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PPC is one of the fastest & best ways of advertising in the Digital Marketing  world.  
There are still many companies (CXO/Directors), including some of my clients/prospects, who are either not aware of PPC or not using PPC or have never tried it as a Digital Marketing tool; leave aside understanding & using it as a powerful Digital marketing tool.

PPC or SEM  is one of the powerful Digital Marketing tools which can generate a lot of instant traffic to your website & if planned well can generate lot of relevant leads which can easily convert into business. It is also very risky tool if you do not know what you are doing (like a Gun in a hand of a Kid), as it can burn a big hole in your pocket without any significant results to show for.

In this article, we will try to explain, what is PPC? Who should use PPC? How you should do PPC to reap the power of PPC?

What is PPC ?

PPC (Pay Per Click) is a paid advertising  in internet to bring traffic to your website, where advertiser only pays the publisher  when someone clicks on the advertisement.  The examples of PPC  are the ads that appear  on the top  or on right hand side of the search results or the banner ads that you see on top, bottom or on sides of any websites.   There are two types of  PPC - Search engine ads and Display ads.

Who should do PPC?

PPC is an integral part of Digital Marketing strategy. It can give you lot of quick business and in some cases, if you do not know what you are doing, it can burn a hole in your pocket.  So, who should do PPC as main strategy for their Digital Marketing initiatives? Here are few companies/situations where it makes sense to go for PPC:

·         Need Quick wins
·         Need lot of traffic quickly to your website
·         Have decent advertising budget
·         Need to build brand
·         To attract some traffic using keywords that you(your company/website) do not stand a                  chance to compete through SEO.

Why PPC? 

PPC has one unique advantage - instant result. It is one of the Digital Marketing tools which produces the fastest results. When you search any keyword or phrase in a search engine, based on several criteria and algorithm, search engines rank you and accordingly you are placed in the search results. In order to come higher in the search results for certain keywords, you have to optimize your site, which is called SEO, which may take at least few months.  In certain cases, it may also take few years for keywords in high demand.  Contrary to this, in PPC, if you pay (bid highest) you can come on top in few minutes. In other words, PPC is buying your way to higher ranking in the search results.

When  PPC?

If you are a new company & have recently developed the website, it would take lot of time to do SEO & get ranked in the first page of the search result. This is an ideal time for an organization to consider PPC where you can get lot of traffic  from day one.  It also makes sense for start-ups/SME with funding (Angle/1st round), who need to quickly show some good results to qualify for the next round.  PPC can give you those quick wins.  

It can also make sense for large MNC which has lot of marketing budget & wants to build a brand for their existing or new product. Using display ads or remarketing/retargeting, they can reach mass,  economically.

Where should you do PPC?

In other words,  this means, where you should spend your money? Which platform?  There are several platforms like Google Adwords, Bing/Yahoo, Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter,…. etc., to name a few. You can also do display ads or banner ads in many websites. One of most important & powerful PPC platforms is Google Adwords.  However, the  other platforms like FaceBook, Linkedin, Yahoo/Bing work in the similar way, just slightly different. Each one has some advantages & disadvantages. If possible, I will cover where you should do PPC in detail, where we can discuss the pros & cons of each platform & which platform you should spend your money & why?

How to do PPC?

PPC process can be divided in to 4 parts:  

1.       Initial R&D & Planning
2.       PPC set up
3.       Management
4.       Continuous improvement

One of the questions I am often asked is, "Should you do the PPC in-house or outsource it? In a nutshell, if you have a dedicated resource who knows what he is doing, then it is OK to do it in-house, else you should outsource. Also, always look at the ROI.  If you are getting significant ROI for the PPC spend, then you can continue in-house, else outsource. One of things I propagate is that if you are doing PPC in-house & if the campaigns are well optimized; then you should challenge a marketing agency to improve the performance further & link the payment to the performance & not the total budget/spent.  If you are a SME or a start up with very limited PPC spend, it is OK to do it in house, but when you are a large organization with multiple products, services, geographies,…..etc. it gets complicated & the ideal way to handle this is to outsource.  Like the proverb goes:  Why buy a cow when you can get milk, whenever you want at an affordable price, without the pain of maintaining a cow.

To summarize, here are some advantages of PPC:

1.       Fastest way to generate business
2.       Scalable
3.       Measurable
4.       Easy to outsource & monitor the progress
5.       Excellent analytic/ reporting

It is easy to set up a PPC account & start advertising & start getting some traffic to your site, however it is difficult to optimize the campaigns & get the ROI from PPC. If you are not able to achieve the ROI from you PPC budget,  please call us  or write to us. Vaidya Consulting can help.  Click here to contact us.