn

President of Hum JAM


The easy benefit for SEOs using paid ads is to see what works from a CTA standpoint before launching an organic campaign. It helps the user by choosing what works for them with their clicks.

Trying to improve the effectiveness of your digital paid campaigns will not succeed without the use of SEO.

Platforms for Paid Promotion

Thanks to third-party domains for paid promotion, you can create ads for your business goals. Employing every of the presented channels might be overwhelming and simply ineffective, but this divergence leads to a more personalized advertising campaign:

  • Google Ads;
  • social media advertising on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, LinkedIn, TikTok, etc.;
  • Microsoft Ads (former Bing Ads);
  • Quora;
  • Airpush or Google AdMob;
  • Yahoo Gemini and so on.
Lyndon NA
Lyndon NA

Internet business consultant, (SEM (SEO/PPC)

CM & SMM, with UX, CRO & ORM)


You also have to look at budget and pricing — not all vendor platforms are for all budgets. Then it's the type of advert-supported, some don't really do "media". Then you should check their tracking/reporting, some are better than others.

According to advertisers that were interviewed by the Instapage team, Facebook and Google are the most popular and effective platforms for the promotion. Paid ads on these platforms are preferred by the exact same, astounding 87% of participants.
Avast Zumac
Avast Zumac

Entrepreneur, helps B2B companies shorten a sales cycle


Normally you aim for a message that'll deliver your desired outcome. It's in your best interest to focus on the outcome. A video is your way to go if it's a complex product. Quality matters & keep it short.

Effective PPC: Steps to Follow

What are the best strategies to create and maintain a successful and result-generating PPC campaign? It is high time to check out what experts suggest beginners and experienced parties do.

Know Your Audience

Targeting is crucial since it is the first step to creating efficient ads. Understand your audience’s nature, needs, and expectations to locate the right paid promotion channel. There will be less value in focusing your effort on YouTube ads when your target market mainly consists of HR specialists. It may seem quite clear, but occasionally companies do focus on hype channels instead of researching their audience.
Joey Trend
Joey Trend

Co-Founder of Hum JAM


If your ad fails, it is because you did not do enough research on your target customers. What gets them hot to buy? Where do they spend the most time online? Answer those questions and your ad will not fail!

Do Keyword Research

Choosing the best keywords is a must-have part of PPC campaigns. To generate conversions and clicks, you have first to decide what keywords to bid on. This cornerstone process requires assembling, improving, and planning your PPC keywords, matching your business goals and audience.
Lyndon NA
Lyndon NA

Internet business consultant, (SEM (SEO/PPC)

CM & SMM, with UX, CRO & ORM)


There are plenty of reasons why your advertising campaign can fail, but the big ones are:

1) Poor location/network choice (no audience).

2) Poor creatives (no resonance/grab).

3) Not sustained (ads seldom convert on first view, etc.)

4) Bad timing (events competing for attention, etc.)

  • How to Cannibalize Your Competitor's Organic Traffic via Paid Search
  • The Guide to Keyword Research for Mobile Apps
Your keyword research will be simplified thanks to professional instruments. Serpstat Keywords Research tools are definitely on the list — get a list of comparable and related keywords in different categories, emphasizing their PPC competition, overall value, etc.
In addition, the advertisement can be generated using GPT inside Serpstat AI content tools:
AI content, Serpstat
Take your website's SEO to the next level with our robust platform!
Start your free trial now and discover the benefits for yourself. We'll remind you when your trial ends so you can take advantage of the opportunity to continue using our tools.

Create Effective Landing Pages

Another step to drive more conversions and lead a healthy and versatile PPC campaign is to create ads landing pages — any website where you direct users in an effort to start a dialogue and make a sale.
Avast Zumac
Avast Zumac

Entrepreneur, helps B2B companies shorten a sales cycle


Mainly you are looking at the end objective. Is it sales, leads, or “Awareness”?

If it's sales, what's the peak point you're looking at?

If it's 50 sales a day, Where are they happening from?

If it's your landing page, what's the plan?


What you'll find out most of the time is that your current objective might not be suitable for your product or service in the long run. With the example above, awareness might be more suitable for your SaaS product rather than direct sales due to your cycle. Put some extra time into creating this roadmap, and you'll save tons of wasted dollars and useless conversions.

You may tailor your message for new visitors thanks to employing landing pages, which makes your marketing more customer-centric and personalized. Using a landing page means you can build on the message you introduced in your pad advertisement, which leads to a more seamless experience.

Landing pages are great delivery means for your call to action — you encourage users to take particular actions, like visiting the official site or downloading e-book freebies.

It is a great way to track the quantity and quality of daily visits. This will contribute to your analytics and upgrade your PPC campaign in the long run.

Create a PPC Funnel

Simply put, this term defines the customer experience path from the moment they first get to know about your brand to the point where they decide to place an order on your site.
Olena Prokhoda
Olena Prokhoda

Social Media and Community Specialist at Serpstat


How do you choose the paid creatives to use?

Hit them in the right place of the funnel.

Answer a few questions with your ad creative:

— Why should customers use this product?

— How is it different?

— Why do you need it?

— How to use it?

— How will this solve your problems?

Include that in the creative but make it simple to catch :)

Set Funnel KPIs and Objectives

These standards will be the heart and soul of each PPC marketing campaign. Please note that you have to determine different goals at different funnel stages. Don’t consider too long-term perspectives — your considerations have to be realistic, achievable, measurable, and quite specific.
Lyndon NA
Lyndon NA

Internet business consultant, (SEM (SEO/PPC)

CM & SMM, with UX, CRO & ORM)


Same answer as always. I work it backward from Business to Campaign (though the end metrics will vary by Goal and Platform/Vendor):


  • Goal (typically Money);
  • Revenue;
  • Profit;
  • Conversions;
  • Conversion value;
  • Leads;
  • Clicks;
  • Interactions;
  • Impressions/Views.

But other goals may require additional work, such as follow-up surveys, for checking awareness, sentiment, etc. Or looking at other data sources (such as if there's an increase in brand searches, social follows, etc.).

As for KPIs, pay attention to the indicators below:
  • how much time users spend on your site;
  • impressions;
  • how reachable your site is;
  • CPM (cost per mille);
  • bounce rate.
Avast Zumac
Avast Zumac

Entrepreneur, helps B2B companies shorten a sales cycle


How do you plan the budget for the paid promotion? What's the cost of your product/service? Then divide it by half the balance is your ad budget daily. The Algorithm mostly delivers the Ad to a network similar to your Ad spend. Assuming your SaaS software costs around $99, you should spend half of it on Ad.

Personalize Your Tactics for Each Funnel

There are four journey stages of the PPC consumer — awareness, consideration, decision, and retention. Knowing the peculiarities of each will help you build a safe and functional PPC funnel.
Avast Zumac
Avast Zumac

Entrepreneur, helps B2B companies shorten a sales cycle


Your organic traffic reinforces loyalty towards your brand.

Your paid Ads amplify your rankings above all and new traffic.

Thus, your SEO journey is covered.

Using different tools will help you gain the most out of all the phases. For instance, while banner ads are great for awareness and retention, social media advertisements will suit better the needs of end users during the consideration stage.

The same is valid for keywords — you have to switch them by transferring them to the next phase of the funnel. Otherwise, you risk lowering ROI and other related issues.

Track Your Results

If you don’t monitor how your advertising campaign PPC and its components function, don’t waste your time and money on the purchase. Choosing the right strategy is a continual process, especially taking into account how frequently Google changes its algorithms. To understand what KPIs are better not to miss, check the guidelines from the Serpstat team.
Joey Trend
Joey Trend

Co-Founder of Hum JAM


Clicks and conversions. The only two indicators that have any meaning and value. Clicks tell you your ad is attractive. Conversions mean you are advertising in the right place.

Avoid checking your results daily. This approach may result in hurried modifications because of insufficient information you refer to. Wait until your analytics tool has enough time to gather reliable result patterns and data. Decide on a specific frequency of regular checks — monthly or weekly. For broad adjustments, consider PPC strategy modifications on a monthly basis.

Retargeting and Remarketing

Remarketing and retargeting are ways to bring visitors' attention back to previously discovered websites. It mainly concentrates on the audience's attributes but ignores the context of the online platform. Only those who have already visited the advertiser's domain can view these commercials.
Olena Prokhoda
Olena Prokhoda

Social Media and Community Specialist at Serpstat


Ads are measurable. A paid advertisement's cost depends on its objective or type. There’s retargeting available, and it increases retention. Retargeted ads will show highly relevant ads to continuously engage your prospects who have shown an interest in your product or service that otherwise could have slipped away.


Paid advertising helps you reach a defined audience quickly and allows you to provide specific targeting for improving your brand and generating more qualified leads.

It is a mistake to use these terms interchangeably, though — they include different tactics and techniques, although their PPC goals coincide. The core distinctions between the two are:

  • Retargeting essentially makes use of PPC campaigns to repeatedly involve former users of their social media or website interfaces.
  • The marketing purpose of retargeting is to get users to return to your website and make a purchase to increase conversions.
  • The task of remarketing is to re-engage clients who have already used your company’s services.
  • Re-engaging customers in the framework of remarketing is more lasting — to maintain their interest in your deals, motivate them to convert, and increase CLV (the total amount of financial expenditures of a customer for your goods/services throughout their interaction with a brand).

PPC and SEO for Better Promotion

SEO primarily focuses on content optimization to raise its Google ranking and enhance the quality of user engagement and experience. The more top-notch, credible, and relevant your material is, the higher the probability that viewers will visit your page. PPC, on the contrary, is aimed at using ads to promptly direct traffic to the target site.
Avast Zumac
Avast Zumac

Entrepreneur, helps B2B companies shorten a sales cycle


Does paid advertising help SEO? Without a doubt, it does. Do a quick search on Google. When you come across the same brand ranking No.1 on the organic and No.2 on the paid, that shows a balance. That should be your direction.

For paid ads and SEO, achieving the top positions in the SERPs takes time and effort. When these two strategies work together, businesses get superior outcomes — optimize your marketing strategy, boost ROI, and dominate the search engine results.
Lyndon NA
Lyndon NA

Internet business consultant, (SEM (SEO/PPC)

CM & SMM, with UX, CRO & ORM)


Ads get seen/heard and may increase in searches (brand/product/service etc.). Search Ads may also lead to increased CTR on Organic listings (there seems to be a psych/trust aspect).


Depending on the nature/media of the ads, you can even direct them to search for specific terms, lookup a set URL, etc. Those sorts of things don't technically increase your SEO (as in rankings), they can improve your traffic/impressions/CTRs).

SEO will satisfy your needs better in the following cases:

  • when your purpose is to establish an authority website;
  • when trustworthy, consistent, and dependable efficiency is your goal;
  • when you are interested in enhancing the worth and popularity of your domain.
Olena Prokhoda
Olena Prokhoda

Social Media and Community Specialist at Serpstat


I believe that PPC can influence SEO indirectly. This can improve behavioral factors if we do it right.

Online businesses should opt for PPC marketing under such circumstances:

  • when you desire highly-targeted conversions and traffic;
  • when you want to monopolize the target keyword category and, therefore, reach out to your audience in a more customized way;
  • when your site isn’t content-rich but still requires online promotion and more engagement with end users;
  • when your focus is on urgent tasks, including sales and other time-sensitive deals;
  • when you desire instant efficiency and changes in the traffic of your site.
Lyndon NA
Lyndon NA

Internet business consultant, (SEM (SEO/PPC)

CM & SMM, with UX, CRO & ORM)


That depends entirely on the business and the market. I know a lot of folks push SEO as being an investment etc., but it's still an expense, and some businesses do not need it (or only need certain aspects). The reality is — Ads may be enough.


But, in the main, for many others… both. You can start with Ads as a way to research/test/learn and guide SEO, or as a way to hold over the short term while SEO gains ground, or pair the two (esp. if running ads elsewhere, not in the SERPs).

Conclusion

If you are interested in boosting traffic and increasing conversions, paid promotion campaigns are the best. In contrast, investing in SEO is more time-consuming.

This isn’t a reason to believe your business can survive and succeed on paid marketing only. The best way is to combine PPC and SEO strategies to rock it. Paid ads and SEO will work for your short-term and long-term online presence efficiency. Similar to investments in the stock market, you have to diversify your promotion tool selections to achieve the desired return.
Become a part of our Private Community — Serpstat Insights! Discuss cases, keep up with SEO & Serpstat news and network :)
To stay up to date with all the news from the Serpstat blog, subscribe to our newsletter. Also, follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn to get all the insights!

Rate the article on a five-point scale

The article has already been rated by 4 people on average 5 out of 5
Found an error? Select it and press Ctrl + Enter to tell us

Discover More SEO Tools

Keywords Grouping

Streamline your SEO efforts with our advanced clustering keywords tool

Search Google Trends

Unlock the power of your target audience's searched keywords with our keyword trends

Keyword Volume Checker

Bulk Keyword Volume Checker – get valuable information about your target keywords

Tools for Keywords

Keywords Research Tools – uncover untapped potential in your niche

Share this article with your friends

Are you sure?

Introducing Serpstat

Find out about the main features of the service in a convenient way for you!

Please send a request, and our specialist will offer you education options: a personal demonstration, a trial period, or materials for self-study and increasing expertise — everything for a comfortable start to work with Serpstat.

Name

Email

Phone

We are glad of your comment
I agree to Serpstat`s Privacy Policy.

Thank you, we have saved your new mailing settings.

Report a bug

Cancel
Open support chat
mail pocket flipboard Messenger telegramm