That’s all very well, but how can you stand out and create a truly winning and high-converting landing page?

Let’s start with the basics first.

What is a landing page?

A landing page is a standalone web page that’s designed with a specific goal in mind – to increase the likelihood of a conversion. This could involve actions such as signing up for a newsletter, downloading an e-book, booking a call, or making a purchase, all depending on the objectives of your marketing campaign. 

Most often, a landing page is employed as part of a specific digital marketing campaign. It’s especially common for PPC ad campaigns but can also be used to funnel referrals from specific sources, for example, organic links from a partner or traffic from social media posts.

The goal is to make the information on the landing page very specific and focused on what has been promoted with your campaign. 

For example, if your ad promotes a course about cybersecurity, the link should lead to a landing page that shares details and purchase options for that course. You don’t want them to land on your home page and spend time navigating through it, trying to find the course they came there for.

What is a high-converting landing page?

In general, high-converting landing pages are considered the ones that generate the desired or higher than expected number of conversions.

Like other marketing tools and platforms, success metrics can vary from one campaign to another. The key metric to evaluate your landing page’s success is the conversion rate. To calculate the conversion rate of your landing page, use the formula:

Conversion Rate = (Conversions / Total Visitors) * 100

Conversion rates can vary significantly based on factors such as the product or service, industry, target audience, or conversion goal. For instance, getting a visitor to download a free e-book is generally easier than persuading them to make a purchase. Consequently, the conversion rate for lead generation through a free e-book download is likely to be higher than that for software purchases, for example.

Here are specific statistics for average conversion rates across different conversion goals:

Lead Generation:

• Downloading a free e-book: 10-15%
• Signing up for a free trial: 5-10%
• Registering for a webinar: 2-5%

E-commerce:

• Adding an item to the cart: 20-30%
• Completing the checkout: 1-2%
• Returning to make a purchase: 5-10%

SaaS:

• Signing up for a free trial: 5-10%
• Upgrading to a paid plan: 2-5%
• Renewing a subscription: 80-90%

So, while there is no one-size-fits-all approach, if your conversion rates meet or exceed your goals, you can consider it a successful landing page.

How do you build a high-converting landing page?

Designing a landing page is similar to creating an ad campaign. You increase your chances of success by leaning on established, tried, and trusted principles or templates. Successfully implementing these can help you avoid the trial-and-error process and get right into converting more leads than you can handle. 

Let’s dive into what it looks like by examining the 8 critical parts of high-converting landing pages. 

1. A headline that can’t be ignored

A large chunk of your traffic won’t make it past your landing page headline; heat map studies of multiple landing pages confirm this. Every visitor will look at your headline, which is usually the first sentence on your landing page, to verify if they are in the right place. If they aren’t immediately hooked, they will leave and bump up your bounce rate. That also means all your work to create the landing page copy is out the window.

This is a great example of a high-converting landing page from Shopify… They’re selling you YOUR DREAMS! Plus a 97% discount. Surely, it doesn’t get better than that. 

Looking at the example above, you can see that when creating landing pages, it’s essential to spend time writing a headline that your leads can’t ignore. You might not be selling them their dream business or a nearly 100% discount. But how can your product speak to their needs and wants?

Check out our guide to power words that inspire action.

The most effective (and simplest) idea for writing a headline is to make a promise that addresses your visitor’s pain point and then deliver that in the copy. 

The headline has one job: getting the visitor to read the next line. So, you have to make it that good. How?

• Directly address the pain points that your offer addresses
• Include an overarching benefit of your product
• Use subheadings that let you expand on your headline
• Make the headline stand out in a large bold font

Take a look at our guide to creating copy for PPC ads – which also applies to these high-converting landing pages.

2. Focus on the user benefits, not the features

The next secret to a landing page that converts well is addressing what’s in it for the user. As visitors scan your landing page, they are actively looking for something to make them stop, read, and digest your information. One effective way to do this is to show what’s in it for them instead of just talking about the product.

For example, in the example above, the user can ‘discover the secret’ of speaking a new language. (Spoiler alert: it’s repetition and consistency).

Or, instead of talking about how lightweight your software is, talk about how quickly users can load it up and accomplish their tasks. Instead of how swift your shipping is, remind users that they can get their packages in less than x hours.

As the product creator, this may be tough to do initially. You are proud of your product, and it’s important to you that everyone knows just how amazing it is. But the truth is, they won’t pay attention to any of that. They are only concerned about its utility.

How can you keep the focus on the benefits and boost landing page conversions? Here are some questions that can help you present your product benefits instead of the features. Answer these, and you’re one step closer to writing copy that will convert like magic.

• What can the user achieve with this?
• Who will this product benefit the most?
• What problems are users trying to solve with this product?
• What will this specific feature help the user accomplish?

3. Show how helpful your product has been to other users

Many high-converting landing pages let their customers do the selling for them. Marketers have seen their conversion rates double by simply adding user testimonials, and it’s not hard to see why. 

People want to know that your product works, and hearing it from just you isn’t enough.

Plus, nothing beats hearing advice from someone who’s walked in your shoes. Testimonials are compelling because they show your leads what to expect after buying your product.

When using social proof, written and video testimonials are two of your biggest options, and they both have merits. Written testimonials provide a thought-out opinion and are easier to read while scrolling. Video testimonials lend more credibility by showing the face behind the review, but your leads will miss them if they don’t stop and press play.

The best testimonials are written in the customer’s words, but it often helps to ask the right questions so that readers can relate to them. 

Here are some questions to ask customers when requesting a testimonial:

• What’s the biggest problem you wanted to solve with this product?
• Why did you choose our product/service?
• What was the best part of using this product?
• How was our product/service better than others you tried?
• Would you recommend us and why?

4. Make the content scannable and easy to follow

There are two ways to do this, and they both involve changing your landing page design: Using short sentences and paragraphs and breaking the text into subheadings.

Using short sentences and paragraphs across the entire landing page ensures that leads can read your copy quickly and easily and understand every word. The goal is to communicate as simply and as effectively as possible.  

Some copywriters also make sure to write like they talk. This style of writing makes the text read more like a conversation than a web page that’s designed to sell you something.

However, you should pay attention to your brand voice. The language used and how it is presented are major factors in keeping the reader’s attention.  

Additionally, consider tailoring the content to match the funnel stage of your audience. For instance, if your landing page is part of a brand awareness campaign, include relevant information that educates the visitor about your brand, product, or service.

Read some tips in this article for bottom of funnel content.

As we mentioned before, most people are just looking to browse until they see something that catches their eye. You want to make that search easier for them by breaking your landing page copy into segments.

Here are some more tips to help you create content that’s easy to follow.

• Keep language simple – avoid using big words
• Use active voice – if you’re not sure what that is, here is a handy guide
• Use engaging and relatable language. Humor and emojis can work well on landing pages

5. Engaging visuals

Visuals are powerful tools for grabbing attention, conveying information, and building trust. When it comes to a landing page design, they play a crucial role in complementing and enhancing the message. Images, infographics, and videos will help you break up large chunks of text, making the page more visually appealing and easier to digest.

The right visuals can easily address the pain points and trigger emotions to create a positive association with your brand. They can showcase your product or service in action, providing the potential customer with a clear understanding of its benefits and features. This is especially important for building trust and encouraging visitors to take the next step.  

So make sure you include high-quality product photos and videos, infographics and data visualizations, or video reviews. These elements not only improve the overall user experience and brand experience but also increase the likelihood of visitor conversion.

Tips for using visuals:

• Choose visuals that are relevant to your target audience and brand.
• Use high-quality images and videos.
• Optimize visuals for mobile devices.
• Use alt text to describe images for accessibility.

6. Use call to actions (CTAs) that inspire action

No well-meaning marketer would launch a page without a call to action. 

But, how you design the call to action and the specific words you use can make all the difference… And help you crack the high conversion rate formula.

The idea is to build successful landing pages by using calls to action that remind your lead of what’s waiting on the other side. So instead of generic phrases like “download now,” you could use “give me the free ebook.” or “show me how to achieve benefits.”

Multiple studies have confirmed this. In one, marketers tested “add to cart,” “buy now,” and “purchase now” CTAs. The “purchase now” performed 5% better than “buy now” and 14% better than “add to cart.”

It’s also great practice to add CTAs across the entire landing page, not just towards the end. This way, you give your leads multiple opportunities to make the decision and buy. 

Finally, studies have found that tweaking your landing page design and adding a bright-colored CTA can boost conversion.

Here are some other CTA ideas:

• I’m in!
• Book my free assessment
• Help me save
• Get the benefit bundle

7. Optimize your forms

No matter how compelling your landing page is, lengthy forms can discourage potential leads from taking the desired action. Short, concise forms and free of non-sense fields can significantly improve conversion rates.

When creating your forms, think about the necessary information you’ll need from your user. If it’s a newsletter signup form, why would you need a user’s place of birth or level of education?  Just leave these out, capture their e-mail address and any other information that might be relevant based on your audience segmentation, and let the leads flow.  

Here are some tips on how to make your forms short and easy to follow:

• Ask only for the information you need.
• Use clear and concise language.
• Break down long forms into multiple steps.
• Use progress indicators to show users how far they are along.
• Make the form visually appealing and easy to navigate.
• Offer alternative ways to submit information, like social logins.

8. Optimize the page loading speed 

Last, but not least, make sure your audience won’t have to wait for your landing page to open after clicking the link.   

In a world where the average human attention span is 8.25 seconds, page loading speed is a crucial factor in order to retain the interest of your audience once they land on your page. Some statistics show that the chance of a bounce increases by 32% when a page load time goes from one to three seconds.

So, if you don’t want to lose potential customers once they land on your page, make sure to improve its loading speed.        

Some basic tips to follow:  

• Minimize the number of HTTP requests.
• Compress images and other media files.
• Use a content delivery network (CDN) to distribute page assets across multiple servers.
• Enable browser caching.
• Choose a fast and reliable hosting provider.

Why optimizing your landing pages is important

1. Value through optimization

Marketers understand the importance of optimization. You do extensive keyword research, test multiple ad campaigns, and even A/B test web pages because you’re trying to push the conversion rate as high as possible.

High-converting landing pages operate by the same logic. By tweaking a few elements – emotional triggers here, irresistible CTAs there – you can slowly raise the conversion rate on your landing page and boost sales.

2. Shorten the entire marketing funnel 

The faster your leads convert, the shorter your entire funnel will be. That means you’ll invest less in retargeting ads, rely less on your email newsletter campaigns, and even optimize your ad spend, with an improved cost for each customer acquisition.

Turning your pages to high-converting landing page status by communicating the value of your offer clearly could also allow you to widen the top of your funnel. If you know that a significant number of leads that pass the awareness stage eventually convert, you will drive as many leads as possible.

So, a well-optimized landing page won’t just boost your conversion rate, but it will support your overall customer acquisition strategy (CAS) in the long run. 

3. Beat the competition

If your visitors are ready to buy now, your landing page may be the only thing standing between them and your competitors. You need to put your product’s best foot forward and show them there’s no need to keep looking. Also, because you can’t always rely on retargeting ads to bring them back to your website. 

But if your landing page doesn’t make a good impression the first time around, potential buyers may write off your brand and choose your competitor. With our attention spans online shorter than ever (8.25 seconds), you only have a few moments to show potential customers that you’ve got the goods.

Landing page examples

If you’re looking for some inspiration from existing landing pages, we’ve pulled together these great campaigns.

Moz

As you’ll see from this simple yet effective landing page from Moz, they have really distilled the key points into a very small area. 

Yes, Moz is a well-known brand, and most people searching for SEO tools will already know about them. But they are also in a competitive space, so highlighting their features while offering a tempting deal could make the difference between converting visitors or losing out to competitors.

Note also that Moz clearly uses their 30-day free trial as their CTA.    

Unbounce

As you might expect from a company that specializes in landing pages, Unbounce is a good example of a landing page.

Their selling point is explained in BIG BOLD text right there – with the sub explaining how easy it is.

They also use an easy-to-see and access CTA in the top corner. And just below the fol, you come across testimonials (social proof) plus the benefits and features simply outlined and lots of white space. 

Although they only use one customer testimonial here, they could use a grid of three or four to really ramp up the social proof.

As far as the standard for high-converting landing pages goes, Unbounce is always going to offer a good point of reference.

Leadpages

Staying with landing page software, we’re looking at Unbounce’s competitor Leadpages (because we can). And, of course, there are some more interesting uses of content and landing page layout that you can learn from.  

Leadpages start with their clear statement about how their product works, with an animated gif helping to highlight the whole process. A great way to keep people engaged with the landing page and want to scroll down.

Below the fold, we start to see a sales pitch and the social proof (how much customers trust their product). But for me, I would prefer to see the product features a little sooner. These make an appearance a bit further down the page…

The benefits of using their product are stated clearly, including some reasonably detailed information expanding on the headlines. 

The call to action is also used regularly along the entire length of the page, giving the potential customer multiple chances to convert.

The product features actually appear quite a long way down the page – which might have been a decision made to engage less technical marketers. Although for me, I’d want to be seeing the functionality much sooner.

Shopify/Dropshipping

Another well known digitally focused brand, Shopify, has crammed lots of useful information into its landing page. In fact, what makes this stand out as a great landing page example is the fact that this reads like a simplified user guide to dropshipping.

The first thing the visitor sees is the signup for the free trial, which draws in those who have already made up their mind.    

But scroll down… And we start to see how Shopify is winning over those who might be hesitant to get started, using the combination of a guide and a sales pitch…

They link to their free guide (lead magnet) to getting started with dropshipping.

And of course, they highlight the product details, features, and benefits throughout.   

This is a really good example of including a lead magnet, to harvest those potential prospects who aren’t quite ready to buy yet. And with those email addresses, of course, you can start to use your email marketing funnel too.

Shopify/general page

Same company, different product and approach. This landing page is for setting up any e-commerce site (not just dropshipping). 

Instantly, they’re selling the dream (literally) plus offering an incredible discount. Win/win, surely?

Big, bold text highlighting the offer gives the potential customer a good reason to scroll down and find out more. And the simple, bold white-on-black color scheme really makes the message pop out.    

In fact, in contrast to the dropshipping landing pages, Shopify has gone very simple here. They also offer another e-commerce landing page here.   

That’s it. That’s the landing page.

Sometimes simple is best.

Running an A/B test

When setting up a landing page, finding the most effective landing pages for your audience isn’t always going to happen instantly. This is where A/B testing, or split testing, comes in. 

If you’re not already in the know, split testing or A/B testing is where you run two (or more) versions of your landing pages as part of the same campaign. 

By doing this, you can work out which page gets the best engagement, lowest bounce rate, and highest number of conversions. In short, improving your landing page conversion rates is a case of trial and error.       

The results of your landing page split tests can make a huge difference to future campaigns and help you create more effective landing pages.  

There is a whole world of running split testing for landing pages – you can check out this guide from Hubspot. 

Optimizing your traffic 

In the world of paid ads, the issue of click fraud remains a constant thorn in the side of marketers and business owners.  

Invalid traffic drains, on average, 14% of Google Ad budgets. This includes bots, competitors, and click farms – making protecting against click fraud a key part of the strategy for the average digital marketer.

Read more about click fraud in our guide.

Whatever campaign you’re running online, improving your traffic quality can help you improve conversion rates and save money. 

If you’re running paid search or display ads on Google Ads, Bing Ads, or social media campaigns on Facebook Ads, run a traffic audit with ClickCease. 

Sign up for a FREE 7-day trial to get insights into who clicks your ads and see how much you could save by blocking fake traffic.

The post How to Create a High Converting Landing Page appeared first on ClickCease Blog.

As advertisers chase their dreams of ad success, some of their cash unknowingly takes a detour into the black hole of fake clicks. Yep, a portion of your hard-earned budget might be slipping through unnoticed.

This hidden threat highlights the critical importance of effective click fraud prevention in the ongoing battle against deceptive clicks on Google Ads.  

So, let’s unravel the mystery behind click fraud and explore some strategies that give advertisers the upper hand in the ongoing fight against these sneaky clicks in their Google Ads campaigns.

The definition of click fraud

Click fraud, at its core, involves deceptive or unintended clicks on online content. Its manifestations are diverse, encompassing fake clicks delivered by automated schemes or click farms, manual clicks by your competitors, or even simple accidental clicks.   

These unauthentic clicks also infiltrate your analytics which skews your data and makes it difficult to make informed decisions. In the case of PPC campaigns, click fraud can create a misleading illusion of success by making you believe that more people are genuinely engaging with your ads. 

Meanwhile, the advertising platform is regularly charging you for these deceptive clicks, leading to a misalignment between perceived success and the actual value of your advertising investment. 

Read our full guide about click fraud here.

How does click fraud impact advertisers on Google Ads?

In the complex dance of online advertising, click fraud on Google Ads is the uninvited guest that disrupts the rhythm, impacting advertisers on multiple fronts. 

With a market share of 23.61%, it’s the most dominant ad platform on the Internet. As such, it’s not just the first choice for advertisers but also the main target of fraudsters. If left unaddressed, click fraud can have far-reaching consequences for advertisers. Let’s explore them.     

Financial losses 

In the world of online ads, click fraud really hurts advertisers where it hurts the most: the budget.

WebFX estimates that a regular business spends anything between $1,000 and $10,000 on Google ads per month. Now imagine that, on average, 14% of these clicks are fake. You’re basically flushing $140 down the drain for every $1,000 spent.

Yet, think about the time and effort you poured into creating and optimizing your ad campaign. It’s more than just a financial loss; it feels like the overall productivity of your business endeavors is continually decreasing, making it challenging to reach your business goals.

Reduced ROI

With inflated click numbers and increased costs, your return on investment (ROI) decreases. 

You may find it challenging to justify your ad spend when a significant portion of it is wasted on clicks that can’t contribute to genuine conversions. 

Distorted performance metrics 

Click fraud can distort key performance metrics such as click-through rate (CTR), conversion rate, and engagement metrics.   

Advertisers may find it difficult to accurately assess the actual performance of their campaigns, making it challenging to optimize and improve their strategies. 

Trust and credibility

Beyond the domain of finances, ROI, and key performance metrics, click fraud extends its influence to the very foundation of the advertiser’s relationship with the digital advertising space – trust and credibility.

Advertisers may lose trust in the effectiveness of Google Ads if they perceive that a significant portion of their budget is being wasted on fraudulent clicks. This could lead to a reluctance to invest in online advertising or a shift to alternative advertising channels. 

How does Google deal with fake clicks?

There’s a reason why Google Ads is so powerful and remains the number one advertising platform no matter what. It’s in Google’s interest to take care of its advertisers and ensure they’ll get the most out of their campaigns.

So, Google does take it seriously to minimize click fraud and ad fraud on its platform. It has a multi-layered approach to protecting advertisers from unwanted clicks on their ads. Let’s explore it.

Automated systems and manual human reviews for click fraud detection

At the forefront of Google’s defense are both automated systems and specialized human reviews dedicated to click fraud detection. 

The automated system uses filters to distinguish between activity generated through genuine users and activity that may pose a risk to advertisers, lowering the risks of advertisers being charged for irrelevant interactions.

The team uses specialized tools and techniques based on extensive experience tracking and monitoring user behavior and analyzing scenarios that may indicate fake ad interactions.

Monitoring various data points 

To stay ahead in the cat-and-mouse game of click fraud, Google monitors various data points, including:

• IP address
• Time of interaction
• Duplicate interactions

After analyzing various kinds of interaction patterns, Google tries to filter out potentially invalid clicks and impressions. 

Reporting invalid traffic      

Despite their proactive measures, Google recognizes that some invalid traffic may pass unnoticed through its filters. That’s why, as a last layer of their click fraud protection process, they offer the opportunity for advertisers to detect and report suspicious activity.  

So, once you know there are fake interactions with your Google Ads campaigns, you can collect your information and report this to Google for further investigation.

Read their guide about managing invalid traffic and how the reporting of invalid activity works.

How can you identify click fraud on your Google Ads?   

While Google has implemented various measures to detect and prevent click fraud, it is still a prevalent issue. If you run PPC campaigns on Google, you must be aware of the signs of fake traffic. 

Identifying click fraud on your Google Ads requires a vigilant eye and active monitoring of your analytics.  

Here are some steps you can implement to identify suspicious activity:  

1. Keep an eye on your campaign metrics, especially click-through rates (CTR) and conversion rates. Look for unusual spikes in clicks without a corresponding increase in conversions. 
2. Examine the IP addresses of the users who click on your ads. Multiple clicks from the same IP address within a short time period may indicate fraudulent activity. However, be cautious, as legitimate users may share IP addresses (e.g., in offices or public spaces).   
3. Analyze your bounce rate (and Engagement rate in the new GA4). A high bounce rate can indicate that your ads are being clicked on by bots or low-quality traffic.
4. Compare your Google Ads data to your Google Analytics. If there is a higher number of clicks on your ads, but no visits are marked in your Google Analytics, it may indicate that bots or malicious actors are clicking on your ads without actually visiting your website or landing pages.  

Keep in mind that once you spot any of these signs, it means that your ads are already being targeted by the fraudsters. To minimize the risks associated with click fraud and avoid serious damage, it’s of crucial importance to block fraudulent traffic in the first place.   

How can you prevent click fraud?

Preventing click fraud is not just a goal; it’s a proactive strategy to protect your advertising efforts on Google Ads. Unlike identifying click fraud, preventing it requires a more strategic approach. 

Manual click fraud prevention      

Active monitoring of your ad traffic empowers you to take manual measures, such as excluding suspicious IP addresses or refining your targeting to eliminate irrelevant audience groups. 

However, to achieve comprehensive protection, it’s important to recognize the limitations of manual intervention. The large volume and complexity of data you need to go through is not a simple task to do. It’s challenging for human oversight alone to detect and respond accurately to emerging threats. 

And after all, you have a business to run or campaigns to plan, implement, and optimize. You’ll likely want to stay focused on the more critical tasks. That’s where the importance of full and automated protection comes into play.    

Automated click fraud prevention 

Utilizing software tools designed for click fraud prevention, such as ClickCease, proves to be a game-changer. These tools analyze vast datasets in real-time, identifying fraudulent patterns and implementing preventive measures with precision. This ensures that no deceptive click goes unnoticed.  

With the increasing rates of money lost due to PPC click fraud, employing an automated solution for blocking malicious traffic is the most effective way to protect your budget.   

With ClickCease, you can automatically block such fraudulent sources from clicking on your Google Ads. This way, you can run your ad campaigns stress-free, ensuring that your precious ad budget is used for attracting genuine traffic only.    

Run a free traffic audit and see how much you can save on your Google Ads if you let ClickCease prevent click fraud and block bad traffic for you.    

Sign up for your 7-day free trial here.

The post Click fraud prevention on Google Ads – How to protect your ads? appeared first on ClickCease Blog.

But what are the other top PPC ad platforms? What can they offer, and how might professional marketers benefit by considering them for their ad strategies?

As of 2022, the pay-per-click (PPC) industry is worth over $144 billion annually and is forecast to grow to over $190 billion beyond 2024. Even Covid-19 was unable to put a damper on the stampeding rise of search advertising. That’s because the PPC ad platforms still offer an unbeatable reach for every business, large or small.

If you’re weighing up your options, this list of the best PPC ad networks, including Google Ads alternatives, will help you make sense of your choices.

We’ll take a look at everyone, from the giants of Google and Microsoft to some of the smaller players. You might just find your ideal Google Ads alternative right here…

What exactly is a PPC network?

Originally, pay-per-click ads would be text results on search engine result pages, i.e., Google or Yahoo. Nowadays, the paid SERPs are just a tiny slice of the available options.

Many of these PPC platforms offer the opportunity to display your ad on one of their partner websites or syndicated search result pages. These ads can be in the form of:

• Text-based search engine results (SERPs)
• Display banner ads
• Embedded video
• Video ad within a video (for example, on YouTube)
• Native advertising content (sponsored content)
• In-app advertising
• Pop-up ads in a website or app

Some of the pay-per-click platforms, such as Google, offer pretty much all of these advertising options. Others target specific niches, such as in-app advertising or sponsored content only.

Although they’re called pay-per-click networks, this can be a bit of a misnomer.   

The most common PPC bidding options are:

• Pay per click (in the form of cost per click, or CPC)
• Pay per thousand impressions (cost per mile, or CPM)
• Pay per conversion/acquisition (cost per acquisition, or CPA)

That’s actually just the tip of the iceberg, with the big ad platforms, including Google and Facebook, offering an even more diverse selection of bidding strategies.

The list of best PPC ad networks

So now you know what a PPC ad network is, it’s time to find out which is best for your ad strategy. The benefits of using a Google Ads alternative can include less competition, lower cost per click, and the chance to target specific or niche demographics.

So, this list isn’t an exhaustive list of the best PPC ad networks, but it explains the variety of options and what each platform can offer.

We’ll start with the big guns…

1. Google Ads

You already know that Google is the biggest of the PPC advertising networks, with over 73% of the market share globally.        

Let’s put some numbers on that, so you can get an idea of how that translates in real terms: 

• 105,000 searches every second as of 2023
• 8.5 billion searches every day
• 2 trillion global searches per year

Put simply, it is the most used search engine and is the best way to reach most internet users globally. Maybe with the exception of China, which puts limitations on the services of Google in the People’s Republic.  

The benefits of this are whoever you’re targeting probably uses Google, so it’s a great platform, whatever your industry.

However, that means that your competitors are probably using it, too, so the CPC can be incredibly expensive on competitive keywords.

As well as being the biggest PPC ad network, Google also offers an excellent selection of free tools, such as Google Analytics and Keyword Planner, to help you get the best out of your marketing efforts.  

Google’s Display Network is also industry-leading, with display PPC ads available on sites like YouTube, Blogger, and some of the most visited websites in the world. 

Benefits of using Google Ads:

• The biggest global reach by far
• Variety of bidding strategies
• A huge suite of tools to optimize your PPC ad campaign
• The Display Network has an unbeatable selection of websites 
• Detailed analytics and reporting
• Range of targeting customization options

2. Microsoft Advertising (Bing Ads)

Being second isn’t necessarily a bad thing. We looked in depth at Bing Ads recently, which is now known as Microsoft Advertising. There are plenty of benefits to using the second biggest PPC platform.

If you’re looking for a Google Ads alternative that offers cheaper CPC and still has a great reach, then Microsoft Ads could be very tempting. Like Google, Microsoft Ads offers paid search engine results and a selection of popular sites to display your banner, video, or content ads.

Although the selection of partner websites for display advertising isn’t quite as huge as Google, being able to advertise on MSN, Yahoo!, and AOL definitely has its perks.

Another selling point of Microsoft’s PPC ad network is that users tend to be from high-earning backgrounds.  

Some stats for the Microsoft Ads (Bing Ads) PPC network: 

• 5.4 billion searches a month across the platform
• 36% market share in the USA
• 20% market share in the UK
• One-third of the global market share

When you look at it like that, it looks pretty tempting, right?

Find out more about Bing/Microsoft Ads PPC network in our blog post.

Benefits of using Microsoft Ads:

• Relatively cheap CPC for a PPC ad network
• A third of the global search market share
• High-end demographic, especially in the USA
• Less competition for popular keywords and searches
• Choice of sponsored SERPs and display ads
• Well suited to B2B ad campaigns
• Automated bidding strategies and last-touch attribution
• Cross-channel exposure of your ads with Microsoft-Roku collaboration

3. Meta for Business (Facebook Ads)

In third place, Facebook Ads offers a very different but still appealing ad network package. While Google and Microsoft Ads are both based on search, Facebook Ads focus instead on demographic targeting.        

This means a user doesn’t have to actively search to activate your ad. Instead, you can get your ad seen on two of the biggest social media feeds. 

• Facebook
• Instagram

Ads can also show on Facebook Messenger and on the Facebook Audience Network. This is mostly focused on ads within apps. So if your business is apps or the kind of thing that targets the users of apps, you could be looking at a good option here.

But it’s that option to advertise on Instagram or Facebook’s feed that is really powerful. 

Facebook’s algorithms give you the opportunity to really target specific demographics and interests. And, as you’re not actually showing in search results, your paid ads appear more like native content.

One thing to bear in mind is that Facebook Ads, and ads on the FB network, will need to be quite visual. No text, only search results here. Shareable, well-framed, catchy, clickable content is what Facebook is all about.

The average CPC for Facebook Ads tends to be lower than Google and Bing, with around $1.72 being the average.  

Benefits of using Facebook Ads:  

• Excellent for specific demographic targeting
• Native content ads can be very effective
• Visual content does best on Facebook Ads, especially with Instagram
• No need to bid on keywords; your ad will show to a target demographic whether they search or not
• Some good options for app developers
• Relatively cheap CPC ad network

4. LinkedIn Ads

Known as ‘Facebook for professionals’, Linkedin has been steadily growing in popularity as one of the top PPC platforms. The reason is you’re able to reach a business-savvy and well-educated marketplace, often with strong purchasing power and intent.

Like Facebook, you can also target specific demographics. Although in this instance, they’re professionals, such as marketing experts, C-level executives, and business owners. If you’re a B2B service, you probably have already considered Linkedin Ads.

Like all the entries on this best ad networks list so far, there is a selection of ways your Linkedin Ads can appear:

• Sponsored posts (in the feed)
• InMail (direct mailings to specific target customers)
• Text ads 
• Dynamic ads
• Display partner network

So what is the average CPC with Linkedin Ads?

Well, actually, Linkedin requires a minimum bid of $2 for CPC and CPM ads.  

Interestingly they also offer a Cost per Send option for those InMails, with a flat rate for each mail sent and received. This can be as low as $0.10c per send or thereabouts. 

But, when it comes to the quality of audience, for B2B marketers, at least, Linkedin is hard to beat.

Benefits of using LinkedIn Ads:  

• Excellent access to an audience of active professionals
• Option for native ads (sponsored content)
• InMail offers an excellent way for some direct marketing
• Narrowed targeting across specific verticals (Industry, Job title, Company size, etc.)
• Lead generation forms to easily manage your leads

5. Taboola

The first of the dedicated native advertising platforms on our list, you’ve probably spotted Taboola on your favorite news site. What they specialize in is sponsored content which fits neatly into whatever list of news articles or content their partner sites display.  

It’s like Google Adsense and the Display Network but for a carefully curated list of websites.

How does this work for marketers?

If you want your brand to appear on huge sites like Business Insider, CNBC, or NBC News, then using Taboola is an affordable and effective solution.  

You’ll need to create content that is engaging and designed to convert (without being spammy, of course). Yes, this does mean making a blog post or news article about your product or service. 

Your pay-per-click (PPC) options are either CPM or CPC.  

The average CPC for Taboola is normally just a few cents, making it one of the cheapest options for PPC ad networks. 

Another thing that sets Taboola apart from Google’s Display Network/Adsense is that sites on Taboola’s network have to be high quality. This means all the websites on Taboola’s network have more than 1 million visitors a month, whereas Google Adsense sites can have pretty much any amount of traffic.

Benefits of using Taboola: 

• Made for content marketing
• Low CPC compared to other ad networks
• High-quality sites with high-traffic volumes
• Useful for retargeting previous campaign clickers
• Ability to stop your campaign from appearing on specific sites or topics
• Ad descriptions that support all languages

6. Outbrain

Outbrain is another content recommendation platform, very similar to Taboola. They’re both content marketing focused, with a selection of quality websites. 

With Outbrain, you’ll be popping up on sites like CNN, The Washington Post, WSJ, The Guardian, and MSN.

The average CPC on Outbrain is lower too, with reports suggesting $0.10c as opposed to nearer $0.45 on Taboola.

Benefits of using Outbrain:  

• Excellent selection of over 100,000 publisher sites
• Lower CPC than Taboola
• Dynamic retargeting
• Extra user-friendly, easy to navigate, and set up your campaign

7. RevContent

This is another content recommendation ad platform similar to Taboola and Outbrain. Although RevContent doesn’t have the choice of high-end sites, it does have a good reach with US audiences. 

By their own tagline, they’re the fastest-growing native advertising network in the world. So if you’re looking for a platform with the potential to grow and with much less competition, RevContent might be a wise decision.

For a PPC ad network with a relatively small reach, you’d expect the average CPC to be quite low. However, reports suggest that RevContent’s cost per click is around the same as Taboola’s, at around $0.44c per click.

Benefits of using RevContent:  

• The world’s fastest-growing native PPC ad network…
• Not much competition
• Thousands of partner websites for you to show your content on

8. Reddit Ads

Another social media platform offering itself as a PPC ad network? Well, yes, but Reddit is another useful niche advertising platform to have in your armory.   

What exactly is Reddit? Well, it’s the world’s biggest social forum, and if you’re not up to speed, then maybe you should take a look. 

There are currently above 430 million monthly active users, with visitors coming for everything from sharing memes to researching business opportunities. Yes, really, there is lots of B2B and B2C potential on this network.

Your ad will be in the form of a Reddit post with a ‘promoted post’ in the bottom right-hand corner. This means your ad will usually be visible at the top of a subreddit page or pop up in the feed like a native advertising post.

Prices for advertising on Reddit are reasonable, with prices starting at $1.50 for CPM.

The main benefit of adding Reddit Ads to your list of PPC sites is that you can target by community, interest, and location – among other options.     

Benefits of using Reddit Ads: 

• Relatively inexpensive
• Good targeting options
• Access to a highly passionate and engaged group of users about a specific topic 
• Still quite unsaturated as an ad network
• Ability to tailor your ads to speak to the different communities

9. AdRoll

One of the biggest retargeting ad networks, AdRoll is a powerful tool to drive return visits or convert interested visitors to paying customers.   

The way AdRoll works is by using AI to understand visitor behavior. It aggregates your marketing strategy across multiple channels to drive engagement on social media, email, or from your own e-commerce site. 

AdRolls’s secret weapon is BidiQ, which analyses user data across web and social media platforms to retarget ads at the best price. You can also use AdRoll to target customers with emails customized for them, which is often held up as a key strategy to convert.

Advertisers can also harness the power of dynamic ads, which are those ads that pop up with a relevant product after you’ve been looking for something similar. Although some people find these a bit freaky, they’re proven to be quite effective.

If you’re looking for a way to unify your retargeting strategy and you’re wondering if there is another way (besides Google Ads), then AdRoll is a very solid choice.         

Benefits of using AdRoll: 

• Dedicated retargeting platform with very effective AI
• Unifies retargeting across websites, social media your own site
• Finds the best deal on retargeting ads

10. RTB House

Another choice for retargeting ad networks, RTB House is the smaller upstart offering its own brand of AI tools.

RTB House actually has access to more websites for that retargeting potential, but other than that, it’s very similar to the bigger and more established AdRoll.

As the name suggests, RTB House offers real-time bidding on a broad selection of PPC ad networks, all from within their own platform.

Price-wise, RTB House is quote based only, so you’ll need to contact them to discuss your retargeting ad requirements.

Benefits of using RTB House:  

• Big selection of websites for ad retargeting
• Similar to AdRoll
• Better campaign understanding with Deep Learning technologies
• Personalized campaigns for better engagement

11. Twitter Ads (X Ads)

Back to the social media giants, Twitter Ads (or X Ads as of recently) is a useful PPC ad tool for business owners.  

The choices for X Ads are: 

• Promoted Ads
• Follower Ads
• Twitter Amplify
• Twitter Takeover
• Twitter Live

Most of these speak for themselves. There is another option too, which is the Promote Mode, an automated ad bidding option that allows you to tweet and carry on as normal. X will then promote your tweets, bumping them up to around 30,000 additional people.   

For a flat rate of US$99 per month, this can be quite an effective PPC method. 

Like all social media networks, the benefits of using X PPC ads allow you to target by interest, demographic and geographic location.  

For best results, use visual content or harness the power of Twitter’s micro-blogging style.

Benefits of using X Ads:

• X is one of the cheapest social media ad networks
• Powerful demographic targeting
• It can be useful for both B2B and B2C
• Place your brand at the top of what’s trending

12. Twitch Ads

Here’s a stat for you. 50% of American millennial men use Twitch. Got your attention? Yes, Twitch has the potential to be a very powerful ad network.

If you’re not up to speed, Twitch is a live streaming platform that was built on live gaming. These days, you’ll find musicians, bloggers, and more all live streaming on this rapidly growing platform.

Ads on Twitch can appear as:

• Sponsored posts next to live streams
• Embedded video on the home page or on category pages
• Text and image box on the side
• Text and image header

You can also choose to sponsor events (such as tournaments or leagues) or use Twitch SureSteam. Both options offer great visibility and work around things like ad blockers, guaranteeing your ad is seen.

At any one time, there are around 1 million people watching Twitch, and this just keeps on growing. As Twitch states on its site, this is more than CNN or MSNBC’s daily viewers…. So, this is actually a PPC network to pay attention to for the future.

In terms of demographics, 81% of Twitch viewers are men, and these are overwhelmingly in the 18-34-year-old age bracket. Most Twitch viewers are tech-savvy and trust influencers and YouTube stars more than they trust traditional broadcast channels.  

One of the strengths of Twitch is that you can choose to have your ads appear in the streams of specific live streamers. It’s more affordable than influencer marketing and a bit more targeted than traditional PPC ad networks.

Truthfully, this is a channel that has been recognized for its powerful potential and is now used regularly by some brands. 

Benefits of using Twitch Ads:

• Target a young, tech-savvy, and mostly male demographic
• Offers potential for influencer partnership style advertising for a fraction of the cost
• Some interesting PPC ad options
• Something for everyone with regards to advertising, with high-end sponsorship options or more affordable display ads

13. AdNow

Another native advertising content platform, AdNow, offers access to over 160,000 publishers. Offering real-time bidding through AdNow gives advertisers the option to display native content ads or display banner ads.

Being able to run both banner and native ads from the same publisher can be very useful. Publishers using AdNow are often the types not seen on Taboola, Outbrain, or RevContent, the reason being that AdNow is less strict about the publishers they accept.

That doesn’t necessarily mean low-quality sites, but it does mean a reach that those ad platforms don’t offer.

A selling point for advertisers is the low cost per click, with around 3 to 6 cents for a click and CPM being anything up to around $2.

Benefits of using AdNow:    

• Native content and banner ads
• Websites not seen on some of the bigger native content ad sites
• Quite cheap CPM and CPC for a PPC network

14. AdRecover

The amount of users using ad blockers has grown in recent years, with options for browser extensions to block ads. But this clever PPC ad network offers the potential to get around ad blockers with full permission-enabled and non-intrusive ads.

Data shows that the demographic most likely to use ad blockers is millennials, so using AdRecover offers the potential to get your ad seen by this high-value audience. 

AdRecover claims that all ads are non-intrusive, and many of them show ‘above the fold’ with no slow down in loading speed. 

This is done with static or text-based ads, so no video or banner ads here. 

There is no data online about the average cost of using AdRecover for advertisers, but they suggest that to use AdRecover, your monthly media spend should be $10,000. It might be that this isn’t the best solution for SMEs, but for established and growing businesses, it could be a useful way to target millennials.

Benefits of using AdRecover:    

• Get your ads seen by users who use ad blockers, who are usually millennials
• Non-intrusive ads only
• Their own data suggests high CTR and conversion rates

15. Amazon Ads

Since 2016, when Amazon first launched Amazon Marketing Services (AMS), now known as simply Amazon Ads, its popularity as one of the best PPC networks has never stopped growing.

With a massive e-commerce market share of over 50%, it’s an especially attractive option for e-commerce brands.   

If you don’t have an Amazon Store, you can still create Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands ads using the Amazon Advertising console. You can also use Amazon Attribution to track the performance of your ads across Amazon and other channels.

Benefits of using Amazon Ads:  

• Potential to reach over 200 million active Prime members 
• Target your ads to specific audiences based on their interests, demographics, and purchase behavior.
• A variety of ad formats, including Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, Display Ads, and Video Ads
• It’s easier for customers to discover and consider your products when they are most likely to be interested in buying 

16. Pinterest Ads

Pinterest is a visual social platform that people use daily as a source of inspiration and collecting ideas. As such, it offers great opportunities for brands to establish awareness for their brand, products, and services, especially in this initial discovery stage.   

The highly visual nature of the platform will also help you easily grab the attention of the users. With appealing content and brand visuals, you can put your brand at the top of the users’ minds when they think of the particular area they were discovering on Pinterest.     

• High engagement possibilities. Pinterest users spend an average of 15 minutes per session.  
• Increased purchase opportunities with integrated shopping features that enable users to make purchases directly. 
• Easy for potential customers to transition into purchase.

Choosing the best PPC ad network for your ad strategy

As we’ve seen, there is a lot of choice of ad networks for advertisers, and choosing the best one isn’t so straightforward. The best and safest choice by far, is the all-rounder Google Ads, offering the biggest search engine for ads and the display network with the biggest choice. 

However, if you’re looking for an affordable PPC platform to target a specific demographic or a PPC ad channel with less competition, this list might have helped you come up with some ideas. 

For example, if you’re targeting business professionals, Linkedin Ads might be your best choice. Or if you’re thinking of using native content PPC ads, hopefully, one of our recommendations could be your solution.     

Remember that click fraud impacts every paid ad network and campaign. To protect your Google, Facebook, and Bing Ads, get started with ClickCease.  

ClickCease filters out invalid traffic, such as bots, malware clicks, and malicious clickers, using our industry-leading software. See how we can protect PPC ad campaigns with a free trial and make sure those pesky bots and fraudsters are blocked…!

The post The 16 Best PPC Ad Networks for Marketers in 2024 appeared first on ClickCease Blog.

To unlock ChatGPT’s full potential, it’s crucial to have a set of prompts tailored to specific situations. 

In this blog post, we’ll explore how ChatGPT prompts could make lives easier for PPC experts. You’ll also find a list of the most effective prompts for PPC, categorized for easy reference.       

How do ChatGPT prompts work? 

Consider the prompts as the conversation starters with your AI assistant. You ask your question or give a command, and it responds back with your specific need.

It’s like asking your virtual assistant Alexa to increase the temperature by 50 degrees Celsius while preparing the last layer of your cake. But if you don’t specify that you need the temperature in the oven increased, you will end up sweating until you notice that your room temperature is increasing and your cake is ready but undercooked…        

In other words, the AI assistants, while smart, still lack the capacity to understand your current circumstances.  

That’s why clear and concise instructions are everything. They set the stage for the information and responses you receive to help you create PPC ads that make money.     

The role of ChatGPT prompts for PPC experts 

We all know there are still separate opinions about the true value of ChatGPT when it comes to paid ads.        

Some express concerns about its accuracy, while others worry that the generated content might lack emotional intelligence, making audience engagement harder.      

But let’s keep it clear: with just a few tweaks, you can always add a “human touch” or adapt based on factors like audience location, pain points, USPs, or product specifics, etc. Plus, once you become more proficient at identifying which prompts work best in different situations, your use of ChatGPT becomes even more effective.  

It will definitely help generate unique ideas and will help you save time and energy on time-consuming and manual tasks such as keyword research.          

Just to picture it better, these are just some of the benefits you and your PPC team can experience with ChatGPT:     

• Automating routine tasks 
• Identify and target new audience segments
• Generating new creative ideas
• Decrease the workload of your PPC team
• Better resource allocation
• Better results and higher Return on Investment (ROI)

1. Keyword research

Keywords – the initial starting point of any Google ads or Bing (now Microsoft) ads search campaign. 

ChatGPT can assist in generating keyword ideas and providing insights on search intentions, competition, and relevance, helping advertisers identify the most effective keywords for their PPC campaigns.

These prompts can supercharge your PPC keyword strategy:  

• Suggest relevant keywords to advertise this landing page: [URL to the landing page].
• List [number] keyword ideas to advertise about [product name].
• I’m running a [platform and ad format] campaign about [few details about your campaign]. Find keywords similar to this one [keyword or list of keywords].
• Generate the most popular keywords for the topic of [topic].
• I’m running an ad campaign about [product or service with few details]. My target audience is [your audience]. Brainstorm negative keywords for the topic of [topic]. 
• Group the following list of keywords in categories by search intent and category: [list of keywords].   
• Create [number] ad groups for the following list of keywords: [list of keywords].

2. Ad creatives and copywriting

With information about your product or service, campaign goals, intended audience, etc, ChtGPT can help you create compelling ad copy variations.  

Here are the most effective prompts to use for generating your ad copy:

• I’m creating a Google search ad for [product, service, or topic]. I need you to create [number] suggestions for the ad headline and description.  
• I’m running a [type of your PPC ad] about [product or service] with [targeted keyword] as the main keyword. I’m targeting [describe your ad group audience] with this ad: [ad copy]. Adapt this copy for the ad group of [describe your new ad group audience].
• With the ad copy below, I’m targeting [audience group and description]. Generate 10 similar variants in which the Call to Action (CTA) will be shorter, stronger, and more concise: [ad copy], CTA to be edited: [CTA].
• I need to create a Meta video ad for a story as placement about [describe your product or service]. My target audience is [few words to describe the target audience]. Please suggest creative ideas about the video and the description.
• I’m currently running a responsive search ad on Google about [describe your product or service], and the target audience is [description of your audience group]. Based on the headline and description I currently use, please suggest other variants to target different pain points of this target audience for an A/B test.
  The current ad creative: 
  [Headline]
  [Description]

3. Defining the target audience

Even if you already have clearly defined your “ideal” buyer persona, don’t limit your audience possibilities.  

ChatGPT can provide guidance on audience segmentation and demographics, helping you identify or refine your customer profiles for precise targeting. Check the prompts below for this step: 

• I’m running a [type of ad campaign] for [product/service]. Suggest audience groups that I can target based on [criteria].  
• I’m running a [type of ad campaign] for [product/service]. My target audience is [audience specifics]. I need you to identify the most common pain points of this audience group associated with [your product/service] and generate [number] of ad copy suggestions based on this.
• I’m running a [type of ad campaign]. My target audience is [audience demographics, interests, etc.], and I’m targeting with these keywords [targeted keywords]. Generate hypotheses about what factors might affect the performance of my campaign.
• Act like you are an experienced PPC expert. I want to run Google ads for [describe your business and product or service with its specifications]. Create an ideal audience for this ad.

4. Campaign strategy

ChatGPT can offer strategic advice on campaign goals, budget allocation, bidding strategies, and ad scheduling. This will help you come up with better-informed decisions to maximize campaign ROI.  

Leverage these prompts to design winning PPC campaigns:      

• I want to run a creative display ad on social media for [product or service]. Suggest the best placements and platforms I should consider to attract potential customers. 
• I’m preparing a PPC campaign for [short business and product/service description]. Act as an experienced PPC strategist and suggest ad platforms, placements, and format combinations so I can set up multiple campaigns. 
• I’m preparing a Google search ad campaign about [describe your product/service]. Please suggest ad groups with ad copy and headlines for each of these keywords [list your keywords]. Group them in a table format.
• I’m running a PPC campaign about [product/service description]. My target audience is [describe your audience] on the following platforms: [list the platforms where you run your ad]. Suggest a budgeting strategy per platform.

5. Generate product descriptions and names

Let’s face it: many PPC experts claim that creativity is not their strongest skill, and crafting unique and engaging product descriptions for your advertised products requires a touch of artistry and linguistic finesse. 

With these prompts, you can let ChatGPT generate product names and descriptions that are engaging and informative: 

• Please craft a compelling product description about [describe your product]. It needs to address the following USPs (Unique Selling Propositions) [drop your defined USPs].
• I’m running a PPC campaign about [describe your product]. My target audience is [describe your audience]. Please generate 2 product descriptions and names for A/B testing that address the audience’s pain points.
• Please provide a product description for [Product Name]. This product is [Product Category] that [Main Feature/Benefit]. It is designed for [Target Audience] and is [Product Specification]. Source.
• Please write a [number] words engaging product description with a catchy name about [your product]. Focus on these main product features [product features] and use [type of tone of voice, e.g., casual, enthusiastic, etc.] tone of voice.

Search Engine Land suggests that you can use existing Excel spreadsheets with your list of products to generate product descriptions with ChatGPT. Check out their article about this and see how you can utilize it to generate even better product descriptions and names.

6. Landing page optimization

Yes, with the right prompts, ChatGPT can help you optimize the final destination your audience should land on. 

It can suggest ways, for example, to enhance the user experience by providing information on website usability, navigation, and personalization to increase conversion rates and customer satisfaction.  

Follow these landing page optimization prompts:

• Suggest best practices on how to optimize my landing page about [product type]. The main target audience is [target audience].
• I’m running a PPC campaign about [product description]. Suggest ideas on how to optimize its landing page with pain points relevant to [target audience].
• Suggest optimal CTA (Call to Action) to optimize my landing page about [type of product] for better conversions.
• Suggest creative ideas on how to optimize the design on my landing page about [product type]. It should be relevant for [target audience] to motivate them to take the next step.

Check out these prompt ideas for landing page optimization. They might inspire you to adjust or craft your unique prompts applicable to your current needs.

Additional tips for maximum results with your PPC campaigns

As a PPC expert, you can significantly streamline your work with ChatGPT and AI tools in general. However, once you’ve crafted a flawless campaign, don’t forget to make sure your ads reach real users only. 

ChatGPT prompts are great for building the strategy, keywords, and creative elements. Unfortunately, there’s no prompt that will help you get rid of invalid traffic (IVT) and bad actors that are draining your ad budgets. 

Shockingly, in 2022, nearly 40% of all online traffic was confirmed as invalid, resulting in a staggering $35.7 billion of wasted ad spend for PPC campaigns.

To ensure a PPC campaign’s effectiveness, it’s crucial to combine the power of ChatGPT assistance with an AI-driven bot detection solution.  

Bot detection tools for higher Return on Investment (ROI)

Employing a bot detection tool will help you maximize your PPC results, ensuring that your budget is dedicated to genuine interactions, ultimately driving real business outcomes.

ClickCease is tailor-made for PPC experts like you, protecting your ads against fraud. This way, you can invest your time and effort in continually enhancing your campaigns and mastering the art of generating effective ChatGPT prompts.       

Get your ads protected for free for 7 days.

FAQs:

Can ChatGPT be useful for PPC experts?

ChatGPT can offer valuable support for PPC experts in multiple ways. It can simplify tasks by automating repetitive PPC management responsibilities like campaign strategy creation, keyword research, or ad copywriting.

This automation frees up time for PPC experts to focus on more strategic aspects, such as, setup audience targeting, identifying relevant keywords, planning the campaign ad groups, etc.  

ChatGPT can pinpoint well-performing keywords, identify negative ones, and suggest areas for campaign improvement. 

How to write the perfect ChatGPT prompt for PPC?

To craft the perfect ChatGPT prompt for your PPC needs, follow these steps: 

Be clear and concise: Start by being clear about the current state of your PPC campaign. Indicate whether it’s a new campaign or one that’s already running. Specify the platform or ad type, such as search, display, or social media ads. 

Detail your optimization goals: Clearly state what you aim to optimize within the campaign. Whether it’s ad copy, keywords, bidding strategy, or targeting parameters, articulate your primary objective. 

Provide examples: Offer examples of your previous keywords, ad copies, or copy ideas that you’ve been considering. Sharing this information can help ChatGPT generate more contextually relevant suggestions.     

The post Top Must-Use ChatGPT Prompts for PPC Experts appeared first on ClickCease Blog.

If you’re among those who doubt the effectiveness of B2B PPC advertising, here’s a fact that might change your perspective. Google reports that 71% of B2B researchers start their research with a generic search.

Needless to say, leads generated through PPC advertising already have a much stronger interest in your products or services. Isn’t it logical that guiding such leads through your sales funnel will be significantly easier?

Unlike B2C (Business-to-Consumer), B2B PPC can be more challenging. Here, your target is not individual consumers with personal preferences; you’re tackling specific industry needs and approaching entire companies, departments, and, ultimately, decision-makers.  

That’s why crafting a well-thought-out B2B PPC strategy isn’t just important; it’s essential. In this blog post, we’ll discover the world of B2B PPC with straightforward and simple explanations, tips, and strategies.

How does B2B PPC work? 

Running a B2B PPC campaign means that you aim to attract other businesses or professionals as customers or clients through paid advertising.

B2B PPC allows you to precisely target a desired audience based on specific criteria like industry, job titles, company size, and more. 

Here’s how it works in a nutshell: You create ad campaigns that are tailor-made for your ideal B2B audience, and you pick the keywords or criteria that will make your ads show up. When a potential business prospect searches for something related to what you offer or matches your target criteria, your ad appears.

Step-by-step guide on creating a B2B PPC campaign

To help you in navigating the complexity of a PPC strategy for your B2B business, we’ve crafted this guide. It covers the essential steps necessary for structuring a highly successful campaign.

Set clear campaign goals

The goals you want to achieve should be the foundation upon which you build the entire strategy. These goals serve as the guiding stars that will direct your efforts throughout the campaign.  

That’s why it’s important to sit down with your team and carefully consider your primary objectives. 

Is there a new product launch on the horizon that demands increased brand awareness? Are you looking to expand your market reach and attract potential customers from new territories? Or perhaps you’re focused on boosting sales for your existing products within your current market?

The common goals of a B2B paid campaign

• Lead generation
• Increasing brand awareness 
• Promoting new products or services
• Driving website traffic
• Increase sales 

Don’t forget to be as specific as possible. Setting up SMART marketing goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) will give you a clearer picture of your expectations. Once you clearly define this, you’ll find it much smoother to navigate through the next steps for creating your PPC marketing strategy.    

Select the right B2B PPC platforms

Google Ads, LinkedIn Ads, Facebook Ads, etc., each platform offers unique features that can benefit your B2B campaign. These platforms have different audiences and ad formats. 

Your job is to pick the one that fits your business goals best. Are you targeting professionals seeking business solutions? LinkedIn might be your go-to. Looking to capture potential customers actively searching for specific services? Google Ads is a powerhouse.  

By understanding what each platform does best and matching it with your goals, you’ll ensure your message gets to the right people at the right time. 

In this step, we’ll explore these major B2B PPC platforms to help you make an informed choice that supercharges your campaign’s effectiveness. 

The best platforms for B2B ads

• Google Ads. Google Ads is the go-to platform for reaching potential customers actively searching for services or products. It offers a wide reach and a variety of ad formats, from text-based search ads to native ads, making it suitable for various B2B campaigns.
• LinkedIn Ads. LinkedIn Ads is the ideal platform when targeting professionals and businesses seeking specific business solutions. It allows precise targeting based on job titles, industries, and company sizes, making it perfect for B2B lead generation.  
• Meta Ads (formerly Facebook Ads). While often associated with B2C, Facebook Ads can also be valuable for B2B campaigns. Its extensive user base and detailed audience targeting options enable you to reach decision-makers and influencers in a less formal setting.
• Twitter Ads. Twitter Ads (or are they already X ads?) can be effective for B2B campaigns seeking to create brand awareness and engage with an audience interested in industry trends. With features like promoted tweets, trend takeover, and tailored audiences, you can reach professionals actively discussing relevant topics.
• Microsoft Advertising (formerly Bing Ads). Microsoft Advertising, while smaller than Google Ads, can be an excellent choice for B2B businesses targeting enterprise customers. It’s especially valuable if your audience prefers using Microsoft products and services.  

Check out this guide about the biggest PPC ad platforms and networks.

Select the most effective ad types

Now that you’ve selected the most suitable networks for your PPC campaign, the next step is to define your ad formats. Each ad format has its strengths, and your goal is to leverage those strengths to maximize your campaign’s impact.  

If your goal is to boost brand awareness or promote new products or services, you might want to grab attention with visually striking images and graphics. Want to capture potential customers actively searching for solutions? Text-based search ads can be your best friend.    

Let’s break this down further so you can better align them with your campaign objectives.  

The most effective ad types for B2B PPC

• Search Ads:
  Use when: You want to appear at the top of search results when potential customers are actively searching for your products or services.
• Display Ads:
  Use when: You aim to visually capture attention with eye-catching images and graphics. Ideal for brand awareness and visual storytelling. 
• Video Ads:
  Use when: You want to engage your audience through compelling videos. It can be used for demonstrating products, sharing testimonials, or storytelling.    
• LinkedIn Ads:
  Use when: You want to narrow down your targeting based on their job title, job experience, education, demographics, interests and traits, company, industry, and more. LinkedIn ads are displayed on LinkedIn users’ feeds and offer a unique opportunity to reach a professional audience. 
• App Install Ads:
  Use when: You’re looking to promote your mobile app and drive installations among your target audience.
• Social Media Ads:
  Use when: You want to reach a wide range of users active on popular social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or Pinterest. Social media ads can be effective for various B2B campaign objectives, including brand awareness, lead generation, website traffic, and sales.

Choose the Right Keywords

Keyword research is the compass that guides your B2B PPC campaign through the vast digital landscape. It’s about understanding the words and phrases your target audience uses when seeking solutions.  

Thorough keyword research empowers you to pinpoint these valuable search queries, ensuring your ads appear precisely when potential customers are looking for your products or services.

Take the time to dive into the world of keywords, and you’ll uncover the language of your audience. This will enable you not just to choose the right keywords but also be able to craft your copy later in a way that speaks directly to your audience’s needs and desires.   

Tips for effective keywords research

Start with brainstorming. List potential keywords and phrases relevant to your business. 

Once you have an idea of the applicable keywords, use keyword research tools like Google Keyword Planner, SEMrush, or Ahrefs to discover related keywords, search volumes, estimated CPC (Cost per Click), and competition levels.    

Analyze what keywords your competitors are targeting to identify opportunities and gaps. Lastly, Focus on user intent. Consider the intent behind keywords (informational, navigational, or transactional) to align them with your campaign objectives.  

Long-Tail vs. Short-Tail keywords

Don’t limit your keyword selection to the common short-tail keywords. These are shorter, broader keywords (e.g., “PPC marketing”). They typically have higher search volumes but may be more expensive and require more effort to narrow down user intent.   

Instead, explore possible variants of long-tail keywords. These are longer, more specific keyword phrases (e.g., “best B2B PPC strategies for lead generation”). They often have lower search volumes but tend to convert well because they match closely with user intent.  

Negative keywords to filter traffic

Negative keywords are just as vital as positive ones. They help filter out irrelevant traffic and save your ad budget. 

For example, if you offer PPC advertising services for B2B, you might use “free” as a negative keyword to prevent your ads from users looking for free PPC services. 

Regularly review and update your list of negative keywords to improve campaign efficiency.

Identify your target audience

Segmenting your B2B audience for PPC ads is one of the more challenging parts. Here, you need a more in-depth analysis and planning.  

What are the features your product/service has? What problems is it solving? Who’s the end user? Who’s the decision maker that has the purchasing power? Do you want to address your selling points to the end user or to the decision-maker?      

These are crucial factors that can shape the tone and approach of your PPC ads. Don’t be afraid to test and learn new things. 

For example, most often, B2B advertisers want to reach directly to the decision-makers. But can the end-user have a high influence over the decision-maker’s choices?           

Techniques for selecting your target audience

Start with your buyer personas. Having your buyer personas in mind helps you always stay focused on their needs and pain points and offer USPs (Unique Selling Propositions) that offer solutions to their problems.  

Break down your audience based on business criteria. This is an essential targeting step for ad campaigns in the B2B world. Take into consideration the following verticals:

• Target industries
• Type of company
• Company size
• Location
• Department
• Job title

These verticals will be especially useful for your LinkedIn ads as they offer filtering options based on these criteria.  

Use demographic targeting to narrow down your audience. This allows you to target your ads to people based on their age, gender, location, income, and other factors. This can be a useful way to narrow down your audience and focus on the people who are most likely to be interested in your products or services.

Create your ad copy and creatives

Your ad copy and creatives are the voice and face of your B2B PPC campaign. Crafting compelling ad content and visuals is like painting a masterpiece that captures your audience’s attention and sparks action. 

You can brainstorm tons of copy and creative ideas. Remember, though – they need to “speak” in your audience’s language.   

Whether it’s crafting engaging headlines, writing persuasive ad text, or designing visually striking images and videos, they need to communicate a message that resonates well with your target audience.  

Tips and insights for crafting ad copy and ad creatives

• Tailor your messaging to resonate with your target audience’s needs, desires, and pain points.
• Highlight the benefits your product or service provides, not just the features it comes with
• Make your headline attention-grabbing. Use power words and numbers when possible to pique interest.
• Incorporate testimonials, case studies, or industry awards to leverage social proof
• Use clear, concise, and relatable language. Avoid complicated jargon and use straightforward language to convey your message.
• Incorporate strong Calls to Action (CTAs) to encourage users to take the desired action, whether it’s downloading a whitepaper, signing up for a webinar, or requesting a demo.
• Use visual storytelling to convey your message in your display or video ads. 
• Ensure your ad creatives are mobile-friendly, and test how your ads appear on various screen sizes.
• Take advantage of ad extensions provided by PPC platforms. These extensions can enhance your ad with additional information, such as site links, callouts, and structured snippets.
• Make sure your ad creatives meet the ad compliance criteria provided by the advertising platforms.  

Budgeting and bidding strategies

Your B2B PPC campaign’s financial foundation lies in strategic budgeting and bidding. This step is about allocating your budget effectively, determining how much you’re willing to pay for clicks, and maximizing the return on your advertising investment (ROI).

Here are the main factors you need to take into consideration when setting up your budget allocation and bidding strategies:

• Bidding on specific keywords
• Setting daily or monthly spending limits
• Adjusting bids based on factors like device type, location, and audience 

Attentiveness to your budgeting and bidding strategy is important. It provides you with financial control and adaptability, enabling you to fine-tune your B2B PPC campaign for maximum efficiency and ROI.  

Optimize your landing page/s

In B2B PPC campaigns, success doesn’t solely depend on captivating ads and strategic bidding. The final destination, where the magic happens, is your landing page (LP). 

You’ve already succeeded in crafting compelling ad campaigns that pique your audience’s interest, and they were motivated to click and learn more about your product or service.  

Your next critical step is to create high-converting landing pages. These pages should inspire users to take the next action – whether it’s downloading your e-book, scheduling a demo, or making a purchase.  

Key factors to consider for a good landing page experience:

• Highly relevant to the keywords or ad copy that visitors clicked on to get there.  
• Clear and easy to understand. Visitors should be able to quickly identify what the page is about and what you want them to do.
• Use strong and action-oriented CTAs that guide users on what to do next.
• Keep the page clean and free from distractions that could divert users from the main CTA.
• Optimize page loading speed to prevent user frustration and high bounce rates.

Check this article to learn more about how to create a high-converting landing page.  

Effective strategies for ongoing PPC success

Achieving success in your B2B PPC campaign is a significant milestone, but the journey doesn’t end there. 

Here’s how to keep them thriving over the long term:

Continuous monitoring and analysis

Regularly monitor the performance of your PPC campaigns. Dive into your data or Google Analytics to understand what’s working and what needs improvement.    

Analyze metrics like click-through rates (CTR), conversion rates, and return on investment (ROI). These will help you Identify trends, patterns, and opportunities for optimization.  

A/B testing and experimentation

As with everything else in marketing and in PPC for B2B as well, everything is test and learn. Don’t be afraid of experimentation.     

Conduct A/B tests on various elements of your campaigns, including ad copy, creatives, landing pages, and targeting options. Test different ad formats and bidding strategies to discover what resonates best with your audience.  

Implement changes based on data-driven insights. In the end, you might be surprised that the last possible option you might have is driving the best results.    

Avoid bad actors

As attractive as it is for advertisers, the PPC arena is even more attractive for the fraudsters out there. They conduct various forms of ad fraud, trying to take away a significant part of your ad budget.     

The problem with these fraudsters is that they don’t interact with your ad with any purchase intent. Most often, they’re automated bots or can be people hired in click farms that click on your ads without any interest in your product or service. This means you’re losing ad budget on fake clicks instead of on real people who could convert into customers.  

The consequences of ad fraud are significant, with predictions indicating a global cost to businesses of 100 billion U.S. dollars in 2023. 

That’s where the role of cybersecurity solutions steps in. ClickCease is particularly focused on protecting advertisers and their budgets from ad fraud and malicious actors. 

The Total Protection Suite will identify and block ad fraud across multiple platforms in real time, helping you maximize the potential of your ads and direct your ad budget toward genuine users only.

Stay informed about industry trends

Big platforms like Google Ads often change their policies or how they work. When they do, it can affect how your ads perform and what you need to do to make them work better. 

Also, the way people search online changes all the time. If more people use mobile phones or ask questions to voice assistants, you might need to change your ads to fit that.      

So, always keep an eye on what’s new and adjust your B2B PPC campaigns to keep them working well.

Protect your B2B PPC campaigns from ad fraud and secure their long-term success.

FAQs

Is PPC good for B2B?

Yes, PPC serves as a great channel for generating leads for your B2B business, driving more website traffic, or boosting the awareness of your brand, products, or services. Recent stats show that using PPC search ads can boost brand awareness by 80% in B2B marketing.

PPC ads are shown to people who are already interested in what you have to offer because they are searching for keywords related to your products or services. Consequently, the traffic that you’ll drive on your website, or the leads that you’ll generate through paid advertising, will have high converting potential.  

What are the main KPIs for B2B PPC?

The main KPIs for a B2B paid campaign primarily depend on your business and campaign goal. However, the most important ones that are applicable to any type of B2B PPC campaign are:

• Click-through rate (CTR): The percentage of people who see your ad and click on it.
• Cost per click (CPC): The average amount you pay each time someone clicks on your ad.    
• Return on Investment (ROI): The amount of money you make from your PPC campaigns minus the amount you spend.
• Conversion rate: The percentage of people who click on your ad and then take a desired action, such as signing up for a demo or downloading a white paper.

• Cost per lead (CPL): The total amount you spend on PPC divided by the number of leads generated.     

The post B2B PPC Advertising: The Ultimate Guide to Boost Your Business appeared first on ClickCease Blog.

In fact, Bing Ads is now known as Microsoft Advertising. A nice catchy name. But for the sake of this article, we’ll be referring to Bing Ads as that’s how most people know it.

So, is Bing Ads worth using for your pay-per-click (PPC) marketing? And, if you do decide to use Bing Ads, what benefits might you find?  

We’ve previously looked at Bing Ads vs Google Ads, but in this post, we want to look more in-depth at the Microsoft Advertising platform itself.  

Some maintain that all you need is Google’s huge PPC platform – which might be right for some. But, there are many other things to bear in mind to help you understand if Bing Ads is right for you.

What is Bing Ads?

As mentioned, Bing Ads is now Microsoft Advertising and offers much the same package deal as Google’s Ads.

Of course, the primary offer is pay-per-click search engine results. Beyond Bing, Microsoft also owns:  

• Yahoo!
• AOL
• MSN

As search engines powered by Microsoft, your PPC ads can appear in results on any of these platforms.

Microsoft also owns Linkedin, although Linkedin ads are their own thing. However, Bing Ads can target users based on their Linkedin profile information, which offers some interesting possibilities.

Bing Ads can also appear in the Outlook email dashboard, Xbox store, Windows app store, from Cortana voice assistant results, and on partner sites that use AOL, Yahoo, MSN, or Bing search results. 

Microsoft search technology is also used by Amazon’s Alexa and Microsoft’s Cortana (obviously) voice search assistants. As they deliver search results from Bing, your Bing ads can be also shown there.  

Bing Ads reach

One key argument when looking at Bing Ads vs Google Ads is the potential reach. There is no argument that Google wins this hands down, but it’s worth adding in a few extra caveats here.

• Microsoft’s Bing Ads offers the second biggest PPC ads reach with around 17.5% of the PC market share globally. 
• In fact, Bing covers over 7% of the US search market and around 6% in the UK.

• Bing sees 13.2 billion PC searches each month across its platforms.
• In 2022, Microsoft increased to 164 markets and 35 languages in total, expanding the worldwide targeting opportunities for marketers. 
• The number of daily active users of Bing crossed 100M just one month after they released the AI-powered search earlier this year.

And that’s not all. Microsoft also claims that Bing Ads reach 45 million US searchers that are not reached via Google. 

Bing Ads also partners with Verizon to offer native ads on platforms across 30 countries. This means video ads, display ads, and content advertising on some of the world’s most visited websites. This is Microsoft’s version of the AdSense display network.

Some of the pros of using Bing Ads actually come from their second place marketshare. 

What’s even more important to add here, is the steady growth of Bing and Edge users Microsoft reported after they launched the AI integration. They do expect this upward trend to continue as they roll out new features and capabilities. This will naturally lead to an expanded reach of Bing Ads, providing you with even greater opportunities to reach your audience.

The average cost of Bing Ads vs. Google Ads

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is a great platform to get your brand out there, but it can quickly become expensive. This is especially the case with Google Ads, where the CPC can vary greatly across the course of a day.  

Looking at the pros and cons of Bing Ads, the lower market share is greatly compensated by the more affordable cost per click. 

According to the freshest stats online, Bing’s average CPC is considerably lower than Google’s.

Online advertising experts from WordStream, for example, found that the CPC on Bing was around 33% less than on Google Ads. 

While the lower CPC is not always followed by higher conversion rates it’s worth noting that this metric is also showing a positive trend. Actually, according to some stats from AI Stratagems, “Bing Ads’ conversion rate rose 19% YOY in 2023”.

So, while you might not be getting the huge reach that you might find with Google, you are finding both a lower cost per click coupled with a higher conversion rate. That alone says a lot about the value Bing ads can bring, don’t you think?   

Some more pros and cons of using Bing

Beyond the actual cost factors of using Bing for your PPC, there are a few other things that make Bing a useful addition to your marketing arsenal.

AI-powered search

We’ll start with something that was (and actually still is) quite a hot topic recently. Actually, Microsoft has created quite a stir in the industry with the launch of the AI-powered Bing search engine in February 2023.  

They were the first to recognize the AI trend and have become pioneers in integrating it into web-based search.

It’s no wonder that the increased use of AI chat models is slowly but surely changing the way people search for information online. It has become so common now to see them using ChatGPT to get to a simplified form of an answer, from how to tell if their cat is sick and what therapy to use, to more difficult things, like delivering a roadmap of actions and codes for building a website.

Now Microsoft is offering the same (just better and with up-to-date information) through Bing and Edge. It’s reviewing a large pool of information available on the web to come up with a summarized answer. With this fundamental change, they are taking the whole industry to the next level. The smarter and more intuitive search experiences that Bing implemented deliver highly relevant results to its users, ultimately improving the overall user experience.

As a result, people seeking a better search experience are turning to Bing, while Google and other search engines are still working on incorporating AI.

This opens up opportunities for brands and advertisers to be creative and connect with their target audience in a more effective way.

Competition

We can’t talk about the pros and cons of using Bing Ads without mentioning the competition. One of the problems most will find with Google Ads is its popularity.

You will be competing hard with probably every other business in your niche. This competition also means higher cost per click and surging prices at popular times as businesses try to outbid each other.

As a platform that is often ignored by search engine marketers, Bing, especially recently, offers lots of potential for those willing to give it a try. 

We’ve already seen that the actual reach is smaller, but with fewer people competing for your ad space, you’re more likely to get a better deal.

The downside of this is, of course, that you might not be hitting the volume of ads that your competitors might on Bing alone. Most expert marketers recommend using Bing as an addition to Google Ads, rather than an outright replacement.

Audience quality

Another finding is that the quality of the audience on Bing is thought to be more ‘discerning’, hence the better click through rate. Google is the world’s search engine, meaning that almost everyone uses it.

But Bing’s data shows that over one third of their users take home over $100,000 per year. The vast majority of Bing’s users make over $40,000, which is also reflected in their age demographic, with 56% of Bing’s users being between 25-55.

Of course, businesses targeting a younger or more general demographic might not find this to be a selling point. 

Flexible partner targeting

Google’s Display Network offers a huge range of partner websites where you can feature your banner ads or content. As such, content marketers find lots of opportunities to display their ads. 

The downside though is that it isn’t always easy to see which sites your ads are appearing on. As we’ve seen, this can leave your ads open to ad fraud from spoofed sites and fraudulent networks. 

Bing actually makes it easier to see the sites where your ads are appearing and to customize them. 

You can even see the performance of specific sites, so if they’re looking a little iffy you can put them in your website’s exclusions list.

Google Ads importing

Another useful feature is the ability to import any Google Ads campaigns directly from Google into your Bing Ads dashboard.  

Want to see if you can get any extra leads from a successful campaign? Or maybe want to run campaigns in tandem to see what works best? 

It’s a pretty simple process and one of the pros of using Bing over Google Ads.

Extra controls

Although there are a lot of customization options in Google Ads, there are a few areas where it falls down. Using Bing Ads allows you to do some clever things such as:

• Assign campaigns to different time zones
• Use automated rules to change campaign settings much easier than with Google
• More advanced mobile ads targeting based on OS and device type

It might also be worth noting that signing up for Microsoft Ads is pretty straightforward, and the level of control you have over your ads makes it a good starting point for those learning PPC marketing.

So, should I be using Microsoft Ads?

There are lots of options for pay-per-click now, including social media platforms such as Facebook, content marketing such as Taboola/Outbrain, and, of course, Google Ads.

It will most likely depend on your marketing strategy, but with all the things that we’ve previously reviewed in this article, it definitely has a lot to offer.

In addition to the lower advertising costs, Microsoft is positioning itself as a pioneer in the AI-powered search game, being a step ahead with the new trends. 

Considering the widespread influence of AI across various digital domains, it’s only a matter of time before it impacts PPC ads too. So as an advertiser, why not take advantage of the trailblazer that’s revolutionizing this marketing arena and be a step ahead with the trends?

For most marketers, you probably won’t be using Bing Ads as your sole PPC platform. Google Ads has such a broad reach that it’s inevitable that most marketers will use it at some stage.     

But, considering the lower cost per click and competition, Microsoft’s offering could be a useful addition. Bing Ads might also be a good option for those starting out on their PPC marketing journey.

The high earning demographic and the chance to target users based on their Linkedin profiles might also appeal to some. Business services or those working on accounts-based marketing campaigns could make be tempted to see how effective Microsoft Ads can be.

One thing to remember is that click fraud is still a persistent threat, whichever PPC platform you use. Our data shows that 11.3% of all traffic online in 2022 was fake.

Even if you’re spending less on Bing Ads vs. Google Ads, you still want to make sure your marketing spend is going where you want it to. 

If you’re running Microsoft Ads, sign up for a free trial of ClickCease today.

The post How to Drive Better Marketing Results with Microsoft’s Bing Ads? appeared first on ClickCease Blog.

Basically, the idea of this tool is to assist advertisers in optimizing their campaigns based on the score it provides.

But how does this score work? Is it truly beneficial, or is it just a ploy to push advertisers to spend more money? Let’s explore the Google Ads Optimization Score and see how you can leverage it to optimize your campaigns. 

What is the Google Ads optimization score?

Google Ads optimization score is a useful tool by Google Ads that assigns a score to advertisers’ accounts. This score provides them with insights into how well their campaigns are doing and offers recommendations to improve their overall performance.

However, you may be wondering why it’s important to improve your Google Ads optimization score. The answer is simple: a higher score indicates that your account is healthier, more profitable, and more cost-effective. It ranges from 0% to 100%, where a score of 100% indicates that the campaigns are optimized for the best possible performance. 

You can access the optimization score under the recommendations tab. It’s available at the Campaign, Account, and Manager Account levels.

With a quick look at the scoring bar, you get an instant idea of whether your campaign is doing well or there’s room for improvement.

The Google Ads Optimization Score analyzes your campaign settings and configuration and helps you identify where your campaigns are performing well and where they can be improved.

The score is available for active campaigns only. Fortunately, Google is constantly updating the list of campaigns for which this optimization score works. It’s currently shown for the following types of Google Ads campaigns:

• Search campaigns
• Display campaigns
• Discovery campaigns
• Video Action campaigns
• App campaigns
• Performance Max campaigns
• Shopping campaigns

Ultimately, the main benefit of using the Optimization Score is to ensure that your campaigns are performing as they should be and that you’re making the most out of your Google Ads investment. So, be sure to check it out and take advantage of this valuable tool!

How do Google Ads calculate your optimization score?

Google Ads campaign optimization score is a real-time calculation that takes into consideration a range of factors in your account and campaigns.

Its algorithm analyzes the statistics, settings, and status of your account and campaigns, as well as the impact of available recommendations and recent recommendations history.

Google’s recommendations depend on various external elements as well, like trends in the world of Google Ads, search volumes, etc. This means that your optimization score and recommendations can often change. Any modification made to your campaign or account, or shifts in the external trends affects your score right away.

With such a diverse set of factors impacting the calculation of the Google Ads optimization score, it’s helpful to break it down into several aspects to better understand the process: 

• Real-time tracking – Every single change in your account and campaigns is tracked, and the score gets updated instantly.
• Other data factors – Google collects data from other advertisers’ campaigns in your niche, which is used to determine how their data and factors will affect your own campaigns.
• Your campaign goals – Based on your bid strategy, Google determines your business goals and generates recommendations to achieve them.
• Your account and campaign settings – Google monitors your active campaigns and overall account settings to determine how they impact the success of your Google Ads.
• Past and recent recommendations – The algorithm evaluates both historical and current recommendations and analyzes the effectiveness of previously implemented recommendations.
• Trends – Google follows search volumes and trends and incorporates their impact into the recommendations.

Understanding how Google Ads calculates your optimization score can help you optimize your campaign more effectively. By regularly monitoring it and making adjustments, you can improve your ad performance and gain a better Return on Investment (ROI).

What is a good optimization score for Google Ads?

Now that you know how Google Ads calculates your optimization score, you may be wondering what is a good optimization score. Well, there’s no such one-size-fits-it-all score and it mostly depends on your campaign and business goals.

It’s important to note that even a 100% Google Ads optimization score won’t guarantee miraculous results. Most experienced advertisers aim for an optimal average of 75%-80%, which is a good benchmark to strive for.

However, the ultimate goal is to stick to your campaign and business objectives and use this tool to help you achieve them.

So, before you start making some adjustments, remember, the optimization score should serve as a guide to improve your campaign’s performance and achieve your business goals. With a little tweaking and fine-tuning, you can increase it and see positive results.

Optimization score recommendations and their benefits

Aside from just a score, Google Ads also provides a bunch of recommendations. Whether it’s improving your ad copies, bidding, or keywords, these suggestions definitely help you make better-informed decisions. 

But keep in mind that these recommendations are not mandatory, and you can choose to accept or dismiss them based on your campaign goals.

What I personally find quite a cool feature is the prediction of the potential impact of the changes. By having insights into the possible outcomes, you can determine more easily if these changes would bring the desired outcomes.

Undoubtedly, as an advertising platform, Google Ads aims to provide the best experience for its advertisers. Lower CPC, increased ROAS, better campaign performance, and overall positive results are the factors that make advertisers want to continue their campaigns on Google.

However, whether all of these recommendations align with your goals and whether you need to implement all of them, mostly depends on your specific objectives and personal experience.

If you’re a beginner at using Google Ads, you might want to test out a few of the different recommendations it comes with. With time, you’ll get a better understanding of what kind of changes are working well for you and what you can skip.

If you’re more experienced, you can more easily determine what can bring the results you’re aiming for, and what will just increase the optimization score number without leading to any significant benefits.

However, you shouldn’t listen to these recommendations blindly, nor should you ignore them. Use them as a reminder to revisit your ad campaign setup, keywords, or budget.

This tool can still give you some good ideas of what can make your Google Ads account better. Taking a look from time to time won’t hurt the healthiness of your campaign.  

How to increase your Google Ads optimization score using the recommendations?

Once you grasp the concept of the Google Ads optimization score and its calculation, you can leverage it to enhance your Google Ads campaigns. To take advantage of this score, you can utilize Google’s recommendations.

It covers a wide range of areas and campaign types, currently counting above 80 different recommendations. To make it easier, Google has grouped them into seven types of recommendations:

1. Ads and assets
2. Automated campaigns
3. Bidding and budgets
4. Keywords and targeting
5. Repairs
6. Measurement
7. Other

With such a diverse list of recommendations that you can get, attempting to implement them all at once can be a kind of a mess. Also, not all of these recommendations may always be suitable for you. Factors such as your business goals, target audience, and industry or niche can impact their effectiveness.

To fully leverage the Google Ads optimization score, it’s best to prioritize the critical areas that matter the most to your business.

Key optimization areas to focus on

Drawing from our own experience and extensive research, we have identified the following key areas that are worth being prioritized:

1. Ad relevance: Ensure that your Google Ads are highly relevant to the keywords you are targeting and the landing pages they are linking to.
2. Landing page experience: Make sure your landing pages provide a high-quality user experience, load quickly, are mobile-friendly, and are relevant to the ad and keywords.
3. Ad format optimization: Choose the right ad formats for your campaign goals, and make sure they are optimized for different devices and placements.
4. Keyword quality score: Continuously monitor and improve your keyword quality scores by focusing on relevance, click-through rates, and landing page experience.
5. Ad copy and messaging: Craft compelling ad copy and messaging that speaks directly to your target audience and highlights the unique benefits of your product or service.
6. Account structure and organization: Ensure that your Google Ads account is structured in a logical and organized manner, with ad groups that are tightly themed around specific keywords and topics. 
7. Bid optimization: Continuously monitor and adjust your bids to achieve the best possible ROI for your campaigns. 
8. Negative keywords: Regularly review and add negative keywords to your campaigns to exclude irrelevant traffic and improve ad relevance.
9. Ad extensions: Use ad extensions to provide additional information and value to users, such as site links, callouts, and structured snippets.
10. Conversion tracking and optimization: Track and analyze your conversion data to identify opportunities for optimization and improve your campaign performance over time.

Although this list isn’t exhaustive, it’s a great starting point to guide you in the right direction. Of course, there may be other areas that are more relevant to your specific business or campaign which you should also focus on.

Additional tips for increased ad campaign effectiveness

Before you start obsessing over your optimization score, remember that it’s not the only factor that matters. The overall effectiveness of your ad campaigns is just as important, so make sure you’re driving real results.

One thing that can seriously mess up your ad campaigns is fake clicks. It can be worthless to put all that effort into improving your Google Ads campaign optimization score if your campaign effectiveness is affected by click fraud, for example.

Tools like ClickCease can help you block fake traffic coming from click fraud, so you can focus on driving real results and improving your overall campaign performance. You can check it out with the free trial to keep your Google Ads clean from invalid traffic.

So go ahead, optimize away, but keep your eyes on the prize and focus on what really matters.

To sum it all up, I’ll wrap this article up with a brief overview of the benefits of improving your Google Ads optimization score, as well as common mistakes that you can avoid. Hopefully, these insights will be of help for your future optimization efforts.

Benefits of improving your Google Ads optimization score

Undoubtedly, Google Ads optimization score can be of great value for maintaining optimal campaigns and Google Ads accounts. Here are some of the benefits of having a high optimization score: 

• Better Ad Placement: A higher optimization score means that your campaigns are performing well, which can lead to better ad placement. Google rewards advertisers with high optimization scores by placing their ads in the most prominent positions on the search results pages. 

• Lower Costs: By improving your optimization score, you can lower your costs per click (CPC). Google Ads rewards high-quality campaigns by reducing the cost per click, which can result in significant savings. 
• Higher Conversion Rates: A higher optimization score indicates that your campaigns are performing well. By improving your optimization score, you can reach your target audience more effectively, resulting in higher conversion rates.
• Competitive Advantage: By improving your optimization score, you gain a competitive advantage over other advertisers. A high score means that your campaigns are optimized for the best possible performance, which can help you attract more clicks and conversions than your competitors. 

Common mistakes to avoid when improving your Google Ads optimization score

While it’s essential to improve your optimization score, it’s equally important to avoid common mistakes that can hinder your progress. Here are some common mistakes that you can avoid when trying to improve your optimization score: 

• Focusing Too Much on the Score: One of the most common mistakes advertisers make is focusing too much on the optimization score. While the score is essential, it’s crucial to remember that it’s just a tool to help you achieve your campaign goals. It would be best if you stay focused on your campaign objectives and strategies, not just the score. 

• Blindly Following Google’s Recommendations: Advertisers often make the mistake of blindly following Google’s recommendations without considering their impact on their business. Google’s recommendations can be helpful for sure, but they may not always be the best fit for your business. Evaluating each recommendation carefully and considering its impact on your campaigns before implementing it is crucial.
• Neglecting Your Overall Campaign Goals: Improving your optimization score should always be aligned with your overall campaign goals. Focusing solely on improving your score without considering your campaign objectives can lead to suboptimal results. Ensure your optimization efforts align with your overall campaign goals to achieve the best results.
• Not Monitoring Your Score Regularly: Your optimization score is not static; it changes based on various factors, including changes in your account or campaign settings. Therefore, it’s crucial to monitor your score regularly and make necessary adjustments to improve your score continually.

In conclusion, avoiding these common mistakes can help you optimize your campaigns more effectively and improve your overall Google Ads optimization score. Remember to focus on your campaign goals, evaluate Google’s recommendations carefully, and monitor your score regularly to achieve the best possible results.

The post Google Ads Optimization Score – How to Get the Most of It? appeared first on ClickCease Blog.

And what about if your digital product solves a niche or specialist problem? This is where running PPC campaigns to market SaaS products becomes a key strategy.

Yes, you need a strategy to build your flow of organic traffic too. And very likely you will also need to build your social media presence to generate a buzz and brand awareness.

But there is no substitute for paid traffic, especially in the early days.

So why do you need to consider PPC ads for your SaaS marketing or software product?

What is SaaS marketing?

A SaaS marketing strategy focuses on promoting a product designed for software as a service. Often the market for software products is highly competitive and offers unique challenges such as offering a clear value proposition, building and maintaining brand visibility, and avoiding high rates of churn and fraud.

For these reasons, SaaS marketing is a unique challenge for business marketers and takes careful consideration.

Does PPC work for B2B products?

While PPC ads are often seen as the perfect tool for B2C business, some might question their effectiveness for B2B products. In fact, using PPC ads such as Google Ads or Facebook Ads can have a powerful impact on B2B marketing.

Consider the fact that PPC still accounts for between 40% to 50% of the clicks on Google. It probably is the most effective way to generate quick sign-ups. 

Business and enterprise clients will often search for solutions on search engines. And using social media ads such as Facebook or Instagram will allow you to retarget these potential customers. 

The competition for PPC ads is extremely fierce though, and you do need to focus on the best practice marketing tips (which we’re about to share) to generate the best results. 

The best PPC marketing strategies SaaS products

For any SaaS marketing strategy, whether that’s targeting paid ads or organic traffic, you’ll need to research your target audience. Having your ideal customer profile will be a key part of your business model and will help you optimize your message and improve your ad targeting.

We’re also assuming that your product has launched or is ready to launch, and is real-world ready. Nothing ruins a marketing campaign faster than a product that isn’t fit for purpose yet.

So before making any steps to start spending your marketing budget, make sure that software as a service product is tight as a drum.

With those essentials in place, what are the best PPC for SaaS marketing strategies to put in place?

1. Create a custom audience for your ads

A good way to get a head start with your SaaS marketing is to build a custom audience. If you already have an email list of interested customers, or you’ve built a list of ideal clients or prospective customers, then you can use this to better target lookalike audiences on Facebook Ads or Google Ads.

Google is actually changing the way they target audiences using your data, which will happen later in 2023. 

Facebook Ads still allows you to create custom audiences. And if you’re running image or video-based ad campaigns, using the Meta suite of ad tools will be very useful.

If you don’t have a list of prospective customers yet, follow these steps:

• Build a list of potential clients using a CRM system to collect information about your existing customers. You can also use third-party services such as Leadformly to generate leads from people who have filled out a form on your website.
• It’s also a good idea to segment your audience into different groups such as existing customers and potential clients, depending on the stage of the funnel you’re trying to target.
• Continuously track and monitor the performance of your campaigns targeting the custom audience, and make adjustments as needed to optimize their performance.

Read our guide about how to identify and build your target audience on Google Ads.

2. Be clear and simple in your copy

When it comes to running marketing for SaaS products, it helps to spell out exactly what your service is. So keep your ad copy, especially your headlines, simple and easy to digest.

More often than not, this means staying away from complex or industry-specific jargon.

For some products, this might be unavoidable – but in these cases, you are probably targeting a specific user who is likely familiar with the problem you solve.

Think of your ads as your elevator pitch – only you have much less than 30 seconds. Most likely you have a fraction of a second.

Make your platform count.

• Keep it simple with your paid search headlines – say what your product is
• Make your ad copy easy to scan and clarify your product offer
• Add extensions to specific categories if possible

This is a good example of keeping it simple from chatbot software Userlike.

The header makes it clear what the product is, even if you’ve never heard of them. And the ad copy is easy to scan with each of the benefits and features capitalized. And there are even extensions taking you to the right category.

Contrast this with the popular tool Zendesk.

Similar tool, but a different approach. There are less benefits or distractions but it’s clear what the product does. Zendesk also has the benefit of being the well-known option in the chatbot space, so they perhaps rely less on their ad copy.

3. Be visual with your ads

With SaaS products, conveying your features and benefits can be a bit lengthy in text. This is where the use of Facebook Ads comes in useful.

Of course, you still need to keep your copy tight and optimized. But make use of the ad space to create eye-catching banners or ads that explain the benefits of your product.

I like this example from DiiB.

By using colorful buttons, they make it clear what the product is for. And the copy is easy to scan to clarify the details. 

And, to add to that, they also give you a clear CTA that entices the user to check it out and get their own test in a minute. 

Of course with Facebook and Instagram Ads, you can also make use of video ads and carousels. These can be extra engaging and help to explain complex product offers in seconds.

Check out our pro advice about building high converting Facebook Ads from our SaaS marketing expert.

4. Build a great landing page

All your ad efforts are for nothing if your potential customers just bounce off the page. And this is why the power of the landing page is so strong. With a good landing page, you can streamline your message, keep your customer’s attention, and even highlight additional features.

Some tips for a great SaaS landing page include:

• Have a clear title or header
• Summarise the product offer in a few words
• Use images such as screenshots, gifs, and videos to illustrate the power of your SaaS product
• Include CTA buttons that make it clear where they can sign up
• Make your offer clear too. Free trial? Offering a discount? Perhaps add a pop-up or use this text in your CTA button

Check out our in-depth guide to building great landing pages.

5. Add social proof

In the age of social media, nothing is more powerful than a bit of social proof. And this is key when it comes to selling a software tool that your audience might not even have heard of. So how best to convince them that you offer value?

Testimonials or highlights from reviews can go a long way to persuading your audience to try you out.

Embedding links to your TrustPilot, Google Reviews, or other review sites can also be powerful. And if you don’t have any of this yet, perhaps you’re an early-stage product launch, then you can always display your certifications or any reviews that highlight your value.

And of course, on the other side of this, a key part of SaaS marketing is also winning those positive reviews. Having a badge on your site saying you have a 4.8-star rating on Capterra or G2 puts your potential audience’s mind at ease.

So, as part of your general marketing strategy, you will want to encourage feedback as often as possible. 

6. Avoid ad fatigue

If you’re running ads via retargeting, your leads can continue to be exposed to your PPC campaigns. And if you’re running display ad campaigns, they might end up seeing your banner plastered all over the internet.

Without care, this can lead to ad fatigue. Seeing the same copy and creative over and over again can cause prospects to disengage from your brand and maybe even be actively anti-your products.

Consider cycling through multiple variations of your ads, switching up the copy and imagery to minimize the chances of ad fatigue. This allows your prospects to discover new ways to think of your offer and keep you top of mind, all without annoying your leads.

On some level, most people will experience ad fatigue if there is an aggressive ad campaign. But what you can do is improve how people perceive your ad copy and overall PPC marketing campaign by keeping it fresh and interesting.

• A/B test your ads to improve the performance of your marketing efforts
• Don’t run your ads 24/7 – draw up your SaaS marketing plan to run certain times of the day or the month
• Use humor where possible and understand how you can build brand awareness in a fun way 

7. Target competitor keywords

When running paid search ads, it’s common practice for businesses to bid on brand keywords. For example, if a tool to rival Hubspot was launched, they might bid on the search term ‘Hubspot’ and run an ad that says something like:

“Product X – The Best Alternative to Hubspot?”

Another clever way of running this type of ad campaign is to highlight your benefit over the competition.

“10 x faster than Product B”

“Trusted by more professionals than Product X”

“Biggest database vs Product Y”

Of course, running ads against your competitors opens you up to all kinds of issues. Tread carefully to avoid any legal issues, for example, don’t call them out for poor performance or any controversies.

And if you run ads targeting your competitors’ keywords, they might just return the favor. So be prepared!

8. Give away free content

A classic content marketing strategy is to give away free guides or content in exchange for contact details. You can promote the benefits of your SaaS company by being a thought leader in your industry, and giving that thought leadership away for (sort of) free.

The lead magnet is still an effective inbound lead marketing tool, including for SaaS marketing, and people will often happily provide an email in exchange for a guide or to attend your webinar.

Typical lead magnets for SaaS marketing might include:

• Downloadable ebooks and guides
• Reports and white papers
• Access to video courses
• Signup for a webinar or free course
• Pre-launch trials or beta access
• Free tickets to conferences/events
• Free merch!

8. Use clear CTAs (and make it easy to sign up)

One key part of any PPC campaign is adding a clear call to action. This might be on your paid search result, your landing page, your Facebook Ad, or a display banner on the GDN.

What your CTA says is entirely dependent on your product offer or service. But we have previously looked at how to use power words to encourage more conversions.

9. Prevent fraud in your funnels

All forms of paid marketing are open to various forms of fraud. With regard to PPC campaigns, the most damaging problems are click fraud or ad fraud. These fake clicks on paid links have been shown to waste, on average, 14% of Google Ads campaigns.

This invalid traffic can come from:

• Competitors
• Bots and click farms
• Fraudulent ad placement (ad fraud)

Beyond clicks on paid links, another challenge for SaaS companies is the issue of account takeover bots, payment card fraud or carding, and spam injection.

All of these forms of fraud can be hugely damaging to both the business and your customers. Stolen data and payment details can be more than just embarrassing. It can undermine trust in a software product, result in legal action, and even cause the collapse of a company.

Using a tool like ClickCease is the most effective way to prevent the most common forms of fraud on SaaS marketing campaigns, including click fraud and bot-based website fraud. 

Mistakes to avoid in SaaS marketing campaigns

Of course, in any marketing campaign, there are mistakes that can trip up your efforts. These are some of the most common mistakes that can affect SaaS marketing strategies and ad campaigns.

1. Not aligning your message with your audience

Perhaps the most glaring mistake is miscueing your brand message. Being too technical, not making your benefits obvious, or complicating your offer are some of the obvious mistakes for SaaS companies.

2. Failing to establish a unique value proposition

Why is your product unique? What makes it better than the competition? How would your SaaS product change your target audience’s life for the better? Make it obvious in your content marketing, including your PPC ads.

3. Not optimizing for conversions

SaaS products live or die by their conversions, and SaaS marketers need to make sure they keep a steady flow of new customers. Whatever the stage of the funnel that your marketing is targeting, you need to keep those CTA’s and value propositions front and center.

4. Make it easy to get value from your product

Because SaaS customers don’t always see the immediate obvious value in their subscription, it’s also a good idea to give ample opportunity to improve the customer knowledge of your service and product. A good example of this is regular webinars, AMAs with the team, or access to a free training course on sign-up. When customers don’t see value in their (usually high-priced) monthly subscription, they’re more likely to churn.

Preventing fraud on SaaS products and their marketing campaigns

Fraud prevention is an important part of any marketing strategy, and this definitely goes double with SaaS companies. With such a high cost per click and an often very competitive marketplace, SaaS businesses need to ensure they keep a close eye on their ad traffic and their leads.

ClickCease provides a layer of security that covers both paid ads and organic website traffic too. By blocking click fraud in real-time, SaaS marketers can be assured that their ads are targeting only their target audience and avoiding clicks from bots or competitors across the paid search, display campaigns, and social media ads too.

In addition to this, Bot Zapping from ClickCease stops bot traffic on WordPress sites. No more spam bots, account takeovers or hacks, or fake payment information.

As part of any SaaS marketing campaign, sign up for a free trial of ClickCease to run a traffic audit on your ads.

Get your 7-day free trial today.

The post How to use PPC for marketing SaaS products appeared first on ClickCease Blog.

In 2020, the total value of the affiliate marketing industry was estimated at $17 billion. And as the world of work-from-home solopreneurs and digital nomads continues to grow, the forecast for affiliate marketing as an industry looks bright.

So you’ve chosen your path as an affiliate marketer; you have your niche, your website, and (hopefully) some content strategy. But waiting for your organic traffic to kick in can be a lengthy game – so what’s a savvy digital marketer to do?

Enter paid traffic sources.

There are various options for paid traffic sources for affiliate marketing, and we’re going to summarize the pros and cons of each in this post.  

Before we look at the platforms, though, we’re going to look at the world of paid traffic.

What is paid traffic?

Paid traffic is any form of website traffic that has been purchased by the advertiser. There are various forms of paid traffic available for digital marketing, with various benefits for each. The typical model for paid traffic is either using Pay Per Click (PPC) or Pay Per Thousand impressions (CPM, or cost per mille).   

However, there are also other forms of paid traffic, including:

• Pay Per Click (such as Google or Bing Ads)
• Social media ads (Facebook, TikTok, etc.)
• Influencer marketing

There are also some more black hat methods of using online traffic, such as buying bot traffic or cookie stuffing. Although these do count as a form of paid traffic, they fall under the banner of fraud, so we will not be looking at these as an option for marketers in this post.

Do you need to use paid traffic for affiliate marketing?

Most affiliate marketers will focus on search engine optimization (SEO) and build up their content to win organic traffic. Some may prefer to focus on social media followers or a combination of the two. As these can both be lengthy processes, paid traffic is often seen as a way to boost their project.

In short, no, you don’t need to use paid traffic to generate traffic on your affiliate marketing project. But it can be useful as part of an overall content strategy.

Some affiliate marketers will not use any paid traffic.

Others will swear by it. It might depend on your niche, the value of each conversion, the competition, and even your own personal business goals.  

Some things to bear in mind about paid traffic and affiliate marketing

When it comes to paying for traffic for your affiliate website, most businesses will have certain terms and conditions. Most often, these are common sense or standard practice, such as:

• Don’t click on your own affiliate links
• Don’t bid on branded keywords or certain keywords that put you in direct competition with your affiliate
• Using fraudulent processes such as fake traffic or cookie stuffing is normally forbidden and will likely result in a ban
• Don’t try to imitate the business under your own affiliate banner

Every affiliate will have different terms, so be sure to check your own conditions before running any pay-per-click (PPC) ads or paid campaigns on your affiliate site.   

So…

Let’s get down to the important part.  

What are the best-paid traffic sources to boost your affiliate earnings?  

Google Ads

They don’t come any bigger than Google. With the biggest global reach, the biggest number of daily users, and the biggest selection of publishing partners, Google Ads is a no-brainer for pretty much anyone looking at paid traffic.

Using Google Ads obviously gives you access to paid search results.

But you also have access to a world of possibilities within YouTube, display and banner ads, video ads, Gmail banners, in-app display banners, and more.

In fact, we could cut this list off right now, and you would probably be perfectly happy to go with Google. Such is the huge reach of Google Ads and the options for advertising that whatever you’re promoting will find an audience right here.

That’s not to say there aren’t any downsides, though.  

Although Google likes to sell the Google Ads product as user-friendly and easy to start, there is a learning curve. Creating high-performing ads is not something you will be able to do overnight – why do you think there are so many search engine marketing agencies?

Google Ads is often seen as very competitive and increasingly expensive. Popular keywords can be incredibly expensive, and there aren’t even any guarantees about conversions.

Increasingly, marketers are also aware of the issues of click fraud and ad fraud. This is the act of fake clicks on paid ads, which is a costly and wasteful process that has been steadily increasing year after year.

Despite these problems, though, there is no doubt that Google Ads offers some of the best opportunities for paid traffic at what is still a very attractive price point for most.

The benefits of Google Ads

• Easy to set up and run your Google Ads within a few minutes
• A huge audience (the biggest online)
• Almost unbeatable choice of products, from paid search results or display ads to YouTube
• Manage your budget easily to avoid overspending
• Tools like Performance Max take the hassle out of setting up and running campaigns

The cons of Google Ads

• Very competitive for many popular keywords
• Not as easy to set up and run as you might think
• Steep learning curve
• It can be expensive if you don’t know what you’re doing
• Exposure to click fraud affects about 90% of ad campaigns

Facebook Ads

Yes, we know they’re called Meta now. But the platform of Facebook itself is still an excellent digital marketing tool and still one of the best sources of paid traffic. OK, it’s not the force to be reckoned with that it was pre-2020, but there is still gold in these digital hills (obviously, I’m speaking figuratively here).

Using Facebook Ads lets you run in-feed ads within Facebook itself and also run ads on Instagram and Messenger as well (We’ll look at Instagram specifically in just a moment).

You can also promote your company page, collecting reviews and even winning organic likes, or if you have an organic post that has done well, you can pay to boost it to an even bigger audience.

Facebook can be very useful as a retargeting tool, displaying content in-feed to people who may have already visited your site or that of a competitor. This alone makes it a very cool marketing tool that pretty much every marketer needs in their arsenal.

Facebook targeting is done almost entirely by the platform itself, though. You do have the option to set up your own custom audience, but by and large, Facebook will use its own algorithms to find your ideal target audience.  

For some, though, Facebook is seen as a bit passé. If millennials flock to Instagram and Gen-Z flock to TikTok, Facebook is often seen as the controversial uncle at the dinner table – which might be due to some of the many controversies that have hit the company now known as Meta.

Apple also dealt a fairly hefty blow to Facebook’s ability to target iOS users by limiting tracking on their devices. And yes, it has had an effect.

As for fake traffic? Yes, that’s a problem here too. Around 90 million Facebook accounts are thought to be fake, which also affects paid marketing campaigns.   

The benefits of Facebook Ads

• Access to one of the biggest social media networks (plus they own one of the other ones too)
• In-feed ads offer lots of scope for creativity and engagement, especially visual/video-based ads 
• Options to promote a company page or boost posts too
• Great for retargeting and remarketing campaigns 

The cons of Facebook Ads

• Issues with targeting iOS/Apple users have come as a blow
• Facebook is often subject to controversies around its handling of data
• Younger audiences are increasingly looking to other social media platforms
• Fake traffic is also a problem for Facebook Ads

Instagram Ads

Social giant Meta also owns the second biggest social media platform (or third if you don’t count YouTube). And for affiliate marketing, Instagram has become a top choice.  

The best way to get a consistent stream of website traffic from Instagram is, of course, to build your following and post consistently. Most businesses these days will factor in Instagram as part of their content marketing strategy. But, like most organic things, it can take a lot of time. This is where Instagram Ads is a useful tool.

Advertising on Instagram offers a choice of display options, including in-feed posts such as videos, product carousels, and more.

And although Instagram makes it difficult to add links to external sites in organic posts, with paid ads, you can add those website links and drive traffic.  

Instagram also offers the option to make shops for affiliate creators. Meaning that if you’re promoting a specific type of product, you can get your store set up right there on the platform and drive traffic there. 

While setting up the shop is free, you’ll likely need to promote that shop with paid ads on Instagram.

If you’re wondering what’s the downside to using Instagram Ads, well…

Instagram is primarily an image-based platform, meaning your ad copy and CTA might be missed. Products with a strong visual appeal should do well, but campaigns that need content and context might need to up their game to get the engagement they’re looking for.

The iOS update affecting Facebook also affects Instagram, meaning less reliable targeting for advertisers using Instagram.

Once again, the issue of fake engagement and bot accounts remains a concern on Instagram, with around 1 in ten Instagram users thought to be fake.

And another issue is the limited audience on Instagram. While there is a huge audience, over 2 billion accounts, the majority are in the 18-34 age range. This makes it perfect for targeting the millennial and Gen-Z pool but not so good for your older clientele.

The benefits of Instagram Ads

• Strong visual appeal can be great for some products
• The option to open a shop front is also a great benefit for affiliate marketing
• Good selection of ads, from in-feed posts to stories and reels
• Using Instagram Ads allows you to add links to your website to drive traffic

The cons of Instagram Ads

• Tracking and targeting Apple users on Instagram has been affected by iOS 14 update
• Ads with text might struggle to perform well
• Audience is a little limited compared to Facebook Ads
• Facing competition from TikTok for market share

TikTok Ads

No list of paid traffic sources is complete without looking at the rise of TikTok. In 2020, TikTok took the world by storm as we found ourselves locked down and looking for entertainment during the Covid pandemic. Fast forward to 2021, and reports that TikTok had overtaken Google as the most used search engine started to appear.

While TikTok hasn’t yet dethroned the search giant, it remains a formidable option for marketing to its very engaged audience.

At the moment, the options for TikTok ads are relatively limited, with just sponsored reels. This means you’ll focus mostly on mobile video advertising, which is the most engaging form of content on TikTok.

Compared to Instagram, TikTok offers fewer ad formats. It also has a more limited audience, with most users under 30 and the biggest chunk of that slice being under 20.

You might also assume that TikTok is more affordable than Instagram, given its status as an underdog. However, most reports show that TikTok Ads are around the same price, if not slightly more expensive, than the Facebook-owned rival.

The benefits of TikTok Ads

• Popular platform rapidly growing in appeal
• Great for targeting the Gen-Z and Millennial (under 30) audience
• Easy to create your own branded channel and partner with influencers on the platform
• Excellent for video and other visual-based campaigns

The cons of TikTok Ads

• Not as many ad format choices as rivals Instagram
• No shop option
• Limited audience and still less reach than Instagram
• Pricing is similar to rivals

Native Ads

Native ads have become a popular method for affiliate marketing professionals to get eyes on their products. These paid ads are designed to look like organic content, usually articles on news sites or popular blogs.

So why use native ads for affiliates? 

For starters, sites hosting native advertising are usually high-traffic websites – so you’re getting a lot of eyes on your content. 

Secondly, native ads tend to be relatively affordable. As they usually work on a CPM (impression-based) model, you can potentially get lots of exposure for your budget.

Of course, this means you must create engaging content to deliver those clicks and impressions. In fact, native ads usually focus more on informing and educating, which means they can be useful for products that need a little more explaining. And yes, you can use various formats such as video or images as well as text.

According to data from ad giant Taboola, native ads can also deliver better click-through rates versus display ads.

Native ads are also a popular option for industries that are either restricted or outright banned from PPC ads. For example, CBD, gambling, or adult products.

Several different ad platforms can serve native ads, but the most popular is Taboola. Other options include Yahoo Gemini, Outbrain, RevContent, and Nativo, among many others.  

So what’s the downside of native advertising? 

Advertisers have less control over their targeting and ad optimization. Ads are generally placed on the publishing partners’ sites, and it can be hard to determine which placements perform best.

Traffic quality can also be inconsistent, with some sites, even well-known and popular publishers, having high volumes of fake traffic.  

Creating content for native ads can also be more complex and tricky for advertisers. It’s not just a case of putting together a blog post, and voila… You’ll need to understand when and where to pop in a CTA, the types of headlines that can work to attract clicks without seeming too clickbaity, and even how to design and create a good landing page to improve your conversions from these types of ads. 

The benefits of Native Ads

• Perfect for products that need explanations or information to improve conversions
• Getting your content seen on high-volume publishing sites can be great for traffic
• A useful ad option for restricted industries

The cons of Native Ads

• Targeting and tracking data isn’t as simple as with Google 
• Some people see native ads as clickbait spam or deceptive
• Traffic quality might not be as high quality as you expect

Influencer marketing

Partnering with an influencer has become a popular way for brands of all kinds to improve their visibility. And it can be a relatively cost-effective way to get seen and even get some website traffic.

Some influencers charge under $200 to feature your product in their posts, others might simply feature you for freebies. It does, of course, depend on your product, its audience size, and a multitude of other factors.

But as a cost-effective marketing strategy, influencer marketing can be rewarding. As most influencers are using social media, it falls (sort of) under the heading of social media marketing. After all, they’ll most likely be talking about your product on Instagram or YouTube – although some might also feature you in their website content.

And according to research, more than half of users on most social media platforms have gone on to purchase an item as a result of influencer endorsement. In fact, with TikTok users, that percentage is as high as 71%!

So what’s the bad news?

Tracking conversions or even traffic from your influencer partnership can be tricky. Unless they use a custom URL (which is obviously an option), you might not know whether this paid traffic campaign really worked.

Many influencers also have a large proportion of fake followers. Yes, even the biggest influencers have something in the region of 20-40% fake followers on their social accounts. While this might not be a problem so long as you get genuine traffic, smaller influencers might inflate their prices based on inaccurate metrics.  

The benefits of influencer marketing

• Potential for exposure to a huge audience
• Can provide an excellent boost to your social media growth
• ‘Social proof’ is valuable to modern consumers, and influencers provide this in spades
• Can be relatively cost-effective for the right partnership and placement 

The cons of influencer marketing

• Can be hard to track the performance of influencer ad campaigns
• Hard to verify the quality of the influencer audience
• The benefits of partnerships with influencers can be short-lived
• Audience size is limited to the influencer’s reach

Choosing the best-paid traffic strategies

The best-paid traffic sources for your affiliate marketing business will obviously depend on your business, your strategies, and your budget. For some, Google Ads will be all they need to run a great paid ad campaign and bring in loads of high-quality traffic.

For others, they might need a mixture of social media advertising and other ad campaigns to get the best conversions for their affiliate campaigns.

To summarize: 

• Consider your audience. Younger consumers will likely prefer social media, whereas a B2B audience might need a different approach.
• Is your campaign visual or informational? Are you educating your audience or trying to trigger the ‘I want that’ reflex? Social media works best for visual campaigns, whereas paid search, display, or native ads will work best for educating your audience.
• What is your competition like? Bidding on high-value keywords on Google Ads can get expensive, so other traffic sources can be very useful for stealing an edge over your competitors.
• Using multiple marketing channels is often the best way to expand your audience – but…
• Be careful of your budget. Paid traffic sources can soak up a lot of your business funds.
• Fake traffic, such as click fraud and ad fraud, can be hugely wasteful, costing advertisers an average of 14% of their PPC budget. Use protection!

Getting the most from your PPC advertising

Blocking fake traffic and fake audiences from paid marketing is a key strategy for professional marketers. Click fraud and ad fraud wasted an estimated $61 billion worldwide in 2022, making them the most profitable form of fraud – eclipsing even credit card fraud.

As an advertiser, using click fraud prevention is a must.

ClickCease offers the industry-leading click fraud blocking tool, preventing bots and fake traffic from interacting with your affiliate ads on Google, Bing, and Facebook Ads.  

Our new bot-blocking tool also stops bots from clicking your checkout or filling out forms on your WordPress website.  

Best of all? You can try ClickCease for free for 7 days and do an audit on your paid traffic.

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Where do you start? How do you stand out from the crowd? What is a digital marketing strategy supposed to look like? Do you even know what you’re doing? These are some of the questions that run through many business owners’ minds.

On the other hand, a digital marketing campaign can also be pretty exciting because it means you can present your products to your audience and start pulling in revenue. 

But whether you’re excited or confused at the thought of marketing your business, it’s critical to put a proper marketing plan in place. Launch half-cocked, and you’ll end up wasting money or, worse, driving customers away (and yes, it happens all the time).

That’s why you need a succinct digital marketing checklist that contains everything you need to align before launching.

So first of all… What is a marketing checklist?

What is a digital marketing checklist?

The digital marketing checklist is an overview of different components which a business needs to factor in for a successful strategy. It can cover everything from social media strategy to multiple different methods to promote products or services across multiple digital platforms.

There are multiple things you can add or remove based on your business model.

But in this guide, we will look at the essential elements to help you plan your digital marketing.

The digital marketing checklist essentials

• The marketing plan
• Branding
• Building trust and visibility
• Search engine optimization
• Pay per click (PPC) strategy
• Lead nurturing
• Customer service and after-sales
• Launch and execution
• Monitor results
• Blocking fraud

1. Your marketing plan

Whatever your business, you need to have something to guide your decisions and help you understand your performance: The marketing plan.

You don’t need to have a huge 1000-page document to help you identify what your marketing plan is, either. Quite the opposite. You can put your marketing plan on one sheet of paper and pin it up on the office noticeboard.

So what should your marketing plan look like?

Pre-launch:

• Who is your target market?
• What is your message to that market?
• How will I reach that target market?

During:

• How will I capture leads?
• How will I nurture leads?
• What is my conversion strategy?

After:

• How do I deliver a premium experience?
• How can I increase customer lifetime value?
• How can I generate referrals?

If you haven’t considered all of these elements of your marketing plan, then this can be considered the absolute basic framework for marketing success. 

This list is actually taken from the book ‘The One Page Marketing Plan,’ by Allen Dib. A useful read for anyone starting out on their marketing journey.

But to summarize that whole book in one paragraph (sorry, Allen):

Build a solid picture of your ideal target audience; build a funnel to collect their details, whether that is using paid or organic methods; and then have a strategy of increasing business through positive feedback and referrals. 

2. Your branding

Branding is a tricky part of the digital marketing checklist because it’s much easier said than done. It also doesn’t yield any direct sales in short to medium term. But if done right, it can yield long-term dividends.

A great place to start with branding is ensuring that your name, logo, and brand identity appear on all your customer touch points. This doesn’t mean you need to “invest” thousands in a rebrand.

The critical factor here is to ensure that customers know who they are interacting with whenever they come across your website, receive an email, or encounter your business. Great places to start will be your email signature, website, and any packaging you send out. 

Nailing your branding probably won’t bring in revenue on its own; you’ll actually need to be extra careful to make sure it doesn’t drain your bank account. But, it can improve the ROI on all your other digital marketing strategies. 

And when you’re dealing with something as dynamic as digital marketing, that extra edge can be everything.

3. Building trust and visibility

Whether you’re working to create a steady stream of potential customers or hoping to open the floodgates, you need to understand how to position your business.

As we’ll see in a moment, there are marketing processes, including content creation and paid advertising, that will generate a steady flow. Although these are full strategies in themselves.

But when it comes to presenting your business to your audience, look at step one and ask yourself:

• Where do my customers look online?
• How can I present my service as a solution to their problem?
• How or when do they make a decision to invest?

Your first instinct here is probably to say, ‘They search Google, and I can present some PPC ads or blog posts to hook in my audience.’

And you’d be partly right.

But for early-stage businesses, or even those looking to step up their marketing, good visibility often comes down to a social media marketing strategy.

Whatever you think of platforms like TikTok, Linkedin, Reddit, Facebook, or Instagram, there is no hiding the fact that this is where the world now goes for much of its information. And chances are this includes your target audience (yes, B2B too).

At least having a page on these social media channels is going to go a long way to marketing success. Whether you post or not is another matter…

But wait… It’s not just social media!

In the world of online scams, your brand isn’t trusted until it is established. So having feedback or testimonials also goes a very long way to winning the trust of your target audience.

Build a process into your conversion funnel to generate reviews, feedback, and testimonials on the platforms customers will most likely check. Whether that’s Google Maps, Yelp, Capterra, or TripAdvisor, aim to up that star rating as part of the marketing checklist.

4. Understand the importance of SEO

SEO, or search engine optimization, is part of your bigger-picture marketing strategy. The reason is that generating consistent organic traffic means that you get ‘free’ website visitors – although the ‘free’ is in quotations because it takes more than just time to get up and running.  

With a content strategy and following Google’s SEO best practices, you can build up your search engine ranking and hopefully even increase sales.

As a business marketer, you’re best off focusing on your on-page SEO rather than chasing backlinks. Put very simply, this means focusing on a content plan for your website and worrying about domain rankings and backlinks later.

It’s worth bearing in mind that SEO is a medium to long-term marketing strategy, not just one of the one-off marketing tactics you might try for a bit. According to Semrush, it may take up to 6 months before you start seeing results. 

But in exchange for regular organic Google traffic and brand visibility, it’s very much worth investing in.

Here are 7 tips to get you started on your business’s SEO:

• Don’t half-ass it. SEO is hard but rewarding work, and just slapping a few keywords onto the occasional article won’t cut it. Have a plan, target a specific customer search intent, and create a marketing strategy that compounds your content strategy efforts.
• Make sure your website’s user experience is top-notch, from speed to responsiveness. Bounce rates don’t just affect PPC campaigns.
• Focus on your business’ unique offerings. That way, you’ll attract just the right kind of customers.
• Remember that Google rewards quality and informative content, so give your searchers what they’re looking for. And use the Google SEO guidelines to help you ensure you format and present all your information correctly.
• Pay attention to other forms of content marketing, like YouTube videos, social media, and even podcasts, if they make sense for your business. Be careful not to try too many things simultaneously if you’re operating a small time, as you can easily waste energy and resources.
• Like with many marketing efforts, try not to stress too much about the short-term results. Have a plan, stick to it, check back on your performance, and have achievable milestones to help you focus on the goal.
• Understand the power of off-page SEO, meaning backlinks. But also understand that it has a place in your strategy and should not be a focus early on.

5. Create a PPC strategy

A key part of many business marketing checklists is running PPC ads, most often Google Ads. Creating a PPC strategy sounds simple, and at face value, it is. But like everything else in your content marketing strategy, it takes experience and a lot of trial and error to work out what works and what doesn’t. 

Having that early marketing plan template in place will help you here as you’re looking to position yourself for optimal results. 

Before you even think of running a PPC ad campaign, make sure you have the following in place:

• Keyword research (understand where search intent affects customer conversion potential)
• A clear budget and plan that follows your budget 
• A well-optimized website with minimal technical issues
• Excellent landing pages tailored to your search campaigns
• Processes to monitor and optimize your PPC ad campaigns while they’re running

There’s so much more that goes into incorporating PPC ads into your digital marketing campaign, and you shouldn’t expect any substantial results without paying attention to the details. The good news is that we have an exhaustive guide on creating a PPC strategy to guide you.

Another element that affects PPC campaigns is invalid traffic or click fraud. This shockingly common problem affects around 90% of all Google Ads campaigns.

What is it?

Click fraud is the problem of fake or non-genuine clicks on paid links such as search ads or display ads. In 2022, it’s estimated that $81 billion of ad revenue has been lost to fake clicks from bots, web scrapers, competitors and brand haters, and other forms of fake traffic. 

Although paid search engine marketing, or SEM, has become an essential part of the marketing process, mitigating fraud also has.  

6. Lead nurturing

Whatever strategies you include in your marketing plan, you also need to factor in lead nurturing. What does this mean? It’s simply the process of ensuring that those people who have come into your funnel are given ample opportunity to convert into genuine customers.

So how do you do this?

The most common way to nurture leads is to collect their email addresses or contact details and add them to a mailing list. 

How you get those leads might be from either a sign-up form, business cards, or maybe even from an actual sale.

Email marketing is a cost-effective way to stay on top of mind with your customers and prospects. But like every marketing strategy, it’s not as simple as pinging out an email every week or two telling people about your latest product launch or end-of-season sale.  

There is obviously an art and a science to creating emails that people both:

1. Want to read, and…
2. Will actually convert after reading

Being able to craft a compelling email template and send out regular emails is often seen as one of the best and most cost-effective ways of generating sales.  

Using email marketing tools such as Hubspot, Mailchimp, or Klaviyo is the best way to manage your email campaigns. Many of them also offer free levels, often based on subscriber numbers, so you can get started with minimal outlay and hone your email marketing techniques.

You can use the emails to share useful tips, inform customers of new products and discounts, and even prompt them to shop again.

7. After-sales and customer service

Customer service is another strategy that won’t directly lead to increased sales but can be invaluable in the long run. All it takes is a few negative customer experiences for your brand to lose the trust of your target audience. 

But on the flip side, by cultivating a positive experience, you can generate positive feedback and cultivate a cycle of referrals. This is a powerful tool that every small business owner should be working towards as part of their business plan.

It’s a good idea to dedicate time to addressing negative online reviews with a professional approach and chasing quick and amicable resolutions. You can also spread your efforts to other touch points like customer inquiries via phone calls and live chat to reinforce the message that your customers are top of mind.

Another way you can encourage positive feedback is to ask your customer how you did or to ask for their opinions. By doing this, you can direct them to your review pages (for example, Google Maps or Trustpilot). There are software services that handle this part of the customer experience and automate follow up and review requests.

8. Launch your marketing campaign

One final pitfall that bears mentioning is waiting until your marketing plan is perfect before launching. This is a dangerous practice because it’ll never be perfect; there are a million other things you can add to your marketing checklist.

But, few things move faster than digital advertising; new mediums are being rolled out constantly, and your target market has more options than ever before. The longer you wait, the more you lose.

Launching your marketing campaign as soon as possible is critical for another reason. The sooner you launch, the sooner you can gather valuable feedback, gain analytics data, and modify your approach.

9. Monitor your campaigns

Marketing is very much a hands-on activity. While strategies like PPC ads and email marketing allow you to automate, you do need to keep checking to see how your campaigns are doing and adjusting your approach.

With PPC advertising, you can access your Google Ads dashboard to monitor ad performance and optimize elements such as your cost per click or your keyword targeting. 

For search engine campaigns, keeping track of the keywords you’re targeting and watching how these blog posts perform over time will help you identify what does and doesn’t work. There are also methods to integrate conversion tracking on your organic pages, such as blog posts, so keep tabs on these too.

And above all, you’ll need to keep track of your return on ad spend, or ROAS. This goes double if you pay for search engine marketing, social media marketing, and other paid marketing channels.

Take the time to perform a PPC audit every few months to make sure everything is working as planned and to optimize.

As part of their paid campaign monitoring, marketers should also factor in fraud protection and prevention.

What kinds of fraud do we need to be checking for…?

10. Blocking fraud on your website

Keeping track of and blocking fraudulent activity on your website and marketing campaigns is a key element for businesses of all sizes. 

Some of the main forms of online fraud include:

• Payment card fraud, also known as carding
• Advertising click fraud or the process of stealing your ad budget via fake clicks/impressions on ads
• Account takeover, whereby fraudsters access your website to steal customer details and fraudulently order products
• Other malicious acts, such as malware or spam injection, that can have a massive negative effect on your website and business operations

Anyone doing business online needs to factor fraud blocking into their marketing checklist.

ClickCease has been the industry leader in click fraud prevention since 2015. But today, you can also use ClickCease to block many sources of direct or organic fraud, including carding, account takeover, and more.

Add ClickCease to your marketing stack with a free trial and see how much fraud is picked up and blocked.

Most of our customers save thousands of dollars every month simply by using ClickCease.

So if you’ve gone to the effort of creating a winning digital marketing strategy, give it the best chance of success.

Sign up for your FREE 7-day trial of ClickCease today.

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