What is a PPC agency? How it can help me?
Are you struggling to get enough traffic to your website to make it profitable? If you are, then PPC could be a good way to get a traffic injection to your site.
You can do carry out PPC advertising by yourself, but if done incorrectly, you can burn through a lot of money without getting very many sales. To help with this, many businesses use the expertise of a PPC agency.
This blog will discuss what PPC is, how a PPC agency can help, and what kinds of PPC agencies are available.
What does PPC stand for?
PPC stands for Pay Per Click. It is an advertising method where the advertiser enters an auction system where the highest bidders get their adverts to appear on a particular platform.
The advertiser only pays when their advert is clicked. For example, the below example shows that the first two results are paid for results. This is because the first two listings mention ’Ad’ on the left-hand side, while the third listing does not have the ‘Ad’ message.
With Online Pay Per Click marketing, ads are placed strategically on various websites depending on the advertising platform being used and the campaign being created.
For example, ads can appear on Google and Bing’s search results in the form of text ads and Shopping ads that contain an image. They can also appear as image ads on third-party sites and within social media feeds.
How much do you pay for a click?
So, you now have a basic understanding of what PPC is and how it works. If you’re considering utilising PPC marketing, you may be wondering how much a click costs.
It isn’t easy to give an exact cost per click (CPC) figure. It depends on how high up on the page you want to appear and the specific niche you’re in.
For example, if you’re selling wheelie bins, then your average click prices are likely to be somewhere around £0.30 – £1. If you’re looking for leads for accident claims, then your CPCs can range somewhere around £50 – £100.
Advertisers can get an idea of the CPCs to expect in their niche by using the Google Keyword Planner tool.
The Google Keyword Planner tool can give PPC marketers an idea of the amount of search volume for their chosen keywords, some related keywords they may not have thought of, and how competitive the keyword is.
It can also give PPC marketers an idea of what an aggressive bid and a not so aggressive bid would look like for their chosen keyword.
Outsourcing your PPC
PPC marketing can be a great addition to your existing online marketing efforts. PPC advertising on Google Ads can be relatively quick and simple to set up.
However, setting it up well enough so that you’re in a good position to get a profitable return on your investment can be challenging. There are so many different targeting options available to PPC marketers on Google Ads.
On Google Ads, advertisers can target people based on their search term, device, location, audience type, gender and age group, to name a few. It is also important to get the ad copy and landing page right. For this reason, many businesses opt to outsource their PPC marketing efforts to a PPC agency.
If you’re looking to outsource your PPC marketing efforts to a PPC agency, then you can either choose to go with a freelance PPC consultant, or a PPC agency. In this blog, we’ll be looking at Outsourcing your PPC advertising efforts to a PPC agency.
How can a PPC agency help?
If you’re weighing up the benefits of using a PPC agency compared to managing a PPC account by yourself, then here are five ways that a PPC agency can help you.
Account optimisation
The first and most obvious reason for using a PPC agency is that they should run a PPC account better than the average person. This is because the PPC consultants working for the PPC agency specialise in this area, which should result in your PPC account performing better.
A good PPC agency should be able to increase your sales or leads within your maximum cost per lead or return on ad spend thresholds.
Budget management
PPC advertising can cover a huge amount of traffic as long as you have the budget to pay for it. If you’re new to PPC advertising, it is easy to burn through a lot of money and get very little returns.
A PPC agency will ensure that you spend your monthly or weekly budget and don’t go too much over or under. They can also help you to decide where to allocate your budget. A starting point on how they would do this is to look at how each campaign is doing, and much more potential volume can be gained from each campaign.
PPC Industry knowledge and advice
Seeing as though PPC agencies are working on PPC accounts all the time, they are at the forefront of PPC advertising. A good PPC agency will be researching new developments and trying new things themselves. PPC, as well as digital marketing, is always changing and evolving. This means that PPC agencies need to keep testing and trying something new to see what works and what doesn’t.
It is difficult for businesses to stay up to date with all the new PPC marketing developments. A PPC agency can help you stay up to date with PPC trends and offer suggestions on new things to test to stay ahead of the competition.
Reporting
All PPC agencies should be creating and sending a report on the performance of your PPC account. PPC reporting can vary between daily, weekly and monthly reporting. Most PPC agencies will send reports weekly and monthly.
A PPC report is a good way for businesses to get an insight into how well their PPC account is performing and what should be done next to improve the performance. If there have been any dips or a massive spike in performance, then the PPC report should be able to show that. You can then dig deeper and try to diagnose what may have caused the fluctuation in performance.
Access to new betas
PPC agencies often have an agency rep for each of the major platforms. Many PPC agencies will have a dedicated Google Ads and Facebook representative that they can reach out to.
Having a representative means that PPC agencies often get notified of new betas that will be available and get insights on the direction that the advertising platform is going in.
If you’re with a PPC agency, then you’re likely to get access to new features and advertising betas as and when they’re available. This could give you an edge over your competitors who may or may not be using the new PPC advertising features
Types of PPC agencies
There are a few types of PPC agencies to consider. Some specialise in one or a few types of PPC advertising while others offer all PPC advertising services.
Below is an explanation of each kind of agency and the differences between them.
PPC agency
Most agencies that offer PPC marketing services will offer all forms of PPC marketing. Whether you need help with paid search, Shopping campaigns, display advertising, video or paid social advertising.
Using a PPC agency that offers all PPC advertising forms can be beneficial if you want to keep all your PPC marketing efforts under one roof. This can be especially beneficial when you have a long sales journey and need reporting that encompasses all of your PPC marketing channels.
Paid social advertising agency
Paid social advertising agencies will specialise in advertising on paid social PPC channels. The most popular advertising platforms for paid social advertising are Facebook and Instagram.
Seeing as though Facebook owns Instagram, paid social advertising on both platforms can be carried out on Facebook. Most people who utilise paid social advertising channels will start with advertising on Facebook before moving onto other platform.
LinkedIn has its advertising platform where it allows businesses to advertise their products and services on its platform. While it generally has higher click prices than some other PPC platforms, LinkedIn can be a good paid advertising channel for B2B businesses.
Other advertising platforms that fall underpaid social are Pinterest ads, Twitter ads, Quora ads, Snapchat ads, TikTok ads and Reddit ads, to name a few.
Remarketing agency
When done correctly, remarketing can have the highest return on investment (ROI) from all your paid marketing campaigns. This is because Remarketing focuses on re-engaging with people who have already interacted with your site.
All the major advertising platforms allow for a remarketing campaign to be created. These include:
- Google Ads
- Microsoft Advertising
- Snapchat
- Quora
While all PPC advertising agencies will have services where they can create a remarketing campaign for you, some agencies offer more specialised remarketing services. Adroll and Criteo Are two examples of this.
Video advertising agency
Video advertising is becoming more and more popular. While there are other platforms, video advertising often involves advertising on Youtube or over the Google Display Network. (GDN).
Video advertising is used more to obtain upper funnel traffic and can be different from other forms of PPC advertising.
A PPC agency that specialises in video advertising can not only help with the advertising side. It may also be able to help with editing a video.
Amazon advertising agency
Amazon PPC advertising is a much newer form of PPC advertising than some of the more popular PPC advertising channels like Google Ads and Facebook. However, it is growing in popularity. Amazon specialist PPC agencies specialise in advertising on Amazon.
The basic principle of advertising on Amazon is very similar to advertising on other PPC platforms like Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising. However, if a large portion of your revenue comes from Amazon, then you may want to consider using a PPC agency that specialises in Amazon advertising.
Lead management agency
Most PPC agencies charge a fee for their services. It is common for agency fees to be based on a day rate or your media spend percentage.
Lead management agencies differ from traditional PPC agencies in that they will only charge you when they secure a lead. Businesses pay a previously agreed amount for each lead that the agency brings to them. This can be quite attractive for businesses that need to increase their leads in a low-risk way.
Lead management agencies will often not share access to the PPC account. You will need to consider how important it is for you to keep the data within the PPC account.
Wrapping up
In this blog, we explained what a PPC agency is, how they can help your business, and the types of PPC agencies out there. If you’re doing PPC advertising or are considering getting started with PPC advertising, then a PPC agency could help to increase your leads or sales.
Whilst researching the right PPC agency for you, make sure you understand the main type of PPC advertising that you would require and then find an agency that best matches your needs.
—
