PPC is a key part of a brands overall digital marketing performance. Within a campaign, you’ll be able to benefit from a range of methods that can fast-track your business into your ideal marketplace. Some of the top PPC tactics include:
- Remarketing
- Advanced targeting
- Using sitelinks and ad extensions
- Adding negative keywords
It is also essential that you consider your other marketing efforts alongside PPC. Today, we are going to focus on how content marketing and PPC can work together.
The two channels really do work hand-in-hand. Think of it like this; your PPC ads can drive the right traffic to your content – and your content can build a connection with users and encourage them to convert. In this blog, we’re going to explain more about how these channels come hand-in-hand.
How do PPC and content work together?
Generating the right traffic
You might have some great content– but if you haven’t got the right people visiting your site, you’re not going to achieve the desired results. A lot of businesses will use a PPC campaign to drive some initial traffic to their site and gain exposure. You’ll also be able to gain insights into your audience so that you understand how to target them in the best way.
High-quality content
So, you can use PPC ads to lead your target customers to your site, but how can you make sure their click is valuable? Well, that is where content comes in. Once you know more about your audience, you can tailor your content towards them to make your brand stand out amongst competitors.
Things like keeping up with industry knowledge and trends, including valuable links and creating how-to guides can help to engage more customers. If users are following your PPC links and finding valuable content that they can resonate with – it is much more likely they will return.
Improve your landing page experience
Your landing page will determine whether or not your visitor sticks around and explores your site or goes straight back to the results page. If your landing page doesn’t follow up from your ad, then your PPC results won’t be as impressive as they could be. Your landing page should be optimised based on your customer’s buyer journey – and you should use your content to make a conversion as easy for them as possible. In summary, a user will generally follow these steps:
- Awareness: A user is alerted to something they need or might want. This could happen through a blog post, infographics or video etc.
- Consideration: A customer realises what they want to achieve and looks for more details. This could be through testimonials, reviews, special offers or case studies.
- Decision: A customer decides to make a conversion (i.e. a purchase, sign-up or free trial).
Not all users who click on your ad will make a purchase – but providing the right content on your site will play a crucial part in generating conversions. You can find more detail on this buyers journey in our conversion funnel blog.
Use PPC to increase Content Marketing ROI
Below, we’ve highlighted some of the best ways you can use PPC to maximise your content marketing results within your budget.
1. Use ads to promote your best content
A popular way of pushing content is through social media. When using paid features such as Facebook Audience Insights – you’ll be able to target a more specific audience. You can find new potential viewers based on your current audience. Once you ‘boost’ a post, you’ll be able to promote your content to two groups:
- People who like your Page and their friends – This will allow you to target people who are connected to your current followers, meaning they probably have similar interests.
- People you choose through targeting – You can target based on things like demographics, interests and online behaviour.
A similar tool is Twitters’ Tailored Audiences – both of these are great tools to remark your content within an ad
2. Test your ad headlines
If you want to promote your content through ads, then you’ll need to think of an enticing headline. You can use tools to help find out what is currently trending and likely to resonate with users. For example, BuzzSumo is a content research platform that looks into popular topics and finds the most valuable keywords depending on your industry. You can then use these keywords (and topics) to create a great headline for your PPC ad.
We also recommend performing some A/B testing on various headlines to see which ones are generating the most clicks. Experimenting with different niche keywords can lead you towards those users who are converting the most. Remember, your content needs to be completely relevant to your headline. If you want to drive conversions, there is no point in using a clickbait headline and providing content that users aren’t looking for.
3. Create a winning call-to-action
Your call-to-action (CTA) is a way of leading users towards your desired action. The aim of your CTA is to drive conversions – which might be a purchase or another desired action on your site. The importance of a CTA means you need to be creative when you’re making it. So, where does PPC come into this?
In a PPC ad, it is best to include the most relevant details about your product or service. However, don’t give everything away – you want users to click through to your landing page to find out more. The CTA in your PPC ad is essentially showing what you can offer and giving users a quick route to get there.
For those users who are unsure of whether they want to complete an action or not – you’ll be relying on the rest of your content to persuade them. Use your content to ‘hook’ your reader interest, and then repeat your CTA at the end. Your content is essentially encouraging users to click on your CTA if they didn’t already in your ad.
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Combining two channels can provide great benefits and help you to boost your digital marketing results. If you want to find out more about using your PPC and content marketing to maximise performance – please get in touch.