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17 Best Online Advertising Tools for Marketers (Tried & Tested)

Ria Gran — Mon, 19 Feb 2024 12:51:56 +0000

Online marketers, especially those handling multiple accounts, are all too familiar with the tedious process of setting up and running campaigns in online advertising.

This continuous cycle involves extensive research, intricate design work, and in-depth analysis. As long as there’s a budget in place, the demands of these tasks seem never-ending.

However, just as seasoned sailors rely on modern navigation tools to make their voyages manageable, marketers have a treasure trove of online advertising and ad intelligence tools at their disposal.

In this article, we feature 17 of the most dependable online advertising tools you can use for running PPC campaigns. We break it down to phases, starting off with:

Keyword and Competitor Research Tools

Crucial to the setup is getting a grasp of the market, and that includes your audience and competitors. The more you know about your customers, the easier it becomes to reach them. This makes keyword research crucial and worthy of some focus and time before starting any campaign. Likewise, the more you know about your competitors, the better you get at outperforming them.

1. Semrush

Semrush is an exceptional partner in building PPC campaigns with its powerful keyword research tools. Starting at $129.95 a month, the platform makes it easy to examine your competitors’ strategy and compare it to yours.

The best way to use Semrush for PPC is by using the data the Advertising Research Tool provides to get ahead of your advertising competitors. Using keywords you plan on targeting, you can discover competitors and study how they’re incorporating those keywords into their ad copies.

If you need ideas on keywords to target, the Keyword Magic Tool can generate keyword ideas by monthly search volume, search difficulty, cost-per-click data, and even competitive density.

The Domain Overview feature on Semrush is also great to use if you’re starting off with a list of your competitors’ websites. This feature can provide you paid traffic data on any domain, which can allow you to understand where you have a chance of outdoing them in terms of paid advertising.

Another noteworthy online advertising tool within the Semrush platform is BuzzGuru — an all-in-one influencer marketing platform that helps brands manage their entire influencer marketing campaign cycle in one place. It offers a variety of features, including competitor intelligence, influencer discovery, reporting and analysis, and campaign management.

With BuzzGuru’s competitor intelligence feature, you can evaluate your competitors’ ad campaign budgets, perform market and trends analysis, and discover the influencers that leading brands work with. You can also learn about the preferred dates and time of promotion, and discover videos promoting or mentioning a particular website, app, or game.

Price: Starts at $129.95/mo

Get 2-week free access to Semrush Pro ($65 value)

Note: BuzzGuru is a part of the Semrush App Center. It costs $169/mo. Each app, plugin, and extension within the App Center is hand-picked by the Semrush team. The products are designed to seamlessly integrate with other Semrush services.

Try BuzzGuru for free

2. SpyFu

Another tool you may consider for competitor research is SpyFu. Starting at $39 per month, you can run queries on the platform and gain a preview of your competitors’ paid advertising strategy.

Similar to Semrush, SpyFu allows you to see a list of keywords your competitors are targeting, as well as the various ads they’re running.

A great feature in SpyFu is its PPC Ad Rank Tracker, which intelligently shows you ranking progress and impression share on your most effective keywords. Using this data, you can get actionable insights and focus only on the ads that are bringing in results, which can help you spend your ad budget more effectively.

Price: Starts at $39/mo

3. Google Keyword Planner

Google has a free keyword research tool that allows you to understand what your market is searching for. The Google Keyword Planner is free to use, and you can access it just by creating a Google Ads account.

There are two ways you can use the Google Keyword Planner, which are:

Find keywords: Enter words, phrases, or a URL related to your business and get keyword ideas that can help you reach your potential market;
Get search volume and forecasts: See historical metrics for keywords you wish to target, as well forecasts for how they might perform in the future.

Both options take you to the Keyword Plan where you can filter suggestion results by language and even down to a particular town. In our opinion, the Google Keyword Planner’s strength is being a handy keyword research tool if you’re looking to run area-specific campaigns. Check out the article we wrote on maximizing this powerful tool in creating effective campaigns on Google Ads.

Price: Free

4. Ahrefs

Last on the research tools list is Ahrefs, a paid toolset that starts at $99 a month, is mostly used for SEO, but is also a great aid for understanding your market’s language. The platform stores tons of industry data and presents them in a neat and accessible user interface.

In our post on using the Google Keyword Planner to create effective ads, we also point out how low budget campaigns can fare better with the use of long-tailed keywords. With keywords composed of four words or more, you can target subtopics in your niche and improve your ads’ chances of appearing in related searches.

Ahrefs has a feature called the Keyword Explorer, where you can type in a parent topic and generate a list of long-tailed keyword ideas from over 5 search engines, including YouTube, Bing, Yahoo, Amazon, Yandex, and Baidu.

Price: Starts at $99/mo

Ad Creation Tools

Once you’ve figured out how your market is looking for your products or services through keyword and competitor research, it’s time to grab their attention with stunning ads that speak to them. For a small team, hiring a graphic designer for this task may be too costly. Luckily, a number of web-based solutions are available nowadays, and the ones we’re about to feature have free-to-use versions.

1. Canva

Canva is a web-based tool you can use to easily create striking display ads. While it’s free to use with limited templates and features, the pro version starting at $9.95 per month allows you to resize your creations to any format – perfect if you’re looking to A/B test different ad sizes.

The best thing about Canva is that it helps you produce professional material in less time, and with less costs. Its web ads templates include sizes for Facebook, as well as skyscraper, rectangle, and leaderboard sizes for Google Ads. The templates are already very customizable in the free version, and you can upload your own assets for branded campaigns.

Price: Free; $9.95/mo for the pro version

2. Smart Ads Creator

Smart Ads Creator is a free design tool from online advertising advisor, WordStream. It’s completely free and quickly creates display ads for you from grabbing copy, colors, and images from a landing page you provide.

If you need to do a little more tweaking to the tool’s initial output, it allows you to upload more images and customize text, colors, and element positions. However, where it really proves itself as a timesaver is in its capability to automatically build ads for you in seven different standard sizes on the Google Display Network.

If you ask any graphic designer, it’s the manual resizing of assets that can take up so much time. Smart Ads Creator takes care of that, so you can focus on creating ads that attract.

Price: Free

3. Crello

Last on the designing tools list is Crello, a graphic design software featuring pre-made image and video templates for advertising on social media. The premium version is priced at $81 per year and includes over 25,000 professional looking templates, plus the capability to add your own brand elements to your creations.

Crello was created by Depositphotos, so the platform also comes with more than 60 million stock images you can use for your designs. If you use a lot of videos for advertising, its intuitive video editor allows you to cut a huge chunk of time usually spent editing promotional videos. It comes with video templates in various sizes, so you don’t have to manually readjust like you would on a traditional video editing platform.

Price: Free; $9.99/mo for the pro plan (when priced monthly)

Landing Page Builders

Majority of advertisers waste their time and money on PPC because they can create ads that catch attention, but not landing pages that convert. How you structure your landing pages largely influence your conversion rates, hence it’s crucial to put thought into building them, and customize them for each audience you are targeting. Here are landing page builders that can make all that work a breeze.

1. Instapage

Instapage is a leading landing page builder that helps marketers create more relevant advertising with less effort. It allows anyone, without any background in design or coding, to create professional sales pages and A/B test them regularly. Instapage offers a free trial and starts at $99 a month.

Overall, it’s the ease of use that Instapage provides that makes it worth adding to your PPC toolkit. Its elegant and intuitive visual editor is a top feature for most of its users, as well as its use case page templates. Pages you can create in Instapage are also fully customizable, and can be integrated without the need for coding to any software you might be already using.

Price: Starts at $99/mo (Sign up for a 14-day free trial)

2. Unbounce

Similar to Instapage is Unbounce, a landing page platform of choice for marketers for its ease of use. It has received praise from various agencies for becoming an indispensable tool in their PPC toolkit, offering value for money with its paid version starting at only $79 a month.

Like Instapage, Unbounce also boasts an intuitive drag-and-drop editor and over 100 use case templates. It’s also easy to integrate it with email platforms such as Mailchimp and AWeber, and analytics tools like Google Analytics. Given that Unbounce is more affordable than Instapage, it’s a good choice to go for if you’re a marketer who doesn’t need to collaborate with a team when creating campaigns.

Price: Starts at $79/mo

3. HubSpot Landing Page Builder

HubSpot has developed a variety of tools for marketing and sales, including a landing page tool packed with additional features to help you convert more customers. Its cheapest tier starts at $50 a month and already includes the landing page tool along with other features.

HubSpot has been a known leader in creating marketing solutions, hence, offering products that are versatile and cost-efficient. The starting tier is packed with capabilities such as email marketing, a simple CRM tool, analytics, and social media tracking – making it a powerful and complete tool for bigger teams looking for an all-in-one platform.

Because HubSpot is packed with so many features, it can admittedly be hard to navigate for beginners. HubSpot has thought this through by providing a good deal of resources and prompt customer service, which is another plus to using this great platform.

Price: Starts at $50/mo

4. Leadpages

Last in the post-click support tools list is Leadpages, another favorite among marketers for building landing pages that capture and convert. It’s the cheapest option among all the landing page builders we featured, starting at only $25 per month for its Standard plan.

Like the others, Leadpages provides everything you need in a landing page builder, such as a visual editor, plugins, and over 100 use case templates. Although its templates look less professional compared to the ones in Instapage and Unbounce, it’s a no-fuss builder, which is a great option if you only need a landing page and already use other platforms for analytics and CRM.

Price: Starts at $25/mo

Reporting Automation Tools

Last, but definitely also a phase you want to do right, is analyzing your campaign’s performance. Marketers usually manage ad campaigns on various platforms, hence reporting and campaign management can be time-consuming. The following tools can aggregate all the information needed for reports and analysis, which can cut a significant amount of time usually spent on this last part of the PPC advertising cycle.

1. Optmyzr

Whether you manage campaigns for multiple clients or handle your own, Optmyzr is a PPC management tool that makes staying on top of all your campaigns way easier. It offers 3 pricing plans that start at $499 per month, which allows you to access all its core features, automations, as well as connect up to 25 ad accounts.

Optmyzr was awarded Best PPC Management Software Suite at the 2018 U.S. Search Awards, and it’s no surprise with the platform’s ability to provide an in-depth evaluation of your campaigns on a weekly and monthly basis.

One key feature is its ability to provide useful information to optimize an ad account. On top of that, it can track a campaign’s quality score over time, allowing you to understand which parts of your optimization contributed to improvements in campaign performance.

Price: Starts at $499/mo

2. Reporting Ninja

Another tool that can aid analyzing campaign performance is Reporting Ninja, an easy-to-use PPC reporting tool that allows you to create custom reports and dashboards for Google Ads, Bing, Facebook, Instagram, and more. It offers 4 paid plans, starting at $20 per month, which allows you to generate up to 10 reports, as well as add up to 4 account managers.

Reporting Ninja allows full customization of your reports with its editable templates and extensive widget library. Simply drag and drop blocks of information you need on the report editor to create reports for a client, or for you to analyze with ease.

Besides the widget library, you can also create your own metrics, charts, and apply custom filters that allows you to gain insight from figures that may not be available on your selected ad platform’s reporting dashboard.

Price: Starts at $20/mo

3. Marin

Another tool great for marketers who manage multiple ad campaigns is Marin, a PPC management solution made for managing bids in campaigns with thousands of keywords. While it offers a free trial, the paid subscription starts at $499 per month and features predictive bidding, customizable reports, and cross-channel analytics.

Marketers work with Marin for its three main features: the search feature, social feature, and display feature. This versatility allows you to aggregate all kinds of campaigns into one dashboard, making it easy to see which channels are performing better and track your spending each.

Its most compelling capability is its automated bidding, which is useful for campaigns where each penny adds up to thousands. This allows you to take care of other things, assured that your ads attract conversions at the best possible CPA.

Price: Starts at $499/mo

4. Supermetrics

Supermetrics is an elegant one-stop solution for aggregating all your data into one place. With its Data Grabber starting at $19 a month, you can cut down a huge chunk of your time creating reports from data collected by different platforms, and see all you need in one Excel sheet.

The best part about Supermetrics is its flexibility – it offers separate products you can integrate with various data sources such as Google Sheets, BigQuery, and Google Data Studio. Additionally, in saying “all your marketing metrics in one place”, they really mean all, as in your PPC, SEO, and social data.

Price: Starts at $19/mo

5. Adstage

Like Supermetrics, Adstage is a data collection aid that can save marketers countless hours pulling and preparing data in spreadsheets. It also offers a variety of products that allow you to only pay for what you need, as well as product bundles if you need a suite of features to help you with managing your campaigns.

Adstage works incredibly for marketers who need to stay on top of a lot of campaigns. It makes reporting easy, and even allows automation for data sourcing. Although it’s fairly new in the market, it keeps up by offering integrations with modern data collecting platforms, such as Google Sheets and Data Studio.

Price: Starts at $119/mo

6. Google Analytics

If you need an analytics tool that’s free, easy to use, but packs powerful features, Google Analytics is always available. Although it’s not possible to manage a campaign from the platform itself, it does provide a lot of tracking features that can help you run a detailed assessment of your PPC campaign’s performance, such as referral source and keyword tracking.

Price: Free

Over To You

Because online advertising can require creativity from planning to execution, simplifying your work process with tools can be greatly beneficial, as it can free up a lot of the time you spend ‘doing’ when you should be improving. Try taking a look at which tasks in online advertising are taking up most of your time and see if any of the tools we’ve featured work for you and your team.

Editor’s Note: This article was first published on 21 February 2020 and has been updated regularly since then for relevance, freshness, and comprehensiveness.

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6 Reasons You Need to Start Investing in Bing Ads

99signals Editorial — Wed, 01 Apr 2020 10:44:56 +0000

When it comes to PPC ads, most marketers don’t go beyond investing in Google Ads (the erstwhile AdWords). And in some cases, this decision is completely justified. After all, Google dominates PPC ads with a worldwide market share of 92.47% (as of September 2021). And with memes like the one below running rampant on the internet, it’s easy to see why someone would think twice before advertising on Bing.

Here’s the truth! Investing in Bing ads doesn’t mean you need to stop investing in Google Ads. Bing will probably never catch up to Google’s dominance in search engines. This is not a typical “Google Ads vs Bing Ads” article.

Having said that, there are certain features on Bing that are either missing in Google Ads or just simply better. We’ll be highlighting these features and more in this article and help you understand some of the unique benefits of advertising in this platform.

So here are 6 reasons why you should start investing in Bing Ads.

1. Bing Ads are Much Cheaper

The average CPC rates on Google are incredibly steep due to high competition. For small business owners who are doing PPC for the first time, this can perhaps be the biggest hurdle.

On the other hand, Bing has less competition, and CPC rates are cheaper and you’re guaranteed better ad positions. According to WordStream, the average CPC is 33.5% cheaper on Bing when compared to Google.

Furthermore, Bing Ads are often in better positions than their Google counterparts, resulting in higher click-through rates (CTRs) and conversions. This makes Bing ads a far more viable option for small to mid-sized businesses.

So if you’re running on a shoestring PPC budget, Bing is a much more cost effective solution.

2. Bing has Better Device Targeting Options

Bing allows its users to adjust their bids for various device types, including mobile devices and tablets. In other words, you can increase or decrease your bid for traffic coming from desktops, tablets, and smartphones. Furthermore, you can opt out of desktop and tablet searches, and target only mobile searches.

With Google Ads, users can’t opt out of desktop searches. You can of course target searches from mobiles and tablets, but you’d have to do so in conjunction with desktop searches.

3. Bing Allows You to Easily Import Campaigns from Google Ads

This is one of the biggest advantages for Google Ads loyalists who are willing to advertise on Bing. Bing allows you to directly import your ads from Google Ads onto its platform. This means you don’t have to waste time creating new campaigns on Bing.

Most items from Google Ads import seamlessly into Bing Ads but there are a few items you need to review. These include:

Bids and budgets: Bing Ads has different minimum bid and budget requirements than Google Ads. By default, Bing raises any bids and budgets that are too low its minimum requirements. During import setup, you can opt out of these increases, but Bing Ads won’t import campaigns that are below the default minimums.
Targeting options: Targeting options such as location targeting and time of day targeting are significantly different in each platform. You definitely need to review these options on Bing before launching your campaign.
Negative keywords: Bing Ads does not use broad match negative keywords. If you have set up broad match negative keywords in Google Ads, those will be treated as phrase match negative keywords when importing to Bing Ads.

4. Bing Allows You to Control Search Demographics

With Bing Ads, you have the ability to control which gender and age demographics see your ads. This sort of targeting is especially useful for marketers who have their buyer personas in a particular gender or age group.

Google, on the other hand, lets you do demographic targeting only on the Google Display Network, and not on the search network.

5. Bing’s Market Share is Growing, especially in the United States

According to Search Engine Journal, Bing powers nearly one out of every three searches in the U.S. with a market share of 22.8 percent. That’s a huge number of potential customers being ignored by opting out of Bing ads.

Furthermore, comScore data shows Bing’s market share is growing faster than Google’s, owing to the growth of Windows 10, since Bing is integrated throughout the entire desktop operating system.

So if you’re catering to the U.S. market, Bing is an advertising platform you can no longer ignore.

6. Bing has Better Social Extensions

Social extensions are ad extensions placed under your ad copy that direct potential customers to your social accounts. These extensions allow businesses to engage with potential customers more directly and allows users to join conversations with brands on social media.

Bing allows you to add extensions to your Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram business pages.

Conclusion

Bing has less competition and advertisers can enjoy unique features that aren’t available on Google Ads yet. While it’s highly unlikely they’ll ever reach Google Ads’ dominance in the PPC market, it’s time marketers see Bing ads as a formidable advertising platform. As highlighted in this article, investing in Bing Ads can help you reduce costs and drive high-quality traffic back to your site.

What do you think of advertising on Bing? What has been your experience with the platform? Please share your views in the comments section below.

Hope you found this article useful. Please share it on Twitter using the link below:

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Editor’s Note: This article was first published on January 22, 2018 and has been updated regularly since then for relevance and comprehensiveness.

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SEO vs. PPC: Which Is Better for Your Business?

Mario Manlupig Jr — Sat, 14 Mar 2020 15:00:39 +0000

SEO vs. PPC — it’s a long-standing debate we often see in Facebook groups, forums, and everywhere on the web. While this is a legitimate comparison, it’s often viewed from a misguided standpoint.

Many new marketers and businesses still think of SEO and PPC as mutually exclusive. If you approach these search marketing strategies like two warring factions, then you are going to miss out on one profitable opportunity.

To be clear, one is not necessarily better over the other on all accounts. But if you are left with a tough call between SEO and PPC due to budget constraints, it all comes down to understanding what your business needs and goals are.

Did you know that 93% of online experiences begin with a search engine?

There are 1 billion people who use Google search every month. And as of January 2020, Google owns more than 81% of search engine market share, which obviously means Bing, Baidu, Yahoo!, and other search engines go far behind.

The best way to take advantage of this staggering number is through search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising.

In this article, we will do a deep dive into which acquisition strategy is better, or rather, which strategy is right for your business.

Some points we will tackle here:

Overview of SEO and PPC
Difference between PPC and SEO
Pros and cons of SEO and PPC
When to use SEO and PPC
Using SEO and PPC together

To start off, let’s have a quick overview of what SEO and PPC are.

What is SEO?

SEO is the process of optimizing a website and its webpages to increase their organic search visibility in search engines like Google, Yahoo!, and Bing.

And when you say organic, that means without the influence of factors like paid ads and direct traffic.

Search engines use algorithms to identify which websites or pages to show in the search engine results pages (SERPs) for a specific query.

In essence, a critical part of SEO is finding out what search engines consider relevant and then optimizing your website and webpages accordingly.

What is PPC?

In PPC advertising, advertisers pay a publisher only for ads that are clicked.

Google Ads, formerly called Google AdWords, is the most popular PPC advertising platform. It’s even become synonymous with “paid search.” Often these terms are used interchangeably, even though platforms like Bing Ads work similarly. Other PPC advertising platforms include RevContent, AdRoll, and Bidvertiser.

But how does PPC work?

In paid search, advertisers usually bid on keywords or keyphrases relevant to their niche. Advertising platforms like Google Ads and Bing Ads help businesses find new customers through these keywords.

Today, the PPC model has been embraced by social media giants like Facebook, Twitter, and Quora.

Paid social like Facebook Ads and Twitter Ads help social media users find businesses based on their behavior and interests.

Social PPC has been gaining a lot of traction in the last couple of years with giants like Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and LinkedIn making pay-per-click a major advertising model.

To even out the playing field in this SEO vs. PPC debate, we will focus on paid search rather than paid social to refer to PPC advertising.

SEO vs. PPC: Difference Between PPC and SEO

SEO and PPC have two main differences.

First, paid ads are displayed at the top of the first search engine results page (SERP), while organic listings appear just below the paid ads.

Second, traffic that comes from organic listings is free, while traffic from paid ads is paid for per click, thus pay-per-click. The cost per click depends on several factors.

To satisfy your question as to whether you should go after an organic-centric approach or ad-centric approach, let’s take a look at the pros and cons of SEO and PPC and how they stack up against each other.

Pros and Cons of SEO

New Media Campaigns claims that SEO is 5.66 times better than paid search ads.

I’m not entirely sure how they were able to come up with this seemingly random number.

But the thing is, there are so many factors that you have to take into account, and these factors are highly dependent on each individual business.

Hence, one can’t really use the SEO-is-better-than-PPC answer across the board.

But if you ask: “What are the advantages and disadvantages of SEO compared to PPC?” I have the answer for you.

Why Choose SEO

Here are the benefits of SEO vs. PPC:

1. SEO costs less than PPC

Imagine a blog ranking for over a hundred thousand keywords and drives hundreds of thousands of views per month through organic search.

If you were to pay for that traffic through PPC, it would set you back millions of dollars per year.

Hence, investing in your content team is way more cost-efficient than spending on paid search in the grand scheme of things.

2. SEO results compound over time

One reason SEO is better than PPC and traditional marketing strategies is its high potential to bring in compounding ROI over time.

If you ran a content marketing campaign six months ago, the results you will get 12 months from now will be so much bigger than what you are getting at the moment.

Even if you slow down on producing content for a couple of months after your campaign, so long as you are ranking high in the SERPs for the right keywords, your SEO and content efforts can still guarantee you with a steady stream of organic traffic.

For this very reason, SEO is hands down the best marketing channel for long-term, scalable results.

3. SEO drives more clicks

Most searchers ignore paid ads. This translates to organic search results getting 70% of the clicks.

This is an important thing to think about considering PPC occupies more of the above-the-fold content.

Ultimately, it pays to understand the searcher’s intent. But remember, clicks are different from conversions.

Why NOT Choose SEO

SEO is not without flaws. It has its own fair share of disadvantages.

1. SEO takes time

SEO is not the best marketing strategy to use if your goal is to see tangible results in a matter of days or weeks.

But how long does it take for SEO to work?

There’s no clear-cut answer to that question because a lot of factors have to be taken into account. But a rough estimate would be about 4-6 months.

The SEO results you will get within this timeframe are mostly an increase in organic search traffic but not necessarily grabbing the top 10 spots in SERPs.

2. SEO depends on volatile algorithms

SEO might give you a better ROI, but it’s also uncertain. Though PPC relies on algorithms too, it is less unpredictable.

In 2018, Google rolled out SEO algorithm updates 3,243 times. Imagine keeping up with those.

Worst case scenario, a lot of businesses and publishers are suffering from traffic dips update after update.

It can be really hard to recover and requires a lot of work if your site is hit by these changes or penalties.

It’s not foolproof, but the only thing you can do to avoid this is to stick with search engines’ guidelines. And as much as possible, avoid questionable SEO tactics altogether.

3. SEO requires ‘expert’ content

A huge part of SEO hinges on authority and relevance. As such, it requires expert-level content for it to work.

And because SEO is cost-efficient, niches are getting more saturated, and competition is getting more cutthroat.

As a result, it sets the bar of authoritative and quality content really high.

To keep up with algorithm updates and the competition, content requires to be updated as often as it needs to keep your position intact. And it’s a never-ending battle.

Pros and Cons of PPC

Businesses earn $8 in profit for every $1.60 spent on Google Search Ads. That’s a solid ROI if you think about it.

But is PPC the right fit? What makes it a viable search marketing strategy? And what makes it good or bad for your business?

Why Choose PPC

Here are some benefits of PPC:

1. PPC delivers quick results

The main reason people use PPC over SEO is that it delivers faster results.

As long as you are following PPC best practices and meeting people’s intent, PPC can pay off in no time, without waiting for weeks.

2. PPC is adaptable

The benefits of PPC go beyond just getting quick results.

If you ever want to scale up your campaign, you can do that without worrying too much about getting into trouble.

As long as you have the money to spend on your ads, PPC campaigns are fairly flexible.

In addition, PPC allows for narrower targeting by working with various data points like demographics, location, etc. This gives you more control over your ad spend.

Not to mention, you can play with your ads and do A/B tests without any collateral damage to make sure you know what’s working and what’s not.

3. PPC is buyer-oriented

True to its nature, PPC gets more conversion because it’s just made for people who are ready or considering to buy.

According to Power Traffick, the top 3 paid advertising spots account for 46% of the clicks on the page. If your goal is to sell, no doubt that PPC is what you need.

Why NOT Choose PPC

Of course, PPC comes with a few drawbacks as well.

1. PPC is expensive

Highly saturated industries like insurance, credit, loans, and mortgage are very competitive.

Since there are a lot of you bidding on popular keywords, that means you might have to fork out more money to beat your competitors. And there’s usually no other way around it.

For instance, bidding on the keyword “insurance” on Google Ads will cost you around $50 per click on average.

Check out the top 20 most expensive keywords in Google Ads.

And if you are doing it wrong, watch out because you don’t want to end up paying more than what your product costs. Just like Dropbox paid Google Ads $400 per acquisition for their $99 product. Fail!

2. PPC often requires constant tweaking

Yes, PPC is easy to scale. But it’s in the same manner that it can bite you in the butt.

The longer you run your PPC campaigns, the less effective they become.

Imagine people seeing your ads too often. Your ads will render stale and less effective.

The only way around it is to change or tweak your ad copy and other elements on a regular basis. This can be taxing and costly, to say the least.

3. PPC needs startup costs

Like any other form of advertising, PPC requires money to make money.

While that might not be a problem for some, it is to others.

If you are a new business with zero marketing budget, then running PPC campaigns might not be the best route to begin with.

Note that some PPC campaigns really bomb at first. If you choose to do PPC, then you need to do a lot of optimizing, experimenting, and learning.

Nevertheless, prepare for the worst if you want to do it all by yourself.

PPC or SEO: Which Is Better?

I hear this question over and over again.

Again, the question is misguided. If someone offering PPC and SEO services tells you one is better over the other with no context, run fast.

There’s no way SEO is better than PPC, or vice versa. Both are great sources of traffic and effective marketing strategies.

The question worth asking is: “When do I choose SEO vs. PPC or vice versa?”

And that, my friends, is what we are going to address below.

When to Use SEO

First of all, 80% of a website’s traffic comes from search engines. And that’s primarily one of the biggest reasons businesses use SEO.

Google alone gets over 3.5 billion searches per day. A chunk of that figure is never bad at all.

Thus, SEO makes sense for a lot of reasons.

1. You want to sell websites

If you are in the website flipping business, SEO is a game-changer. It affects the valuation of each website you sell.

Higher rankings in SERPs for important keywords and a decent amount of organic traffic could translate to more dollars.

The search engine status of a website is one of the deciding factors for most buyers as well. It allows them to estimate how easy to manage your site is, how much work it needs, and how much they can profit off it, eventually.

2. You are gunning for consistent results

SEO has never been an overnight undertaking. It makes perfect sense if you are looking for long-term, consistent results.

As I mentioned, SEO results grow over time. The results you will experience 24 months from now will be a lot over 12 months from now.

If you have no regard for the future of your brand, then by all means, skip SEO.

3. You want to build an authority website

Authority or niche websites are getting more popular. If you want to be the go-to website in your industry, you need SEO to work for you.

In order for authority websites to be called as such and generate consistent traffic, you need to build a reputation around it and establish its brand.

SEO can help you do that and dominate your niche in the long run.

4. You want your website to increase in value

As mentioned, SEO increases the value of your website.

Even if you have no intention to sell it, having a digital asset that looks good before the search engines will pay off, eventually.

A website that generates a good amount of traffic, that ranks high on search engines, has a robust backlink profile, and extraordinary content is the easiest way to attract new leads and businesses.

When to Use PPC

Let’s head over to the other side of the fence in this SEO vs. PPC argument.

So, when should you use PPC marketing?

Below are some circumstances when PPC would prove highly beneficial for an online business.

1. Your intent is to promote or sell something

Why do you want to use search engine marketing? If it’s promoting or selling something, PPC is the no-nonsense solution.

Unlike SEO, PPC does not need bomb content to stay relevant and look good in the eyes of users. And so it makes perfect sense to use paid search if you want to direct people to a sales page or squeeze page.

2. You want instant results

PPC is also a no-brainer if you want to get immediate results.

Like any other form of advertising, PPC can deliver the results you want as soon as your campaign hits the web.

This is why PPC works best with squeeze pages, product launches, affiliate marketing, and cost per acquisition marketing. Anything really that involves high-converting offers, seasonal promos, and event-centered marketing, among others.

3. You want more targeted traffic

PPC marketing is the more logical option if you want to drive more targeted traffic, that kind of traffic that homes in on conversions rather than just massive traffic.

Whatever PPC advertising platforms you will use, these platforms give advertisers the ability to play around with demographic data such as age range, gender, education level, income bracket, and even marital status. Facebook ads allow you to target people based on their hobbies.

Overall, PPC works best over SEO when it comes to quick conversions.

4. You have a novel product

For products that have yet to disrupt the market, PPC is the best option.

Optimizing for search queries that people don’t use or haven’t heard of yet will totally fail your product.

Imagine trying to rank for terms like “self-driving car,” “home rental,” “ride-hailing,” or “4k drone” in the early 2000s.

Nobody’s searching for those keywords at the time, so SEO would have been pretty useless if Tesla, Airbnb, Uber, or DJI went that route.

If you have a new product, this is where PPC comes in handy. Social media PPC, in particular, is really good at building awareness for unrecognizable products.

5. You have a time-sensitive offer

And finally, PPC is the perfect strategy for product launches and one-off offers.

Whether you are gearing up for a crowdfunding launch or one-off events, these are time-sensitive instances that only PPC or other marketing channels can help you with.

Can PPC and SEO Work Together?

The short answer is yes. You can definitely use PPC and SEO in concert.

Using PPC and SEO together might sound more expensive, but it’s actually a good strategy because one compliments the other.

After all, these marketing channels are on the same team with the same goals — to drive traffic to your website. And if SEO and PPC can generate the desired outcome, then why restrict yourself to one option?

Even if you have a shoestring budget, you can definitely piece out an effective PPC and SEO strategy.

Here’s how you can start PPC and SEO working together:

1. Repurpose PPC Data

When running a PPC campaign, pay close attention to ad copy that does really well. You can use this to turn into an SEO-friendly content to maximize its performance in search.

As an example, use your best PPC ad copy in the meta description for a specific page.

Also, you can track down the best performing CTRs for content network ads to find the most popular topics. You can use these topics as ideas for new blog posts to generate more organic traffic.

2. Use retargeting

Ads are not getting any cheaper. By retargeting website visitors, you are making sure your ads are getting the maximum exposure they need.

For instance, a target visitor left your website without becoming a paying customer. You can use Facebook ads to convince them and try your product, sign up for a free trial, etc.

Retargeting works on most PPC advertising platforms, so take advantage of this.

3. Build awareness

Either PPC or SEO can be used for building awareness. But using both channels doubles your exposure.

If you have a new blog post published on your website, regardless if it’s information or promotion type of content, you can use PPC to target the right audience. Facebook ads are particularly effective in this case.

Whether your goal is to drive targeted traffic or build backlinks, using PPC is one of the most effective ways for your blog posts — which you know takes several hours to make — to get the exposure it deserves.

4. Use PPC data to create an SEO plan

While it’s not a new idea, it’s still worth mentioning that keyword data from PPC campaigns can be a powerful source to develop a robust SEO plan around.

PPC is just one proven and tested method to find out which keywords work and which don’t, which keywords have been searched, clicked on, and converted.

That unloads so much burden from your SEO strategy development process.

5. Rank for your competitor’s keywords

If your competitors are running Google ad campaigns, you can find the most lucrative keywords that they are bidding on. You can use those either via SEO or PPC.

SEO tools like SEMrush, Ahrefs, and Moz can find these keywords pretty easily.

If you are using SEMrush, there are a couple of ways to go about spying on your competitors.

You can use features like Advertising Research and the PPC Keyword Tool to find the ads your competitor is running or the keywords they are bidding on.

In Conclusion

Choosing between SEO and PPC is a matter of understanding your business goals first.

But if you have the shekels to go all out, by all means, do PPC and SEO together. This way, you get more data to collect and analyze, learn more about your target audience, and use this to polish your marketing strategies.

That’s it for this SEO vs. PPC article. I hope you got something to think about out of it.

If you found it helpful, please share it. Got questions? I’d love to hear them in the comments.

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How to Create Effective Ads with Google’s Keyword Planner

Ria Gran — Wed, 15 Jan 2020 16:17:39 +0000

With over 5.5 billion searches made on Google per day, there’s no question that the platform is the place we turn to for answers on just about everything. It’s only reasonable for a business seeking to grow to build presence on Google’s advertising platform, Google Ads (previously called Google AdWords), now that it’s become the fastest way to discover new things.

Google Ads is a powerful platform that can get your business seen worldwide on your own terms and budget. Consequently, the dashboard provides various information that, when analyzed right, can help a user make intelligent marketing decisions.

A quick look at the Google Ads dashboard

The platform also comes with tools that can help a user maximize reach and budget. One of these is the Google Ads Keyword Planner which you can find under the Planning section of Tools & Settings.

Like any other keyword research tool, Google’s Keyword Planner can provide you with keyword ideas and search volume data to help design campaigns. What differentiates it is that it’s free as long as you have a Google Ads account set up, and because it’s a built-in feature, it only takes a few clicks to incorporate your keyword research results into your existing ad campaigns.

With the amount of information available in Google Ads, you may ask questions like, which of these metrics mean I’m running a successful campaign? What can I do to improve? All you need is in one Google Ads account.

In this article, we will break down the anatomy of an effective Google Ad and introduce ways to use information the Keyword Planner tool provides.

First off, let’s take a look at what comprises a good ad.

Writing Good Google Ads

How do we define successful ad campaigns and what elements do effective ads have in common? This section won’t discuss what impressions, CTRs, and conversion rates mean, but the ad attributes you need to keep in check to see those metrics perform well.

1. Concisely introduces a solution to a problem

Keyword: concisely. With the number of elements fighting for your audience’s attention on the internet and limited ad space on screens, it’s important for your ad copies to be crisp. Avoid redundancies, omit unnecessary phrases, and try to reduce wordiness without missing points that can grab your audience’s attention.

Additionally, Google has character limits for headlines and descriptions on text ads. A standard Google Ads text ad is made up of a headline and a two-line description. Well-crafted ads are able to highlight a product or service’s sellable points in only a few but highly relevant number of words.

2. Maximizes ad budget

Optimizing the following aspects can greatly help in maximizing your ad budget on Google:

• Clear customer targeting
• Keyword relevance
• Landing page quality

It is these three factors that make up an ad’s Quality Score – the higher it is, the lesser Google charges you per click.

You don’t want to blow thousands of dollars advertising luxury accommodations to budget travelers. They’re not part of your market, and even if you bid on general keywords in your industry, your audience will most likely leave your landing page as soon as they realize your offer is not what they’re looking for.

To make more bang for your buck, before setting up a campaign, first identify what your market needs, how they’re looking for it, and prioritize relevance from writing ad copies to building your landing page.

3. Generates quality clicks

Ultimately, what we want from our ad campaigns is to gain a good amount of impressions among our market, get people to click on our ad and find out more about what we’re offering, and get them to purchase, subscribe, donate, or sign-up. In short, an ad campaign is only effective when it leads users to the last step of the process — conversion.

That’s why it pays to speak your target audience’s language and identify searches you don’t want your ads to appear in.

One way to do this is to take time to list down keywords that can mean an entirely different thing from your offering and add them as negative keywords. For example, if you’re selling mouse traps, it can benefit you to add ‘electronic’ or ‘wireless’ as your negative keywords so your ads don’t show up in searches made by people looking for the computer accessory.

How to Use Google’s Keyword Planner Tool

It doesn’t take rocket science to hit all the three elements we just discussed, but it does require some careful research that you can perform on Google Ads’ free keyword research tool. Aside from getting search volume data and bid estimates, here are four tips on taking advantage of this service to come up with effective ad campaigns.

1. Know your audience’s search terms

In the Keyword Planner, you can either get keyword ideas or get search volume data for a set of keywords you have already identified.

Main tasks you can do on the Keyword Planner

Use these two features together to get a clear picture of your audience’s search language — the exact terms they use, the relevant words they omit, if there are terms they abbreviate, and if this language changes with the seasons.

Understanding how specific your audience gets when searching helps you craft concise ads. Ramp up your Quality Score by also incorporating their exact search terms not only on your ads, but also on your landing pages. People go for choices that sound like exact answers to their questions.

2. Narrow your market down

Using your knowledge on your audience’s search language, apply the 80/20 to your target locations to make more out of your budget.

Instead of starting a campaign targeted to various countries, use the Keyword Planner to estimate demand in cities, and start with the ones where demand for your offering is the highest. This gets you results faster and cheaper.

In our example above, microfiber mops seem to be more in demand in London than in Manchester. This could be the case for other cities in the UK as well. Getting a grasp of demand in other cities through the search volume data can help you focus your campaign to locations that can get you better results.

3. Get wise with your budget

Looking at competition levels and bid estimates for keywords can give you a grasp of how saturated your online market is with similar offerings. If you’re working with a small advertising budget in a highly saturated market, it can be discouraging to see bid estimates that are three times more than what you’re willing to pay for.

However, there’s a way around working with a small budget with the information available to you in the Keyword Planner. If you’re starting out with a limited amount, you’re better off bidding for low competition keywords that are still relevant to your offering. It can be difficult for your ads to rank higher than ads from advertisers with thousands to spare. The key is to compete with relevance.

Long-tail keywords or keywords that get more specific are rarely bid on very highly. Think up a few of these keywords, get search volume data on them, and you just might stumble on a few with a fairly high search volume per month. By finding opportunities to be relevant, you don’t waste budget on competition and you get a higher chance of your ads appearing on top of the results page.

4. Localize

With the capability to get data from specific locations, the Keyword Planner also provides opportunities to customize your ads for regional markets.

For example, a dress retailer may achieve an impressive conversion rate with an English text ad published in New York, but the same ad might not perform as well in a city where English is not the first language. Remember that you only have about 3 seconds to grab a potential customer’s attention, and you don’t want to spend that short time shooing them away with an ad they can’t understand.

Localize: A simple location switch can show the drastic difference in monthly search volume for the same keywords

With the Keyword Planner, we can get a grasp of differences in language and market needs just by switching up the location and trying out a combination of translations of existing ads. Again, this extra effort can add relevance points to an ad and improves its performance all in all.

Over to You

In summary, the key to successful Google ad campaigns is planning backed with reliable data. Using the Keyword Planner tool is free, easy, and can power up your campaigns when the data it provides is used right.

A successful Google Ads text ad is concise, relevant, and informative for its audience. Keep those ad attributes in mind when writing ads and you’re well on your way to seeing those conversions come in.

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The Beginner’s Guide to Direct Response Marketing

Daniel Daines-Hutt — Wed, 11 Sep 2019 13:57:58 +0000

Here’s the hard truth:

Most marketing fails…

Not because it’s bad, or because people don’t want the product.

But because it misses the fundamentals.

The key things that cause people to take action on what you have.

How would you feel if you not only KNEW that your marketing was working?…

…but you knew down to the dollar?

In today’s article we’re going to show you how to use old school principles, to make all your marketing far more effective.

Keep reading to learn how…

What Is Direct Response Marketing?

In simple terms?

Direct Response is getting someone to take an action with your marketing, and then measuring how effective it is.

Hence the name.

They take a ‘direct response’.

It’s a blend of psychology and math, but no joke?

It’ll make your website far more effective.

(And also help you sleep better at night)

Why?

Because if you know how well your marketing performs, then you know how well your business performs.

Does this article or advert drive traffic that turns into opt-ins that turns into sales?

Yep!

Does it do it at a cost we can afford/ make a profit from?

Yep!

#party time!

It seems simple right?

But the problem is that most marketing misses this.

They get eyeballs on offers and build awareness, but fail to get the audience to ever do anything.

(Heck most forget to even ask them to do anything!)

Fortunately it’s easy to fix.

In fact there are just 3 simple steps:

Step #1: Have a goal for the audience to take

Step #2: Use psychology to make them take that action

Step #3: Measure the results

The best part?

It can work across the board in ALL your marketing.

Better still?

It’ll even help you stand out against HUGE competitors…

How Daniel Daines-Hutt Makes $22 For Every $1 He Spends Promoting Content, To New Readers

My name is Daniel and I’m the co-founder of Ampmycontent, a blog that specializes in content promotion.

(We share case studies and guides about the marketing part of content marketing)

Name sound familiar?

You might have heard me recently in episode #28 of The Marketing Mantra podcast

I wanted to come back and add a little more detail to go with that episode.

So…

How do we make such a high ROI?

Is content promotion an easy industry to get into?

Spoiler alert: it’s incredibly competitive…

That’s 1.2 BILLION results!

Not only that?

But we’re competing with some serious industry juggernauts.

Now I’ve always been an ok content writer, but it wasn’t until I found Direct Response marketing, that everything went a little crazy…

The Results

Before we reveal the 3 fundamentals, let’s break down some of our results.

Right now, I’m running paid ads to my blog content, so that I get new readers.

Someone clicks on the ad, they read the article and then become a subscriber.

And because the content follows DR principles, it’s getting pretty good opt-in rates…

Not bad eh?

Better still?

Because the opt-in rate is good, it means our lead costs are low and the ROI?

It’s through the roof…

Now that you’ve seen the kind of results you can get, let’s walk you through the 3-fundamentals to Direct Response Marketing…

Fundamental #1: Always Have A Call To Action

Everything you create, no matter what it is, should have a goal.

A singular thing that you want to happen.

An advert?

Make sure it gets the click.

An article?

Get the opt-in.

A messenger bot?

Get them to start a dialogue!

I know this seems obvious, but it’s crazy how many people forget to have a call to action.

How much content is out there with no opt-in offer?

Or adverts that don’t tell people how to get it, where to get it, or even ask them to go get it?…

You HAVE to have an action for someone to take.

Not only that?

You have to ask them to do it!

It’s not always about a sale, but there has to be something for them to do.

You need to move them forward.

That’s how sales funnels work right?

They move a person from one thing to the next, but if you don’t give them something to do?…

Then they never become a customer!

Ask yourself this:

Is any of your marketing missing an end goal?
Is it missing an action for the person to take?
What goal should happen from it?
How can you move them forward?

Once you’re clear on your goal, let’s show you how to get someone to take it…

Fundamental #2: Make Them Take The Action

Marketing is all about connecting the dots.

It’s understanding people and their problems, helping them see that what you have is the solution, and then making the offer.

It doesn’t matter if it’s selling a product or selling an idea.

The only problem?

Humans are weird.

We don’t act like we should, do what we say, or actually want what we think we want…

As marketers we need to learn what drives people.

Not only that?

We need to know how to communicate with the audience.

So let’s break it down…

The 7 Emotional Drivers

We’re all motivated by emotion.

It’s what makes us do anything.

Get out of bed, go to work, say the things we do and act they way we are.

The thing is?

Those emotions change depending on the situation…

There are 7 core drivers:

Self Identity (the need to see ourselves in the the offer or solution)
Need for Certainty and to remove anxiety
Need for Uncertainty and to create excitement
Need to feel Significance from others
Need for Connection from others
Need for Growth and struggle
Need to Contribute and give

The audience is always feeling one of these things.

Your goal is to figure out which, and then use it to help motivate them forward.

(Sometimes it’s a combination but there’s always one major driver)

For Example:

99signals is a marketing blog right?

Chances are you’re a digital entrepreneur or a freelancer in the marketing space.

Rather than be scared of change, I’m guessing you’re motivated by growth right?

(With maybe a need to contribute and support others?)

Once you understand what your audience needs, then you simply connect the dots.

What they want, what motivates them and how does your offer or goal help that happen?

The easiest way to find this all out?

Simply ask them!…

How To Research Your Audience

One of the easiest ways to find out what your audience needs, is to ask them.

I like to have coffee or jump on a Skype call with 3 people:

Someone who has the problem, but isn’t aware of what the problem is
Someone who has the problem and is looking for a solution
And someone who’s solved the problem already.

Why talk to all 3?

Because there’s a journey there.

From pain, to problem and solution finding, to past the problem.

By speaking to them at each point, I can understand what motivates them at each stage of their journey.

Better still?

You can find the language that they use to describe these things:

The struggle and unknown issues
The pain they have
They way they feel now that it’s solved…

Why care?

Because if you can figure out your audience issues AND use the language they use?

Then it feels like you’re inside their head!

And all it takes is a few cups of coffee and some questions…

Easy right?

So now you know what motivates them, now you need to communicate with them.

The thing is?

You need to be careful just how you say it…

How We Process Information

Without getting too technical, our brain works in a 3 part system:

The Lizard Brain (Base emotions and drivers)
The Mid Brain (Previous experiences)
The Neo Cortex (The logic centre)

Why care?

Because we filter information from one part to the next.

(Similar to a sales funnel)

This means that information has to pass one gatekeeper and then the next.

We need to talk to the emotion first, THEN the experience and finally the logic.

This is why we state that people buy based on emotion!

(Because it’s the first thing that gets their attention, and it’s what drives the final action)

Sure, we will give a logical reason why we took action, but really it’s a motivational driver that made it happen

Take a look at this ad below:

This is the same ad that we use to drive traffic to our article

Notice how it follows a set path or process, working through that ‘3-brain’ system

It talks to the emotion, then the experience and finally the logic centre

Even better?

It uses the language that the audience uses!

This is how you get someone to take your call to action:

The goal or desire (Emotion)
The pain of where they are now (Emotion)
The future of where they could be (Emotion)
The experience and objections removed (Mid Brain)
The stacking of desire (Mid Brain)
The logical and emotional action (Neo Cortex)

See how it moves through those 3 phases?

This works regardless of what your marketing, or what your CTA is.

Ads, articles, emails etc.

If you follow that process, you’ll help drive your audience towards wanting your call to action.

So now you know what your audience needs to hear, and how to structure your message.

The last thing you need is know is how to make that call to action!…

High Converting Calls To Action

There is a lot of content out there on writing calls to action.

The reality?

There are just 3 key things that you need:

Remember to have a call to action
Make it simple to do
Remove all other distractions.

That’s all there is to it.

Let me explain…

We already know that most people forget to have a CTA, so by having one, they are already more likely to take your action.

But the thing is?

People are lazy.

If something is too complicated or difficult, they usually won’t do it.

That’s why the more simple it can be to do the thing- the higher the chance they will do it.

(In the example above, for every extra box on a form, your conversion rate drops significantly…)

This ties into the 3rd point also.

If you have too many choices or distractions?

Too many calls to action competing with each other?

Then it overwhelms them!

And so what’s their choice?

It’s to take NO action at all!

That’s all you need to make an effective call to action

Have a CTA to start with
Make it simple to take
Remove other choices.

Easy right?

Ask yourself this:

Do you understand your audience and what motivates them?
Does your content resonate with them?
Does it move them towards a goal?
Do you have an action for them to take?
Is it simple to do?
Have you removed all other distractions?

If so, then awesome!

You now have a CTA that converts.

Better still?

You can now measure how it performs and see how well your marketing works…

Fundamental #3: Measure The Result

This is where people get scared with Direct Response.

Why?

Math!…

Scary math!

Don’t worry though because it’s super simple

The formula is almost always this:

How many people saw your CTA / How many took your CTA = Your Conversion Rate

Why care?

Because now you know how effective your offer is at moving people forward (or even making them buy.)

Better still?

You can do this at each point in your sales cycle and see where it’s working, and what’s missing.

(Or if it’s worth scaling or improving.)

For example:

I know that we make $22 for every $1 spent promoting content.

How?

Because I know my conversion rates at each point of our sales cycle.

I knows how much:

A visitor is worth
How many turn into subscribers and what a subscriber is worth
How many subscribers become customers, etc.

And the formula stays the same at each point

How many people saw the cta / how many took the cta = the conversion rate at each stage

By knowing this and having it all in place, it can make all your marketing far more effective AND give you the ability to scale up.

(Or simply sleep better at night.)

This is the power of Direct Response marketing.

Ask Yourself:

Do you have CTAs at each point of your sales funnel?
Do you know the conversion rate of each?
Do you know what a visitor, subscriber or customer is worth to your business?

The best part?

Depending on what platforms you use, you can see all this information right away.

FB pixels track conversions and costs

Email CRMs track opt-ins and conversion rates etc

The trick?

It’s simply to implement it…

So Now It’s Your Turn…

Have a quick look over your own marketing:

Is any of it missing these Direct Response fundamentals?
Do you have a goal for everything you create?
Do you have a call to action?
Or do you have too many CTAs and stop people from choosing?

Better still?

Ask yourself this:

How would your business change if you implement these small steps?

If you want to learn more about Direct Response (as well as how to run ads to your own content a profit) check out my 30,000 word, 8 chapter guide to paid content promotion.

If you found this article useful, please consider sharing it on Twitter using the link below:

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How to Write PPC Headlines (Like a Boss) – 9 Actionable Tips

Sandeep Mallya — Fri, 17 Feb 2017 15:06:14 +0000

There is a tidal wave of content on the internet, each piece trying to grab your undivided attention. In such a scenario, how do you get people to pay attention to your PPC ads?

It’s simple – you create headlines that make it hard for them to resist clicking on your PPC ads!

For that reason, it’s crucial that we create ads that are different from run-of-the-mill PPC ads that inundate the search engines.

Here are a few tips to write the perfect PPC headlines.

1. Show the Benefit, Not the Feature

Smart marketers know to differentiate between a feature and a benefit:

Feature – something cool that your product/service does
Benefit – defines the value that your product/service as a whole provides

Here’s what Buffer says about features vs. benefits:

“People don’t buy products; they buy better versions of themselves.”

To illustrate the point above, here’s a Super Mario graphic designed by UserOnboard:

Remember what Apple did when they launched iPod?

This is how other brands were positioning their products at the time – “1GB storage on your MP3 player”

This is how Apple positioned its iPod – “1,000 songs in your pocket”

When all existing MP3 players in the market were talking about the storage for their product (feature), Apple decided to show how you could use the storage to save 1000 songs in a compact mp3 player that would fit into your pockets (benefit).

This is a classic example of an ad showcasing benefits, not features.

Remember this principle while creating headlines for your PPC ads. Always keep the end user in mind.

2) Use Trending Keywords

Using keywords associated with your brand or product is important.

But when the keywords in your PPC headlines are the ones that are currently trending on the internet, you increase the chances of your ad being seen and clicked through.

Use tools such as Buzzsumo, Google Trends, and Google News to find keywords that are hot right now and use them in your copy for your ads to stand out amidst the PPC ad clutter.

3) Ask Questions

Target people’s emotions while creating your ads.

One way to do this is by asking questions. The ad copy below is a perfect example of an ad which spawns an emotion, then drives interest.

4) Capitalize the Keywords on the Headline

Almost all PPC ads look the same. This is because most ad networks don’t allow you to play around with the color of your headlines or make the text bold.

So how do you make your ads stand out amidst the clutter?

Simple answer – Capitalize the main keywords on your headline. This will increase the chances of your ad being noticed.

5) Include Numbers (Whenever Possible)

People like discounts on their favorite products. So if you’re running a discount on any of your products or services, highlight the discount percentage to grab people’s attention.

Ecommerce sites such as Amazon and eBay do this all the time.

You can also share interesting stats related to your product/service. People respond positively to empirical evidence. Use these stats to build your brand’s credibility and trust in the minds of your prospects.

6) Include Testimonials

If you have a loyal fanbase, include some of their testimonials about your product in your PPC ad headline.

Use quotation marks to make it obvious that you’re quoting someone, and make their quote or testimonial relevant to the ad. This is another way to boost your brand’s credibility.

7) Keep it Short

Avoid using unnecessary jargon. You only have a few seconds to grab your prospects’ attention.

So keep your ad copy short, concise, and to the point.

8) Get Some Inspiration from Your Competitors

A little competitive intelligence goes a long way in improving your ad copy.

Use tools such as SEMrush, Serpstat or SpyFu to examine which keywords are performing well for your competitors and gain deeper insights into their PPC campaigns such as headlines, landing page design, etc.

Pro Tip: I urge you to read this article on how to use SEMrush to steal your competitors’ ideas to rank higher in search engines.

9) Add Humor (But be cautious)

Another way of differentiating your ad is by adding a tinge of humor to your copy. But proceed with caution. What may be funny to you may be offensive or downright insulting to others. Lots of brands have gotten themselves in trouble because of using inappropriate humor in their ads. Don’t make that mistake.

Over the You

So these are the 9 tips that can help you write catchy headlines for your PPC ads.

What are your favorite tips? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section. And don’t forget to download the free PPC questionnaire below!

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