Major search engines and social media platforms alike offer pay-per-click advertising to individuals and businesses who want to get more attention for their brands. While Google Ads is the most popular, other sites also offer considerable advantages when it comes to expanding marketing reach. Competition grows daily, but you can still make a big impact with social ads and PPC. The best practices suggested for 2022 and beyond will help you achieve your goals.
1. Align Company and Audience Goals
While it is easy to claim that your main goal is to make more money, this generalization does little when it comes to strategic social or PPC ad creation and deployment. Quantify the results you want, and make sure they align with what your audience looks for when they research companies to do business with. These can include anything from specific numbers of new leads to average sale amounts. Your target audience goals would focus on learning about a new brand or making a purchase that speaks to one of their pain points or interests.
Pranjal Bora with Digital Authority Partners shares some of 2022’s strongest methods of getting the most from your pay-per-click marketing campaigns. Strategic development, defining goals, analyzing the market and competitors, and post-launch optimization all play essential roles in getting the highest possible ROI.
2. Look at Competitors’ Ad Strategies
You only want to take similar action as your competitors if what they do works. Although brands have unique identities, you undoubtedly share a target audience and growth strategies with others. To get the PPC click numbers, you need to succeed, and gathering data from competitors’ ads helps you determine what works and what does not. This can cut out at least part of your testing period and minimize budget waste to some degree.
Another important part of competitor analysis, to improve your marketing strategies, involves tracking social media ad action over time. The success of any advertising relies on more than the ads themselves. Make sure your company’s social media profile and content provide value that grabs attention quickly and does not let go. You can learn a lot by looking at adjacent businesses and seeing which of their posts get the most comments and likes.
3. Use Keywords (and Negative Keywords) Wisely
All pay-per-click campaigns require a keyword phrase that matches what your target consumer group searches for. In 2022, negative keywords are almost as important as targets. For example, if you sell men’s leather shoes, you may want to use women’s shoes or men’s canvas shoes in your negative word list. Your paid ad will not appear for people looking for those things specifically. This is a great way to minimize lost money through poor targeting.
One unique new option for dynamic ad creation today is the use of AI systems. For example, Google Ads allows you to use artificial intelligence to better target ads to interested consumers. The goal is to deliver relevant results to people who may not have searched for the exact keyword phrase but are still interested in the one you targeted. Since AI is not 100% effective, and it involves the risk of making false assumptions, using negative keywords during campaign creation becomes more important than ever before. This helps keep your clicks extremely relevant and your conversion rates high.
4. Use Powerful CTAs in Your PPC Ads
Information about your brand or the website page that the link leads to provides essential information for searchers. A call to action (CTA) encourages them to do what it takes to reach their goals. This is especially useful in social ads where you have more space to use text and images that make an impact. What do you want people to do when they see your ad? Answers to this question may range from clicking a link, contacting you, making a purchase, or signing up for your newsletter.
Calls to action for social ads begin to focus more on immediate purchases than ever before. Many platforms now offer e-commerce opportunities directly on the site. Therefore, if you sell tangible or digital goods of any kind, it makes sense to use social media to do more than introduce your brand. With the right CPA, you can push searchers further down the sales process with one ad.
5. Make Sure Your Website Works
Social ads and PPC campaigns only work if the link leads to an optimized, fast-loading, engaging, and powerful landing page. All pages must also appear clearly on small smartphone and mobile device screens. Responsive sites not only allow visitors to access your information and offer at their convenience, but Google and other major search engines boost mobile-ready pages above those stuck in the past. Other characteristics that define a bad website include broken links, lack of valuable content, excessive marketing, and uninspired design. Although one of these things may not destroy the efficacy of your advertising alone, there is no reason to risk losing brand reputation or site visitors after their initial click.
6. Gather More Data and Analyze It to Make Improvements
Although the idea of data collection and analytics are not new for 2022, keeping track of how well your social ads and pay-per-click campaigns work is an essential part of the success equation. Do not give up too soon if you fail to see the click-through numbers you want. Instead, dive deep into the collected information so you can tweak ad copy and content, links, CTAs, and every other aspect of the campaigns for a better outcome.
Social ads and PPC advertisements remain strong for 2022 and will continue to provide great results for small and medium-sized businesses in years to come. To benefit without breaking the budget, you need to know exactly how to create and target your campaigns most effectively. With the help of an experienced digital marketing agency, you have a greater chance of reaching your business goals without wasting time or money.