28Dec

Utilizing Your Pay Per Click Campaigns for Inbound Marketing

If you’re not familiar with what a pay per click ad is, it is when you choose essential keywords to your business so when someone searches those words, your business appears as an ad at the top of the search page. Once the keywords are chosen, the positioning of your business ad is based on an auction for the space where you note the maximum amount you would pay for a click on the ad.

In the blue rectangle below is an example of what these ads look like compared to a regular placement within search results. The very first link is an ad, which can be identified by the small green box under “John’s Truck & Equipment” that says Ad.

 

Then, once you’ve solidified your space and a person clicks on the ad, you are charged an amount no more than what you bid.

So what is inbound marketing? It is best described by Marketo as a “strategy that utilizes many forms of pull marketing – content marketing, blogs, events, SEO, social media and more – to create brand awareness and attract new business.”

This differs from outbound marketing where marketers are actively looking for potential customers. Inbound marketing uses content to attract the attention of customers, making it easier to find the company.

Now that we have those definitions out of the way, here’s how you can utilize your PPC ads for better inbound marketing.

1. Know Your Audience. Getting deep into the mindset of your target audience is crucial in choosing the right keywords for your PPC ads. List out your audience’s characteristics. A good starting point is:

  • Age
  • Location
  • Gender
  • Career
  • Job Title

You can also further segment your audience to create very targeted ads. Characteristics you could look at in more detail is their:

  • Reading Material
  • Activity on social platforms (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.)
  • Participation in councils
  • Attendance at networking events

2. Choose Keywords Wisely. This one is pretty straight forward. You need to be very strategic in your choice of keywords. Long-tail keywords are often best because they are more specific and cater to the user’s search intent. A useful tool to help you better determine which words to use is Google’s Keyword Planner.

When looking at the planner, it will provide you with suggested ad group ideas, which you can look through to see if they’d be relevant. To note, the initial groups will be highly competitive, but if you continue to dig through the suggestions and find relevant keywords you can uncover ones that are medium to low competition, but with a significant search volume.

3. Cater Content to the Results. After trying different variations and adjustments to keywords take a look at the data to see which are doing best. Taking a close look at this will give you insight into what your audience is looking for exactly.

For example, if you notice that the majority of visitors are looking at a specific type of equipment or even brand, you can create a blog post around that and push an ad that directs to the post. For example, if one piece of equipment is popular, you could write a blog post on all the benefits of using that piece of equipment and the different features it has that makes it stand out among others.

Looking to learn more about how to use your PPC ads for better inbound marketing? This piece by Search Engine People expands more on the topic. Have more questions on how to best use your PPC ads or just want to learn more about how to better position your company at the top of a Google or Bing search? Contact marketing@commercialwebservices.com.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kelsey Fritz
Kelsey is the Marketing Coordinator at Commercial Web Services where she monitors the latest marketing advancements to better educate dealers on marketing trends that can further their business goals.

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