3 Rules About PPC That Small Businesses Need To Remember

For freelancers (myself included), Upwork is a favorite hunting ground for potential clients looking for help. It’s a great platform, and I love it (aside from the ridiculous fees).

When I have gaps in my schedule from where I have finished up projects with other clients, I will go in there to see what’s new and who needs help. Oddly enough, the majority of the needs people have inside that fit inside my skill scope is pretty one-track.

The dreaded PPC.

While I am not the biggest fan of PPC in general, it has its place and purpose. The usefulness of that method of advertising is undisputed; it is the expectation of the business owners and leaders when it comes to results that make me want to chew glass.

The idea that if “we only had the best PPC campaign, we could make millions selling these [insert whatever product here… crotchless panties… beard cream for llamas… handcrafted plastic sleeping mats] ” is extraordinarily naive and short-sighted in the long run.

Not only does it assume that the quality of a marketing campaign is solely based on how many people buy the product through paid advertising, but it also wanders into the territory of assuming that there are millions of people wanting to buy your product without doing any viable marketing research on the matter.

Marketing and advertising aren’t solely about conversions; it is about crafting a message about your brand and getting it effectively in front of as many eyeballs that will value your product as possible.

It Is Part Of The Solution, Not the Solution Itself

When was the last time you saw Wal-Mart only do a PPC campaign? Or Jackson Hewitt? Or any other company that invests in marketing strategy solely rely on PPC?

I assure you that no CMO at any major corporation is looking at his team and saying “Guys, we need to sink our entire marketing budget into solely Facebook ads and Google AdWords.”

Any marketing professional worth their weight is going to hear that and laugh because they know that you don’t invest everything into a small piece of the overall puzzle.

While the buzz is all about how these PPC “gurus” make their clients millions off paid advertising, the fact is that it gives you exposure at worst and a sale at best.

That’s fine. Nothing wrong with that.

Solution: For small business owners, investing in a strategy for holistic growth in the marketplace is worth 10x that in PPC for the long term. Hire a marketing consultant, work together to build out a battle plan, and dedicate resources to ALL agreed upon channels of marketing instead of the one that provides short term results.

It Takes Money To See Significant Growth

“I can’t believe I am paying Google $500 per month for AdWords. I can’t afford that…”

I have one client who sinks over $250k per year in Adwords and Facebook PPC.

In all fairness, they also sink about that much or more in other forms of advertising across various mediums. They have a strong marketing strategy and use different advertising partners with different strengths and skill sets.

If you want to see anything close to growth using PPC, you have to pay to play.

And I mean pay.

Spending $10 per day is not going to amount to significant results over the long term. Advertising is expensive and while you may be able to target your audience better inside PPC mediums than compared to more mass media channels, making a dent in the market still requires a significant investment.

Solution: When building out or refining your marketing strategy, understand what the competitive keywords are and what the cost per click is going to be for your PPC strategy. From there, dedicate the resources and commit to it. Once the campaign is running in conjunction with others, adjust and refine based on data. Change out keywords and ad sets to prevent “banner blindness” on the part of the end user. Keep it new and exciting.

You Need A Good Lander

This kills me.

Sometimes you get a client who wants to spend $1000 each month in PPC to increase conversions but doesn’t want to invest in web design and UX to make their site better.

These clients find value in increasing ad spend on a product or service that isn’t converting (thinking it is the person handling the PPC campaign who is causing the lack of conversions), but have no problem with the Myspace era website and fight you about investing in a redesign?

Mind-blowing.

Would you spend thousands in advertising to get people to come to your restaurant, only to have the restaurant look like it is condemnable and not appealing for the consumer to invest their time and money?

Of course not. You want it to be the best it possibly can be. You fix the product display first BEFORE you expect people to want to buy it.

PPC only gets people to your site or lander. PPC doesn’t “convert” by itself. It is a team effort between the advertising, messaging, and the product display.

If the PPC was able to get people to the site, but then fails to convert; that failure falls on the boatload of other reasons why the consumer didn’t commit to purchasing, not the advertising that got them there.

Businesses who refuse to admit that they may be the reason for their own failure in PPC need to take a long, hard look at the competitive landscape to see what elements of the competition are more appealing for those who convert.

In many cases, the UX is the catalyst.

Solution: When investing in marketing strategy, invest in a UX audit from someone who has experience using UX to build higher quality sites. UX consultants can spot flaws in your current setup and provide a way to remedy them or suggest a manner in which to redesign the layout to make it more appealing to consumers that help increase the probability of converting.

In Conclusion

PPC is a tool. It is neither good or bad. It is just another avenue to get others interested in what you have to offer.

It is not the Messiah in the success of your business. At best, it is a helping hand.

Real marketing and advertising require a plan, to get your brand in front of as many viable consumers as resources will allow. Marketing and advertising are about brand awareness and nudging the consumer into a buying mentality, not about forcing conversion at any cost.

If you are willing to invest $1000s in what Google and Facebook have to offer, but not into growing your business long term and making your website, product, or service the best it can be, you are thinking in reverse, and no amount of PPC will make your business as successful as it can be.