Audience. Timing. Message. Budget. Tracking. You control them all when you invest in pay-per-click advertising (PPC). While it’s not smart to make PPC your agency’s whole marketing ball-of-wax, including it as one of your strategies may be a good idea. Here’s why:
Do you want to focus only on locals? Only people who’ve visited your site in the last week? PPC allows you to target exactly the group you’re looking for. PPC remarketing campaigns even allow you to try again with users whom you “almost, but not quite” made a connection.
With PPC, you can target a particular person in a particular place at a particular time with a particular ad. And with PPC, you can get instant traffic, while many other forms of advertising take time to “simmer.” It’s not unheard of for conversions to happen within just a day.
You can make content changes incredibly quickly and simply if you change your mind about what to say or how to say it.
PPC’s name says it all. You only pay when prospects click through to your website. Period. It’s easy to set limits on your daily spending and then adjust them whenever doing so seems prudent.
No more spending money and hoping the target market responds to your ad. With PPC, you’ll know. Programs like Google Adwords have convenient analytics to help you keep up with what’s happening when people visit your site. As a bonus, PPC can even help you get information about how your other marketing channels, like SEO, are working out for you, as explained in this article.
Nothing’s perfect, and that certainly includes PPC. The insurance category has the highest cost-per-click rates, and the market is competitive. You’ll need to sharpen your pencil and decide if PPC is worth the investment for your particular agency. If you do decide to give it a go, here are some tips to keep costs down:
Use keywords that are highly specific, and therefore less competitive. Google’s Keyword Tool can help you expand your list of keywords and find longer tail keywords.
Exclude terms that your agency doesn’t offer. For example, if you only sell medical insurance, make sure that your keywords are specific to that category, not car insurance or life insurance.
If you’re a small, local agency, limit your radius accordingly. Nope, you won’t get as many clicks, but you’re more likely to get the ones that will ultimately pay off.