How Effective Is PPC?

Many people who are new to Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising want to know how effective it is in helping them achieve their business goals. That’s a reasonable question considering the amount of budget spend required each month to run or even test campaigns.

The truth is that many advertisers have found PPC advertising in Google Ads to be very effective. In fact, the average return on ad spend is 200% and that means £2 is made for every £1 spent.

That’s a healthy return and many advertising platforms don’t come anywhere close to this. And there are many businesses, of the over 5 million businesses that advertise in Google Ads that see returns of up to 2000% and more.

However, the return you get will depend on a number of factors and there are things you can do to make that improve. And here are some of them:

Check your ads regularly

Spend time reviewing your ads and campaigns each week and month to ensure you can achieve your goals.

It’s important that you monitor and manage your ads to ensure they become effective. And one of the reasons why many advertisers don’t see effective campaigns is because they ignore this important part and never see the results.

There are many reports in Google Ads that will help you with this including the search terms report which you can find in your keywords tab. It shows you the actual searches you are getting and you can block any that are not relevant by adding them as negative keywords.

Update your search terms

The search terms report is arguably the most important report in your Search and Shopping campaigns. It shows you the actual searches that your ads are getting and some may be very different from the keywords that you’re bidding on.

And you should block any searches that are not relevant by adding them as negative keywords.

This will make your ads more effective and improve your return on ad spend.

Update your recommendations

When you create and run your campaign, you’ll get regular recommendations to improve them. These recommendations are based on the system’s analysis of your campaigns and suggestions that it believes will help to improve them.

Some of these recommendations will be relevant, but some won’t. So you should apply the ones that are and dismiss the irrelevant.

You will then see your Optimisation score improve and also see an improvement in the effectiveness of your ads.

Do competitor and keyword research

One way to ensure effective ads in Google Ads is by carrying out keyword research and researching your competitors.

This will equip  you with the data you need to setup your Search campaign and create targeted ad groups.

The competitor research will bring up a list of searches and keywords that your competitors are appearing for. And a platform like SERanking which has a competitor tool helps you with this research.

Some of the keywords you find here will be helpful and you can include them in your campaigns. And the Keyword Planner tool in Google Ads will also help you with research and forecasting your likely monthly spend.

Conclusion

So, as explained above, Google Ads is a very effective advertising platform with many businesses using it as their primary advertising channel. And the return on ad spend for the millions that use it is impressive. So, creating ads and testing them for some weeks or months will help you see how effective it is for your business.

Get in Touch

I’m a Google Ads consultant and freelance PPC expert and I’ve helped thousands of businesses over the years with PPC setup, management and training. Contact me below to find out how I can help your business.