Why does PPC work for e-commerce advertising?
Capturing the attention of your potential customers is more challenging than ever with how saturated the market is.
With the vast number of options available, consumers are just a click away from purchasing almost anything they want.
So, the question is…
How can an ecommerce business stand out from a crowded marketplace?
If you’re not already, investing in pay-per-click (PPC) advertising could be the solution to incorporate in your e-commerce strategies. PPC is a powerful and proven strategy that has transformed the way businesses reach and engage with their target audiences.
In this blog, we’ll explore why PPC works so effectively for e-commerce advertising and how it can help your business grow.
What is PPC advertising?
At Diginius, PPC is part of our everyday ecosystem, but we can forget that not everyone is aware of PPC Advertising, here is a quick breakdown.
Pay-per-click advertising is a form of online advertising where essentially you only pay when a user clicks on your ad. It doesn’t matter how many people see your ads or how much it is displayed – you’re only paying for the clicks.
You can choose a variety of ad platforms to serve your ads, with some of the key players being Google, Microsoft, and Facebook.
The ads you see on top of Google Search and Bing Search are PPC ads.
When we talk about PPC for ecommerce we’re referring to strategies that help businesses to use this form of advertising to make more money from their online stores
Why do so many brands favour PPC Advertising?
Let’s discuss the benefits of investing in PPC advertising.
Immediate visibility
The ability to deliver instant visibility is very desirable for a lot of companies. Unlike organic social and SEO (Search Engine Optimization), which can take months to see results, PPC campaigns put your products in front of potential customers within hours of launching. This is ideal for an ecommerce business that wants to promote time-sensitive deals, new product launches or seasonal sales.
By bidding on relevant keywords, your ads can appear on the top of search engine results pages (SERPs) or social media platforms, ensuring your products are seen by customers potentially searching for them.
Highly targeted audience reach
The targeting of a PPC campaign is very precise, they can be directed specifically to users based on their location, demographics, and even previous search history.
This precision makes sure the ads are shown to those who matter, leading to higher click-through rates (CTRs) and a better return on investment (ROI).
An example of this could be if you sell sustainable products, you could target users who have shown an interest in eco-friendly products and services and have previously visited similar websites.
This level of targeting reduces wasted ad spend, allowing you to fully maximise your budget for the best ROI.
Cost-effective and scalable
PPC is a very cost-effective way to drive traffic to your eCommerce website. Since you only pay when your ad is clicked, you’re essentially paying for the results. This PPC model ensures that your budget is spent on driving traffic to your site, rather than on impressions that might not lead to any action.
PPC advertising is also very scalable, meaning you can start with smaller budgets and gradually increase your investment as you see positive results. This scalability is particularly beneficial for small to medium-sized e-commerce businesses that might need to be more mindful of their budgets.
Measurable Results and data-driven decisions
There aren’t many forms of advertising that can match PPC regarding the number of valuable insights you gain into how your target audience reacts to your ads and sales funnels.
PPC advertising tools provide a huge amount of valuable data on user behaviour and metrics such as impressions, clicks, CTR, and conversion rates give you a clear indication of how your ads are performing.
This data-driven approach allows you to make more informed decisions about your campaigns, such as adjusting bids, refining targeting, and testing new ad creatives. It is important to constantly measure your results, so you are always maximising your campaigns for a better ROI.
Supports Brand Awareness and Recognition
PPC helps you to build brand awareness and reach new customers who might not be familiar with your products and services. The prominence of these ads at the very top of the SERP makes them an ideal tool to spread awareness of your e-commerce brand. Even if users don’t click on your ad straight away, repeated exposure to your brand name and products can lead to increased brand recognition and trust over time.
For an e-commerce business, brand awareness can be a critical factor in influencing purchasing decisions. As potential customers become more familiar with your brand through consistent PPC efforts, they are more likely to choose you when making the final decision.
Enhances multichannel marketing strategies
PPC advertising complements and enhances your other marketing efforts such as content marketing, email marketing and your social media strategies. It is good practice to have your SEO and PPC campaigns working in harmony together.
For example, by running a PPC campaign in tandem with your email strategy, you can re-engage past customers with personalised offers to upsell related products. PPC can also be used to support remarketing campaigns, where ads are shown to users who have previously visited your website but didn’t commit to purchase, a gentle reminder to nudge them back to your site can never hurt and increases the likelihood of a conversion.
What type of ads can work best for your ecommerce business?
There are many PPC strategies that work well for e-commerce stores.
One powerful approach could be using product listing ads. These ads appear when users search for terms that are related to your product or service, displaying the essential details like price and an image, which can significantly attract potential buyers.
Dynamic search ads are also highly beneficial for e-commerce businesses. These ads automatically target potential customers based on their search history and past interactions with your website, making them more likely to be interested in your offerings and converting them into purchasing.
Another impactful PPC strategy is remarketing. This involves displaying ads to people who have previously visited your site but didn’t complete a purchase. By reminding them of your products, you can encourage them to return and purchase.
Experimenting with various strategies is key to finding the best ads which work for your business.
What is remarketing?
Let us delve into remarketing in more detail.
Remarketing is a powerful tool that e-commerce store owners can use to reach their target customers.
If a customer is closer to the beginning of the sales funnel, they may visit your website and browse your products, but they may not be ready for a purchase yet. However, if you have their contact information, you can reach out to them again and remind them of your products with a special discount on their next purchase.
This is where we involve remarketing.
By adding a small piece of code to your website, you can track when a person visits your site and show them targeted ads when they are browsing other websites. This could be, when they’re browsing Instagram later, they will see the ad for your products with the potential special deal. This is a great way to bring a potential warmer customer back to your store and convert them.
We would recommend this as an effective way of boosting your sales to grow your ecommerce business. If you are not already utilising remarketing, it’s never too late to start.
Which formats of PPC advertising are useful for e-commerce?
There are a number of formats that work well if you’re an e-commerce brand, they can seem overwhelming so here are some of the most popular you could get started with:
Search Ads
This is the most common type of PPC advertising, and they appear on SERPs. They are highly effective for reaching potential customers who are actively searching for products like yours.
Display Ads
Display ads are shown on websites and apps. These ads can help you reach a broad audience or target specific users based on their interests. If you have knowledge of Search ads and Display ads with them being the most common and you’re considering creating them, take time to research display ads vs search ads and the key differences between them.
Shopping Ads
These ads appear on SERPs and showcase product images, prices, and other details. They are a fantastic way to highlight your products and capture the interests of your potential buyers.
Video Ads
Video ads are displayed on YouTube and other video platforms, for example, the recent opportunity to advertise on Netflix with Microsoft Advertising.
Native Ads
Native ads are PPC ads designed to blend seamlessly with the content of the website or app where they appear. These tend to be less disruptive and are effective for reaching users who are already engaged with your content.
These are the most common, but to determine the best fit for your ecommerce brand we would recommend experimenting with various formats to see which yields the best results.
Are there limitations?
PPC can be an effective way to promote your ecommerce store, but like most strategies there are limitations to consider.
First, money is involved so naturally, it can become costly so it’s important to be strategic with your budget to maximise the effectiveness of your campaigns. Additionally, PPC requires ongoing management and attention. You’ll need to regularly monitor your campaigns and make adjustments, so they stay optimised.
If you’re new to PPC and don’t know where to start or don’t have the time to manage a PPC campaign but want to invest, there’s always the opportunity to work with a PPC agency. If possible, it’s even better to work with a specialist PPC agency that has experience within your industry vertical. If you want to find out more about working with a PPC agency, check out our complete guide on choosing a PPC agency for your business needs.
Best practices for E-commerce PPC Management
If this has convinced you to consider PPC advertising, there are a few best practices you should discuss with your team before you start.
Define your goals
Unlike organic strategy, money is involved so it’s key to know exactly why you’re running the ads in the first place.
What do you want to achieve? Some strategic goals could be:
- Driving traffic to a discount or a summer sale? Implementing a seasonal campaign can be a smart idea to boost your eCommerce sales during a seasonal period.
- Reviving sales for a product line that hasn’t been performing as well as it used to.
- Generate maximum revenue from your new releases.
When you have set your goals, you can begin tailoring your campaigns.
Determine your keywords
Implementing SEO for ecommerce advertising can improve your PPC campaigns as you conduct keyword research to determine the most relevant keywords and phrases your target audience is searching for.
Don’t forget to utilize negative keywords too.
Negative keywords are words and phrases you can add to your e-commerce PPC campaigns to stop your ads from showing to people searching for things unrelated to the product or service you’re trying to sell.
For instance, if you’re selling expensive quality, premium jewellery you don’t want people searching for “cheap jewellery” to see your ads.
Nothing against these consumers, but if that person clicks on your ad, it’s going to cost you money that you are never going to see from a sale, because your products are far from the typical “cheap” jewellery.
In Google ads, you can add these to your negative keywords list to ensure they don’t trigger an ad when a customer searches.
Optimise for maximum click-throughs
The primary objective of your ads is to get customers to click on them.
Here is what you can do.
- Engaging headings – utilise compelling copy throughout, starting with an attention-grabbing headline.
- Focus on the benefits and USPs – focus on adding the unique selling points of your products to allow them to stand out from the crowd and emphasize how the product’s features benefit the user rather than the feature itself.
- A good CTA – using a call to action is the most vital part of your PPC strategy. This will ensure that a user clicks on your ad. The CTA should focus on strong, and impactful action words that make clicking through seem essential for the user to do.
- High-quality visuals – for display ads, be sure to focus on captivating, high-quality visuals that highlight your products in the best possible light. This way, you’re not just telling the customer, you can show them too.
Run an A/B test to improve ROI (return on investment)
If A/B testing is new to you, it’s as simple as it sounds.
You create two essentially identical campaigns, call them ‘Ad A’ and ‘Ad B’ and change one aspect of them and see which one performs better.
The changing aspect could be the ad heading, to see which one attracts a customer more. Both campaigns would have different headings but everything else would be identical.
Running A/B tests can help you fine-tune your campaigns and make continuous improvements to make sure you’re always trying to improve your ROI.
Invest in your landing page
Your landing page could make or break your PPC campaign.
This sounds dramatic but your landing page serves as the final destination for your visitors after clicking your ad, every landing page will need to be as optimised as possible to maximise your chances of getting customers to your checkout your products.
To optimise your landing page, focus on content that stays true to the copy in the ad and is up to date, reassuring visitors they are in the right place.
They don’t have to be identical, but your landing page headers and body copy should match your ad’s message, style, and tone so customers don’t drop of your site.
From a technical perspective, your landing page should load quickly and have an easy user flow to prevent your customers from bouncing. Slow loading times can annoy customers.
To support this, take time optimising your landing page for speed by compressing images, minifying code, and leveraging caching.
Monitor your performance
Monitoring and tracking the performance of your campaigns is essential to ensure your entire e-commerce PPC strategy is operating for maximum effectiveness.
Regularly monitor metrics such as click-through rates, conversion rates, and cost per acquisition (CPA) to see what’s working, what isn’t and how you can fine-tune it.
What Next?
We understand, now more than ever, it’s difficult to stand out in a busy e-commerce world but PPC advertising is a diamond in the rough, a powerful tool to drive traffic, increase sales, and build brand recognition. Its immediate impact, precise targeting, cost-effectiveness, and ability to provide measurable results make it essential to any successful e-commerce marketing strategy.
If you’re looking to work with the perfect PPC agency to drive your campaigns, we have recently announced our Diginius PPC Agency Matchmaker a free-to-use service for companies and organisations, matching you with the best PPC agencies across the globe.
