Pay per click advertising (PPC) can be effective, but it’s also ruthless. Literally every click counts, and anything you do that is wasteful or misguided is ultimately going to cost you. It’s important to be meticulous in your approach, and that means understanding PPC’s ins and outs—how to do it well, and how to avoid going off the rails.

Of course, this is part of the reason why many businesses seek an integrated marketing strategy, from a professional agency, to guide their PPC endeavors. If you are going the DIY route, however, we have a few principles we can offer you; adherence to these is sure to boost your PPC efficacy.

How to Be Successful in Your PPC

The platform matters. You’re going to have some users who are on desktops but many who use mobile—and your PPC campaign has to address the needs of both. One of the most common PPC errors we see is neglecting mobile users, which essentially cuts your audience in half.

PPC is highly targeted. The thing that makes PPC so potentially powerful is that you can hone your messaging to a highly focused audience. As you work on your ad copy and select your keywords, then, do so with a buyer persona as your guide: Who are you trying to reach? What’s the age group? The geographic range? What other demographic details matter? What are the values and problem points of your target audience members?

Select the right keywords. Notice that we said keywords, plural. Don’t ever put all your eggs in one basket, or all your money on a single keyword. And the keywords you pick should be based on the audience you’ve specified: What are some of the keywords that reflect their values, their search criteria, the things they’re looking for?

PPC ads need to connect to a landing page. Your ads are likely going to be promoting specific products or services. Those are the products and services your users are going to click for—so don’t let the ad send them to your home page, or a generic About Us page. Ensure that each ad goes through to a targeted landing page, focused on the specific offer in the ad and equipped to capture lead information.

You won’t have a perfect campaign over night. There’s not much about marketing that offers instant, overnight success, and PPC is certainly no exception. It takes some time and patience, and also regular review and refinement: You should be testing new ad copy, considering new keywords, and making course corrections daily. A stagnant or static PPC campaign probably isn’t going to be a good one, and the expectation for immediate results isn’t going to bear out.

DIY vs. Professional PPC Management

A final note: Most people trying to run a PPC campaign on their own, frankly, are going to fail—a hard truth, but the truth nevertheless. Furthermore, when their efforts do fail, people tend to jump to the conclusion that PPC doesn’t work, when in reality PPC is one of the most efficient and effective forms of advertising available today.

The reason people fail is because managing a PPC campaign takes time and research upfront; once it’s launched, it takes even more time and ongoing research to properly manage it. This is not in any way a “set it and forget it” marketing approach. Proper PPC implementation takes meticulous oversight, tracking, and analyzing, and most business owners simply don’t have time to do this themselves.

That is why professional marketing companies use software to help with the heavy lifting, and the really good professionals combine that software with the human touch to ensure the campaign is generating a good ROI. This takes a lot of commitment and marketing know-how that can only come from years of experience—experience that the enCOMPASS team has in spades. To learn more about our approach, we invite you to contact enCOMPASS Agency today.