Pay-per-click (PPC) Platforms: Key Benefits And How To Pick The Right One For Your Business

Did you know that by the end of 2023, businesses worldwide are projected to spend more than $600 billion on digital ads alone?

How did we come to this? Before online ads existed, the only advertising opportunities for businesses were TV, radios, newspapers, magazines, and billboards. However, these advertising mediums rarely encouraged viewers to immediately purchase the advertised products. As a result, businesses never directly saw any return on their ad dollars.

The introduction of PPC (pay-per-click) advertising changed that. PPC platforms enabled higher ROI advertising with real, trackable results that can be directly attributed to ad spend. Today, advertisers all over the world employ Kuwait digital marketing companies in order to sign up for PPC platforms that target high-intent online markets and help them gain brand exposure and sales.

What exactly is PPC?

Pay-per-click (PPC) is a type of digital marketing model and method of buying website traffic (as opposed to earning traffic organically through SEO) through an auction-system in which advertisers pay a fee each time their ads are clicked. The advertiser that bids the most for a targeted keyword or phrase gets the highest exposure on the search engine results page (SERP) when someone types in that specific keyword or phrase. The goal for advertisers is to create ads that target those keywords, drive traffic to their website, and generate leads or sales.

However, paid search in the form of text results on SERPs is just one of the options offered by PPC platforms today. In addition to text-based SERPs, many PPC platforms let advertisers post their ads in the form of:

• Display banner ads
• Embedded videos
• Video ads within videos (e.g: YouTube)
• Native advertising (sponsored) content
• In-app advertisement
• Pop-up ads in websites/apps

There are two main types of PPC models. With a flat-rate model, the advertiser and publisher together decide on a fixed amount to be paid by the advertiser per click. A bid-based model on the other hand, allows advertisers to compete against each other for keywords or phrases that are most relevant to their target audience. The ads appear on SERPs in order of highest bid or relevance.

And although it’s called pay-per-click, or cost-per-click (CPC), there are other bidding options available within PPC that Kuwait online marketing companies can help you equip. These include,

• Pay per thousand impressions, or cost-per-mile (CPM),
• Pay per conversion, or cost-per-acquisition (CPA),
• Cost-per-view (CPV),
• Cost-per-install (CPI),
• Cost-per-lead (CPL)

Long-term Benefits of PPC Marketing

Regardless of the model or bidding strategy chosen, PPC has several long-term benefits:

• It is fully measurable and trackable, so you almost immediately know whether your marketing efforts are worthwhile or not. With PPC, it’s actually possible to attribute credit for each conversion you get. And some PPC platforms also help you track cross-platform and cross-device conversions.
• In business, time is money. A good PPC platform will equip you with all the PPC management features your business needs to make managing campaigns faster and easier. This way, you will be able to spare more time for other management aspects of your business.
• It works great in combination with other marketing strategies. For instance, PPC combined with content marketing and SEO amplifies your business’s overall digital performance. In fact, working with a professional SEO company in Kuwait can give more leverage to your PPC campaign.
• With PPC you can accurately target a specific audience based on their interests and behaviors, especially with the advent of machine learning, which day by day is becoming better at predicting consumer behavior.
• Since you pay for PPC in real-time, you can always test and edit parts of your marketing campaign without breaking the bank. You can add new ads and audiences depending on what works well for you and still stay within your monthly budget.
• With paid search, you can display your ad when someone is specifically searching for your product/service. You can capitalize on this high user intent by showing ads to those who are already interested.
• PPC minimizes risks and maximizes flexibility. Unlike other traditional pre-paid marketing campaigns, you can pause, stop, and restart PPC campaigns whenever you wish. This is great for startups whose advertising dollars may keep fluctuating.

Of course, having a working search engine optimization (SEO) technique and an exceptional web design is crucial to the quality and success of your digital marketing campaign. But a paid advertising strategy that is planned correctly can be just as valuable as organic advertising methods. As it turns out, according to WebFX, users who click on a PPC ad are 50% more likely to invest in your product/service than those who simply visit your site through organic content.

What To Look For In A PPC Platform

Now that you know the many benefits of PPC marketing, it’s time to choose a PPC platform that perfectly suits your business. Since there are so many advertising platforms out there (which we’ll get into in the upcoming blog), let’s discuss some of the key characteristics you should be looking for in a PPC platform.

1. Management features

   A good PPC platform will include management features that make it easy for you to manage your campaigns, track results, and make changes along the way. These features include but are not limited to campaign analysis, keyword tracking, bid management, performance reporting, automated tasks, conversion tracking, etc. Choose a platform that includes features that can track your specific goals. Alternatively, compile a list of online advertising companies in Kuwait that can do it for you. This will ensure that your campaign runs smoothly.

2. Analytics and Reporting

   Analytics and reporting features on PPC platforms make it far easier to understand your results. PPC platforms that offer detailed campaign reports that include your CTRs, CPCs, conversion rates, etc, will help you better identify what is working well, and what parts of your strategy could be improved. Ensure that your chosen PPC platform provides real-time reporting so you can adjust your ad placements as and when you deem necessary.

3. Pricing

   As mentioned above, there are different types of PPC models that either charge per click or take a flat fee. Make sure the platform you choose offers the kind of model that meets your marketing budget.

4. Customer Support

   When availing any kind of service, it’s in your best interest to check out the kind of customer service offered. By ensuring robust customer support through live chat, email, phone, etc,. you will be able to take help whenever you need it and run your campaigns smoothly.

5. Target Audience

   Your PPC platform should allow you to target an audience by their location, demographics, interests, etc., and also retarget those who have already visited you online, or clicked/viewed your ads.

Choosing the right PPC platform can make or break your business’s PPC campaign. By understanding the long-term benefits of PPC marketing and by knowing what to look for in a PPC platform, you can reach the correct target audience, track results more accurately, make appropriate campaign changes along the way, and in general, better meet your business’s PPC needs. At Design Master, one of the top digital marketing companies in Kuwait, our web marketing team will formulate a custom PPC campaign for you and select keywords that best represent your brand and help you generate leads, increase sales, and promote brand awareness.

Want to know the most popular PPC platforms out there and the pros and cons of each? Stay tuned for our next blog!

In the meantime, check out our page and the kind of Kuwait digital marketing services we offer. Or get in touch with us to learn more.