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PPC Jargon Explained

Navigating the ever-changing world of digital marketing and understanding even just a fraction of the whole package can be hard. Add in PPC and heads can explode. Even those who have been doing digital marketing for years could have never stepped into the realm of PPC, as just on the cover it looks complicated and worrying. What if you spend hundreds of pounds and get nothing in return? Well that is for another day. Today we are just going to help you lift the lid a little and hopefully ease your worries around PPC.

Very much like our SEO jargon article, where we talked about SEO and explained everything around that, well we are sure you have guessed it already. We are going to do the exact same here but talk you through all things PPC.

We’ve compiled a list of some of the most common PPC jargon and simplified it so you can work on those paid campaigns like a pro.

First things first… what’s PPC?

PPC stands for Pay Per Click and is an extremely popular advertising strategy where businesses run an advert online and only pay for it when someone clicks on the ad. Most businesses often find it easier to opt for this form of advertising as it enables them to measure the number of interested and potential clients based on the clicks they get on the advert.

PPC is also a quick way to drive traffic to your website. You will probably be most familiar with Google PPC campaigns where ads will appear at the top of the search engine with [Ad] mark next to them, which identify them as paid content. But any form of advertising where you pay for a click, is classed as PPC.

All things PPC explained

Audience

Similar to a stage audience but with a twist. Audiences in PPC campaigns are usually users that previously visited your page and are included in a list that will be used to better your Display Network and Remarketing strategies. Your audience is also people you targeted that are most likely to consume your content and ultimately make a purchase. Knowing your audience is the backbone of successful PPC campaigns

Campaign

After successfully marking out your audience, what they want and how they go about finding it, you can load the campaign with all the relevant keywords aligned to your audience. Your campaign will contain a budget for a set of ads, keywords and bids all aligned to the target audience in a set location. 

Cost per click (CPC)

This is how much you pay for each click on the advert that directs your audience to your website. You may see things like Avg CPC which just stands for average click per cost.

Click-Through Rate (CTR)

This is the level of consumers who click through to your site after they have seen your advertisement. If 100 people see your add and 10 people click it, this will convert to a click through rate of 10%.

Conversion rate (CR)

As potential clients flock to your website, your conversion rate will be the number of people who have clicked your ad divided by the number of visitors who converted. You decide what counts as a conversion; purchase, form submission, download document etc.

Return on Ad Spend

It’s all about the money! Return on Ad Spend is the metric you’ll use to measure how much money you make back from the money you spent on advertising. If you spend £100 you want to get at least £101 back. However, this isn’t always the case and PPC may cost more to begin with,

Google remarketing

Think of this as giving a customer who was close to the conversion stage that final push. Remarketing allows you to strategically target ads to potential clients who visited your website and were close to purchasing as they search on Google or browse through partner sites. 

Lead generation

This is part of growing your community of high intent visitors through various actions. You can ask visitors to fill out a form, download something or submit an email address in return for a coupon or discount. You can get creative with this one. 

Text ads

This is the actual ad that you see on search engines. It has three parts: headline text, a display URL, and description text.

Display ads

Remember those adverts you see as your scroll through your Facebook or Instagram feed? These are display ads all aimed at attracting the audience of a website, social media platform, or any other relevant site.

Google AdWords

This is Google’s PPC platform and is one of the most popular PPC platforms. Here you create your campaigns, ad groups, create ads and select the keywords you would like your ad to appear for.

Quality score

Google Ads have used something called Quality Score to determine how good your ads/keywords/landing page are. Your quality score is based on your; CTR, relevance of each keyword to its ad group, landing page quality and relevance, the relevance of your ad text as well as your historical Google Ads account performance. Also, the higher your quality score the less you will have to pay for each click.

We could go on and on about PPC but it is just too big to explain all in one article. The above however, is just a start to help you understand some of the PPC terminology you may come across.

If you are looking into PPC and need some help setting up your account or you want some advice on how to make your current account better, get in touch with us. Our very own PPC guru will be more than happy to have a chat with you and help you get the most out of PPC.

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