No man is an island. And yes, that also applies to your brand. As your brand grows, catching up with every aspect of your marketing can be troublesome. Not to mention the continuous growth, the shifting of the market’s preferences, and the latest technological development that can put you behind the game. So, when things get rough with the business, a good marketing agency can be a secret weapon in your back pocket.

FIRST OFF, WHAT DOES A MARKETING AGENCY DO?

A marketing agency can maximize the potential of your company, product, or service – essentially, they help drive sales and profit. They are the experts that know all the ins and outs of marketing. These agencies can tailor their services specifically for your business needs while staying in line with the budget and goals to help you remain relevant in the highly competitive business world.

In case you’re asking yourself why you need a new professional team in your business, here are some reasons that will show the benefits and importance of a marketing agency as your brand’s partner.

IT CAN SAVE YOU MONEY

This may sound shocking, but it is true. Hiring a full-service marketing agency is cost-effective. You can get a pool of specialists for the price of one. Imagine having an in-house marketing team with staff, training needs, facilities, systems, and benefits that will surely eat up your marketing budget. While hiring a marketing agency will only require you to pay a fixed amount depending on what project you have. Also, before signing up a contract, a marketing agency can provide you effective solutions that are within your budget.

YOU’LL GET A TEAM OF EXPERTS

A full-service marketing agency typically employs specialists in a variety of marketing mediums and practices, and working with them can give you access to all their expertise, experiences, and further knowledge in advanced technology. The experts employed by these marketing agencies are those professionals whose careers are invested in the art and science of marketing and advertising. They are very passionate in this field and it is comforting to know that you can have someone like them in your business.

Getting a full-service marketing agency can also grant you access to amazing content creation, effective and insightful marketing strategies, graphic design, a strong presence on social media, essential communication solutions, and so much more.

IT KEEPS YOU ON THE TREND

Not sure how to incorporate Tiktok or the latest social media app into your brand? Are you having a hard time reading the stats on your latest ad spend? Or do you want to drive more people to your online and physical store via SEO but don’t know where to start? A marketing agency can solve all of that for you.

One of the jobs of a marketing agency is keeping aware of the latest trends in the marketing field. Some of them have experts who constantly read magazines and social media posts, attend different industry conferences, and practice data analytics tools to know the latest among the latest in the market that can help your business stay up-to-date.

IT CAN GIVE YOU FRESH PERSPECTIVE

Boring never sells. That is why it is very important for a brand to always have a fresh look at the way you do things to avoid repetitive strategies and complacency. Sometimes, working from the inside of a business can easily get you into tunnel vision. This may hinder you from seeing your current marketing strategies, or even how your product or services are perceived by your customers.

Through research and advanced tools, a marketing agency can help you determine what is and what is not working for your brand. Having a set of fresh eyes can give you a new point of view for a better understanding of the wants of your customers.

Having a marketing agency as your brand’s partner is invaluable. It is an investment that will cost you money, time, and determine the future of your business. So, it is very important to pick out the perfect agency that has a clear vision, cohesive proposal, expertise, knows the target audience very well, and has the guts to fight hand-in-hand with your brand to stay relevant in the market.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising is an online advertising strategy. It is used to effectively reach a brand’s target audience, even at a limited budget.

PPC is done with Search Engine Optimization (SEO), but SEO can be done without PPC. To the unfamiliar, these terms can sound very technical, but learning about PPC is an easy gateway to digital marketing. It is self-explanatory, and it’s used with the most common online marketing strategies.

Done right, PPC is one of the best options for businesses to grow their brand and drive up sales volume.

What is PPC Advertising?

Pay-per-click, as the name suggests, is a paid advertising model where a business bids for the most common keyword searches in search engines such as Google, or Bing. For the ad to appear at the top, it should meet the search engine’s metrics for keyword relevance and quality content.

A fee is then paid to the search engine for every ‘click’ on the advertisement.

With PPC, the advertiser only pays when people interact with their ad through impressions or clicks. The purpose is to bring fresh traffic to your website and reach a much larger audience, instead of relying on organic reach.

When done right, PPC can earn you quality leads. If you can create a seamless user journey, it could mean a huge return of investment, as the payment per click does not really cost much. The most effective ads show when a user is searching for their products or services, or for other closely related search queries.

Pay-per-click advertising is most common in search engine results pages (SERPs) like Google, but is also used on social media channels. If you’re wondering where you can find pay-per-click ads, they’re the results you see before the organic search results. It has a tag or “Ad” box shown beside the website link.

How Does PPC work?

Search engine marketing (SEM) is one of the most popular form of PPC. Search engines like Google and Bing offer advertising services to businesses and brands on their search pages.

To advertise on Google, you need to have a Google AdWords or Microsoft Bing account. Once you set one up, you’ll be able to create ads.

To get your ads shown on search engines, you enter into Google or Bing’s auction by bidding on words or phrases that relate to the product or service you wish to promote.

If your PPC ad shows on the first page of search results whenever a shopper is searching for your products or services along with your competitors, this means that your chosen keywords and digital strategy is effective. You can always study the results and play around the keywords, and produce more quality content to make the most of your PPC spend.

PPC marketing is also known as search engine marketing (SEM). Business owners and marketers know that this strategy is constantly evolving, and that they should stay updated in order to grow their brands and get more leads.

A ‘lead’ is a marketing term for individuals who click on these ads. These can be potential customers or followers. Their clicks and inquiries leave digital footprints, which you can then use to study for further ads targeting.

What are the benefits of PPC?

So, why would you pay for ads when you can reach your audience organically through quality content and strategically placed keywords, otherwise known as SEO?

This is because SEO alone has become increasingly competitive. This makes it more difficult for small businesses who do not have the domain authority just yet to get their products into the top rankings.

Even if one blog or article gets featured as a Google Snippet — a much coveted SEO achievement, where an article or webpage excerpt becomes the top search result, it is still not a guarantee. The Google featured snippet is one of the highest forms of organic reach that SEO strategists aim for. The article becomes a featured snippet if it meets Google’s metric for website credibility and quality content. This may be fleeting, but the result is huge — it drives more traffic to the website, and instantly earns credibility for the brand.

The downside, however, is that there is no guarantee on how long a Google Featured Snippet article will last. Depending on the popularity of a topic or business, a featured snippet article can easily be replaced by another article or webpage that comes up with a more updated content.

In fact, so many businesses are using ads that organic results don’t even start until you’re further down the page. But this doesn’t mean that you should ditch all your SEO efforts completely. Your paid advertising should complement your SEO strategy. These two works well together, like butter on toast.

Paid advertising will help you rise to the top in a competitive market and be seen by potential customers. It can also help you promote your next marketing initiative, improve brand awareness, or rank for difficult keyword terms.

Put simply, PPC is one of the effective strategies in getting to the top of your niche. And, if done responsibly, PPC can be an integral move to your inbound marketing strategy.

SEO vs PPC

As mentioned earlier, SEO can work without PPC, but PPC cannot work without SEO. As a business owner, you will always need to build keyword-optimized content on your website, whether intentional or not. Here is a rundown of the difference between SEO and PPC, and how you can make them work to your advantage.

• SEO is very strategic. This is best for building credibility on your website and brand as a whole. SEO starts from when you’re first building your website user interface (UI), to creating informative landing pages, and regular content. Though its rules are constantly changing and it’s getting more competitive, this is also its advantage.
• SEO is cumulative. Your content reach, and your website/brand authority grows over time. SEO is best for building long-term organic reach and credibility. You achieve this by putting out regular quality content for your followers, and use PPC to expand your audience.
• PPC is very practical. It works for beginners in getting their brand across, and it also works for established businesses to gain leverage. You only pay when somebody clicks, not when your ad shows up. It is more of a one-off thing, but you can use the data from your PPC reach to study your leads, and improve your targeting.

For a quality content or advertisement to be effective, both PPC and SEO must be implemented.

For best results, PPC should be done first to reach more audience, and then establish your brand with SEO. Keep learning by using both PPC and SEO to get results. Use PPC results to optimize SEO campaigns, and lay the groundwork for long-term organic reach.

DEFINITION OF TERMS

Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

The objective of all forms of digital advertising is to rank for a target keyword, and that can be done in a number of ways. Search Engine Marketing (SEM) refers to any digital marketing (paid or unpaid) done on a search engine, like Google, Yahoo, or Bing.

SEM is an umbrella term that encompasses both paid advertising and search engine optimization. This means ranking organically for keywords.

It’s important to note that not all PPC occurs on search engines. Social media has PPC ads, too. There’s Facebook ‘boosting’, and Instagram sponsored posts.

Cost-Per-Click (CPC)

Cost-per-click (CPC) is the amount that an advertiser pays for each click on your ad. CPC acts as your bid in an auction that determines where your ad will be placed.

As you can imagine, a higher bid equates to better ad placement. You set your CPC at the maximum price you are willing to pay per click on your ad.

What you actually pay is determined by the following formula:

(Competitor’s Ad Rank / Your Quality Score) + 0.01 = Actual CPC.

Ad Rank

This value determines the position of an ad on a search engine results page.

It’s equal to Maximum Bid x Quality Score.

Quality Score

This is the score that search engines give to your ad based on your clickthrough rate (CTR).

It is measured against the average CTR of ads in that position, the relevance of your keywords, the quality of your landing page, and your past performance on the SERP.

Maximum Bid

This is the maximum you are willing to pay per click on you ad.

It is also good to note that you can set your CPC into two categories: Manual and Enhanced.

• Manual is where you determine the maximum bid for your ads.
• Enhanced which allows the search engines to adjust your bid based on your goals. One of this enhanced option involves bid strategies that automatically adjust your bids based on wither clicks or conversions.

PPC vs. CPC

PPC refers to a style of marketing that includes paying for advertisements while CPC on the other hand refers to the amount of money you spend on a single click on your ad.

CPM (Cost per Mile)

CPM or also known as cost per thousand, is the cost per one thousand impressions. It’s most commonly used for paid social and display ads.

Campaign

The first step in setting up your PPC ads is determining your ad campaign. You can think of your campaign as the key message, or theme, you want to get across with your advertisements.

Ad Group

One size doesn’t fit all. That’s why you’ll create a series of ads within your campaign based on a set of highly related keywords. You can set a CPC for each ad group that you create.

Keywords

Each ad within your ad group will target a set of relevant keywords or key terms. These keywords tell search engines which terms or search queries you want your ad to be displayed alongside in SERPs.

Once you determine which keywords perform best, you can set a micro CPC just for keywords within your ads.

Ad Text

Your keywords should inform your ad text. Remember, your Quality Score is determined by how relevant your ad is, therefore, the text in your ad, and landing page for that matter, should match the keyword terms that you’re targeting.

Landing Page

A landing page is a critical piece of your paid advertising strategy. The landing page is where users will end up once they click your PPC ad.

Whether it’s a dedicated webpage, your homepage, or somewhere else, make sure to follow landing page best practices to maximize conversions.

The Takeaway

Setting up and launching your first PPC campaign can both be exciting and daunting. Now you can get started on researching your keywords, testing out different visuals and headlines, to find the most effective approach. You can then set landing pages to convert website visitors into customers.

The fact remains that there is no room to be complacent with digital marketing. It’s an exciting job, as the rules get constantly updated and you learn more strategies as you go along. Make sure you keep an eye on your competitors, and continue refining and optimizing for best results. All the best!

The blog article was originally published on our Creative Performance unit, Odd1Out Digital’s website. Visit their site to see more content focused on creative performance marketing!

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is a necessity in this digital era. It is the modern-day strategy in establishing brands and expanding their business’ influence, with the ultimate goal of revenue growth.

Businesses know the double-edged truth: The internet changed the marketing landscape forever. These new media, partnered with advanced technology, have changed the way businesses reach customers. The biggest thing has to be data analytics. It is the study of individuals’ digital footprint, and coming up with marketing strategies to influence them.

The giant behind all these forms of digital content is Google, which is the king of all search engines. Other players such as Bing and Yahoo follow behind. There’s no better way to boost your online visibility but to work along with the algorithms set by Google or other search engines. SEM, also known as search advertising, is just one of the many forms of online marketing.

1. Understand SEO and SEM: Their differences and combined power

While both processes want the same result from the search engines, which is to gain more popularity and higher rankings, their functions work differently.

SEO produces content that meets the search engine algorithms and metrics to gain a higher ranking in the search results. The content strictly follows specific structure guidelines, and requires link building for wider reach. The term “organic” in SEO comes from effective keyword placement, thus earning a top spot in the Google search results, with minimal to no cost. Websites know that it is in creating regular quality content that builds a website’s credibility and ultimately, organic reach for their target audience.

SEM serves the opposite. This digital strategy uses paid advertisements for instant placement in the search engine results pages, or SERPs. It can be costly, but it is very efficient to procure a huge quantity of clicks, traffic, and conversions. By targeting the right audience and estimated traffic-dense time, it can give you optimal results.

Moreover, the two can go together. Using a content structured with SEO guidelines makes an effective paid ad.

2. Understand how PPC Advertising works

Attached to SEM is PPC, which means pay-per-click. It’s an online advertising strategy that buys clicks from internet users into the site. Paid content is usually located on top of the SERPs, and it bears a tag saying, “Ad” or “Sponsored.”

Internet users often choose only from the first page of the search result. This is why businesses compete with and invest lots of money in getting to the top spot. Individuals also linger with the first five content on that page for further options. Through PPC advertising, the placement of paid ads is convenient for businesses doing the advertisement, as well as for the consumer. It will immediately catch the internet user’s attention, especially if the content advertised matched the keywords that the user typed in.

When a user visits your website through the paid ad, the advertising business pays the search engine with the corresponding fee. An effective PPC ad brings you more audience, and the accumulated visits are the agenda of this strategy. It translates to an upward graph of clicks and traffic, and eventually, to conversions. Comparing the PPC fees to sales conversions is usually shown with huge profit, and this is why PPC remains a favorite among businesses old and new.

However, the misunderstanding and misuse of PPC ads can be a huge expense. It’s really important to learn the ways on how to do it right, and learn from others’ mistakes.

3. Build the correct Account Structure

Along with keyword research, the account structure holds significance with the internet advertising process. An account with the correct structure must have these five components:

• • Ad campaigns – the set of advertisement messages for a product, service, or company.
  • Ad groups – a group of similar and relevant ad campaigns.
  • Keywords – the words and phrases people usually search for.
  • Ad text – the context used to promote the business.
  • Landing pages – the business website where the link will redirect leads or potential customers to.

 

• Ad campaigns – the set of advertisement messages for a product, service, or company.
• Ad groups – a group of similar and relevant ad campaigns.
• Keywords – the words and phrases people usually search for.
• Ad text – the context used to promote the business.
• Landing pages – the business website where the link will redirect leads or potential customers to.

By following the hierarchy of these components, business will get a higher number of click through rates (CTR), without spending so much on the ads.

4. Perform a smart Keyword Research

Thorough keyword research plays a huge part for SEO and SEM practices. In SEO, content is king, but in SEM, the keyword is the foundation. People type in millions of search queries every day, and these queries hold the magic keywords for businesses to utilize for effective search advertising.

But the question is, “How do you do keyword research?”

First, you must know the keywords and keyword phrases relevant to your business. Then, you should find out the keywords that the target audience use, be it exact, equivalent, or derived. The list of words you gathered should be incorporated into your search engine marketing campaigns. It also requires a deeper understanding of your target market and demographics.

You can already identify the keywords commonly typed by internet users through Google (Suggestions on the search box, People also ask, and Search related). You can also use website like LSI Keywords to look for relevant keywords to use for certain niche or topics.

5. Use tools to create a list of high-performing keywords

If your business has been established and you’re ready to go the extra mile, there are available tools and software to collect a list of specific keywords.

The set of keywords for businesses should be:

• related to the high-performing traffic drivers
• comprehensive that it covers all necessary information
• dynamic as product and services constantly change

By the keyword research, you also get a database of useful details for your campaign ads. You learn the keyword that works best for you and what doesn’t. This includes what other businesses or your competitors effectively use for their brand. You can study all these information and apply it for your own business, too. Depending on the tool you’re using, you also get information like the search volume, rankings, and trends.

6. Utilize Google Ads

As previously mentioned, Google is the largest search engine. So, the biggest platform to employ paid advertising is Google. Google Ads (or formerly, Google AdWords) is the number one and most trusted system for PPC advertising. This system allows the business to make use of the search engine itself and the Google-related properties to boost their online presence.

The process involves the same PPC ad system: Bidding of keywords and paying per click. Google Ads, moreover, rates the advertisers through their cost per click (how much you’re willing to pay), and quality score (performance of your landing page) as to who will get the paid ad slot.

It’s a myth that businesses with a higher bid for CPC get the reward on search engine marketing. It’s all about the quality score, performance of the website, relevance of keywords, and creativity of the ad copy.

This is why every business should learn how to use SEM, PPC, and SEO strategically to maximize their profit, and generate more leads.

The blog article was originally published on our Creative Performance unit, Odd1Out Digital’s website. Visit their site to see more content focused on creative performance marketing!