Over 63% of small businesses claim they need more time and resources to concentrate on their marketing efforts, according to a Semrush survey from 2021. Around 59.8% say they need help with small marketing budgets.
Though most business owners understand the importance of digital marketing, it takes time to create a comprehensive strategy, especially one that includes PPC.
Pay-per-click advertising has a higher learning curve and requires an upfront investment than other methods. But that investment isn’t as high as most people think.
With an optimized PPC campaign, small businesses can reach their goals even on a smaller budget. The Romain Berg PPC specialists can help you create highly targeted paid campaigns designed to increase your ROI. Reach out today and find out more.
This article will review some of the unique benefits PPC brings to small businesses and offer ten tips on maximizing your ROI in paid advertising.
PPC for Small Business: What Are the Benefits?
Budget constraints make most small business owners apprehensive about adopting new marketing initiatives like PPC.
But overcoming this hesitation could mean your business will enjoy some unique advantages that only paid advertising can bring:
Smart Budget Spending
PPC advertising platforms allow you to spend your budget wisely. As long as you can optimize your campaigns, you can spend your budget only when the ads convert.
The cost of PPC depends on the specific industry your business falls into.
The average cost-per-click (CPC) in Google Ads is $6.40 on the Search Network and $0.81 on the Display Network for consumer services. But for e-commerce businesses, the cost drops to $1.16 and $0.45, respectively.
Even if your industry is in a more expensive CPC category, the potential ROI makes the investment worth it since you’re only paying for the results your ads will bring.
Reaching the Right Audience
With organic marketing efforts such as SEO or social media, you need more control over who encounters your products and services because of limited targeting capabilities.
This is why small businesses often take longer to see great results from their organic marketing efforts.
PPC moves things along and allows you to target potential customers based on unique characteristics that match your current ones. You can even deliver ads at the right moment when the customer is most likely to convert.
The process is accelerated, so the potential results become visible sooner. A well-optimized campaign can start increasing your sales from day one.
Fulfillment of Various Business Goals
PPC isn’t just designed to bring in more sales. You can set up campaigns to support all your business needs, such as:
- Increasing brand awareness and recognition
- Attracting more leads
- Improving brand or product consideration
- Reducing abandoned carts
- Increasing the number of repeat sales, etc.
Platforms such as Google Ads ask you to choose a specific goal when setting up a campaign. Based on this goal, they will deliver your ads to that section of your target audience that is most likely to convert.
Removal of Dependency on Search Engine Algorithms
If you’re currently running an SEO strategy to bring more organic traffic to your site, your results will depend on whether Google or other search engines decide to change their algorithms.
Since SEO changes take around six months to take visible effect, there’s a strong possibility that an algorithm update can happen, which will require you to tweak your strategy again.
With PPC campaigns, any changes in the algorithm won’t affect ad delivery. Your campaigns will still reach the top of the search results.
Rich and Essential Customer Data
These tools can reveal a lot of insights into your potential customers, their behavior, whether they like your products and services, and even the time of day they’re most likely to convert.
Running paid ads can help you gather essential customer data you can use to improve your overall marketing efforts.
10 PPC Tips for Small Businesses to Maximize Your ROI
PPC advertising can seem overwhelming at first. But with these ten strategies, you can optimize your campaigns to improve your ROI:
1. Establish Your Goals
Choosing the right campaign goal ticks two major boxes for your PPC efforts:
- It ensures you spend your campaign budget wisely
- It optimizes your ad delivery
You can run a Google ad to get more traffic to your website. The system will charge you for every click your ad got, meaning the number of times a search engine user wanted to visit your site.
By choosing website traffic as a goal, Google delivers the campaign to the user most likely to click on the ad. It’ll help target individuals with the right user intent.
Consider the difference if, for instance, you wanted more traffic but chose the “brand awareness” goal. In this case, you’re paying for each impression the ad got, meaning the number of times people laid eyes on your ad.
But seeing an ad doesn’t mean they’ll click on it. As a result, you’d be exhausting your budget without getting the results you want.
Choosing the right goal is one of the most important steps small businesses need to take before setting up their PPC ads.
2. Choose the Right Keywords
Keywords are the foundation of a good PPC campaign, especially those ads that run on search engines. They tell the PPC system when to deliver an ad by matching your keyword with the potential customer’s search terms.
To find these terms, you can use Google’s Keyword Planner or other similar tools to tap into the most popular search terms related to your business. You can also look for your Google Analytics account data to see what search terms bring you organic traffic.
Choosing the right keywords is rather tricky since there isn’t a golden rule.
While you should never use keywords that have a very low search volume, you shouldn’t choose only words with a high search volume either. The second option is very costly because high-volume keywords have a lot of bidding competition.
Here are some tips to help you build your keyword list:
- Put yourself in your customer’s shoes to identify the terms they’d use to search for your business
- Include variations and synonyms in your list
- Add terms related to your products or services
- Try to find high-volume and low-competition terms
- Find keywords to match each user intent (transactional, informational, and navigational)
3. Add Negative Keywords
Negative keywords tell the PPC system when you don’t want your ads to trigger. They’re a safety net that ensures you’re spending your budget correctly and not attracting the wrong potential customers.
For example, if you’re selling “premium cat food,” and your products are on the higher end price-wise, you’re not interested in people searching for “affordable” or “cheap” cat food.
Adding these two negative keywords tells Google not to trigger your ads when these search terms are used, ensuring that you reach only your intended audience.
4. Choose Your Audience
Keywords aren’t the only way to deliver your PPC ads.
You can also consider who your ideal customer is and set up a few characteristics that Google or other PPC systems should take into consideration.
Google provides the following options for audience targeting:
- Affinity – target people based on what they like, their habits, and their interests
- Detailed demographics – deliver ads based on user location, age, gender, and other long-term life facts
- Life events – select a major milestone in a person’s life, such as a wedding anniversary, to deliver specific offers.
- In-market – reach users based on their intent.
- Data segments – use your customer data to deliver ads to people who’ve interacted with your site, are your current shoppers, or are similar to your existing customer data
- Custom segment – reach new people based on relevant apps, keywords, or websites.
Choose your audience based on the products and services you’re selling, your campaign goals, and any customer data you already have.
5. Localize Your PPC Ads
Small businesses with a limited marketing budget can prioritize their PPC efforts for specific locations.
This can either be the area where you are located or the cities where a large portion of your current buyers reside if you run an online small business.
You can reach a larger number of people without geo-targeting, but a bigger audience doesn’t always translate into more conversions.
Targeting your ads to specific cities or even neighborhoods allows you to address the specific needs of these potential customers, and your ads become much more compelling.
As your business grows, you can widen your reach and target more locations.
6. Choose the Right Time
Running ads on a 24/7 basis isn’t always efficient. You can maximize your ROI by scheduling your ads to match the time of day when potential customers are most likely to convert.
For example, if you’re offering baby products and want to target parents, you could get better results when you deliver the ads in the evening. During the day, the parents might not have the time to check out your offers and make a purchase, but they could do it after the kids are put to bed.
Identify the days when you’re converting the most and the time of day by reviewing your analytics and sales logs, then schedule your ads to match them.
7. Add a Clear Call to Action
A call to action or CTA tells people what you want them to do. It also prepares them for what to expect.
If an ad says “Sign up now,” potential customers expect a different process than if they see “Download now.” The right call to action further sorts potential buyers to ensure only the most relevant ones reach your page.
Compelling CTAs help people understand what to do next and can even be an encouragement to act now, not later.
8. Focus on Your Best Features
If you need to know what your first campaign should be, bring out your best sellers to maximize the potential results.
Top-selling products that already attract the interest of your existing customers could be a great way for new people to get to know your business and what it can offer. The same applies to your top services.
If you’re just getting started, then focus on your primary need, which at this point is most likely increasing brand awareness.
9. Control Your Spending
Google Ads and other PPC systems allow you to decide how much money a campaign should cost.
For small businesses, it’s best to calculate a daily budget for each ad or campaign you run. The optimization techniques you employ influence how your ad is spent, but you’ll only pay the daily limit you set up.
Start with a smaller budget than you’re comfortable spending, even if the campaign will deliver impressive results later. Since you’re just getting started, some slip-ups are understandable.
Google recommends setting up at least a $10–$50 daily budget. Going lower might affect your performance.
10. Track Your Results
Even PPC experts need to monitor campaigns to improve their performance constantly.
You can make adjustments in real-time to correct mistakes or improve how your ads perform. But you can only do that if you monitor their stats closely.
You can check in with them daily to ensure everything runs smoothly, such as an ad not triggering in 24 hours. But to reach any relevant conclusions, your ads will need more time to run so that you can review results weekly.
Consider Working With an Expert
Small businesses have a lot on their plates, and PPC might not fit into your daily responsibilities.
Working with a PPC agency could prove more beneficial, as you’re eliminating the need to learn how to use PPC systems and optimize your campaigns.
Outsourcing your PPC needs is a way to build cost-effective campaigns that convert from day one. The amount of time you have, your staff, or any other resources will be fine with your results.
Romain Berg’s PPC experts can support a small business’ PPC efforts and create campaigns that deliver reliable and fast results.
Schedule a 30-minute call with the industry’s top PPC experts, who can help you run campaigns that help you reach your goals.
