Top PPC Platforms to Run Your Digital Ad Campaigns
The unlimited amount of businesses popping up every day vying for the limited number of clients requires a targeted approach to marketing. Digital marketing has provided varied options to overcome this hurdle and reach out to the masses like no other form of marketing in the past has been able to do. This refreshing new take has helped in taking businesses to global platforms shattering geographical boundaries that were a hindrance in their successful marketing campaigns.
Search engine marketing or SEM has been used by small startups and well established brands to reach their target audience in a better and more precise manner. Through paid advertising search engine marketing makes use of digital marketing strategies to enhance brand visibility. It does so by using either pay-per-click ads or PPC and search engine optimization or SEO. It refers to paid advertising using PPC and also organic search activities involving SEO.
Here, we will explore why should you use PPC ads, types of PPC ads, and the top PPC platforms to run ad campaigns.
Why should you use PPC ads?
The importance of Pay-Per-Click Ads has seen a massive shift since its emergence. It has recently been the most popular choice of marketing tools for advertisers. Because of immense online competition its ability to provide customized variations based on the different types of PPC ads that it has to offer it has gained popularity recently. It offers targeted advertising that is unmatched with effective cost control. The results are easier to analyze since they are measureable. The results are also immediate which helps in making it ideal for businesses looking for fast ROI. The choice between different types of PPC ads makes it more flexible for the advertisers hence they can adapt to the ever changing algorithms and customer behavior and optimize the campaign accordingly. It increases brand visibility tremendously. With the rapid increase of the consumers dependency on social media PPC is essential for reaching out to users on the go. PPC also allows retargeting of the users which enhances the chance of conversion.
Types of PPC Ads
PPC ads are easy to customize based on the brands requirements they can be either texts, images, videos or a combination of all three and they can be shown across different platforms like search engines, websites and social media apps. The PPC campaigns may differ from one platform to another but the main idea is to design a campaign best suited to your brand’s objective and after refining settings related to the target audience the next logical step is coming up with a bidding strategy based on your budget and then a clear cut well defines landing page will help you build your ad.
There are a wide variety of different kinds of PPC ads designed to cater to specific audiences depending on the platform.
Also Read: How PPC & SEO Can Help You Skyrocket Your Website’s Success?
1. Search Ads:
Search ads are text based and they work by showing the relevant information when a user types the specific keywords appearing at the top of the search engine results. This is the most commonly used form of PPC ads.
2. Display Ads:
Display ads may include text, images and multimedia or a combination of all of these. They help in increasing brand visibility and this type of PPC ads are crucial to creating brand awareness because they are visually engaging.
3. Video Ads:
Video ads usually play during online videos and the best example for this is YouTube ads. They can either play before or during the video content or alongside the video content.
Also Read: How to Run B2B LinkedIn Ads for Maximum Results?
4. Dynamic Ads:
Dynamic ads are used in e-commerce where personalization and retargeting is required. It is a type of PPC ad that automatically generates ad content based on a user’s behavior, preferences, demographics and other data. This personalization makes them relevant to each individual user.
5. Click-to-Call Ads:
The purpose of this type of PPC ads is to basically make sure the user is encouraged to call a business by clicking on a specific link. This reduces the gap between the business and the user and provides immediate and direct communication without delay.
6. Lead Generation Ads:
This type of PPC ad is specifically designed to collect information from potential customers aiming to generate leads. Once users fill out the lead form directly appearing in the ad the process of following up with leads and then ultimately converting them into paying customers is initiated.
Also Read: 7 Challenges With Social Media Marketing Right Now
Top PPC Platforms to Run Ad Campaigns
1. Google Ads:
Despite the constant emergence of new platforms Google ads have truly stood the test of time. They are the largest PPC platform with an unmatched popularity among the advertisers which is why they have the highest bids also. With over 90,000 search queries that it gets every second Google ads is the best way to reach your target audience. Studies suggest that video ads get 5x more engagement than text or image ads and by reaching more than over 2 billion users per month all over the globe Youtube ads are your best bet if you use it to reach out to your potential customers. It also offers different variations of ads like skippable video ads, non skippable video ads, bumper ads, sponsored cards and overlay ads.
2. Meta Ads:
By owning two of the most popular social media platforms Facebook and Instagram Meta ads are bound to generate traffic and get you the leads that your business needs to reach its full potential in a short time. Since it uses interests, demographics, location and other aspects of the behavior of the consumer along with the option to seamlessly blend the ad into the social feed reaching the targeted audience through Meta ads has no match. Meta ads offer various ad formats, targeting options and analytical tools to enhance the potential outreach.
Also Read: 5 Benefits of Running Google Shopping Ads?
3. Microsoft Ads:
Microsoft ads are a valuable platform for running SEM campaigns. These are highly effective considering the options it provides for keyword targeting, ad extensions, conversion tracking and ad scheduling. It also lets the advertisers to add negative keywords to eliminate irrelevant search terms reaching targeted audience more precisely. Formerly known as Bing it will help to run PPC campaigns not only on the Bing search engine but also other Microsoft owned properties like Yahoo and AOL. Microsoft ads can further compliment your SEM campaigns across other platforms like Google ads.
4. LinkedIn Ads:
Owned by Microsoft LinkedIn is another platform that targets a host of professional individuals that can not only help a brand gain visibility but also help to create awareness among competitors and attract future employees as well. A multifaceted approach makes it a unique platform that may help achieve the required goals established for the brand or business. Another important factor is its outreach to the B2B community which makes targeting a specific audience easy and approachable.
Other than these major options there are a wide variety of PPC platforms that cater to specific target audience but are less popular including Twitter ads, Pinterest Ads, Quora Ads and Amazon advertising to name a few.
The better approach would be to design ad campaigns that go across platforms owned by a single advertising campaign. If you need further assistance on how to do that we at Syncfour will be happy to help you. Assisting you in designing and then managing a successful search engine marketing campaign by providing you the best team who will not only help you in placing the right bids for PPC but also efficiently utilize the data received to improve the SEO strategy as well. The best of both these options will ensure the increase in organic traffic and placing only the relevant bids will increase your chances of a budget friendly ad campaign.
