Table of Contents:
1. What Is Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Marketing?
It’s no secret that marketing is key to the success of your advisory firm. But as a busy advisor, it can be hard to market your firm as much as you would like. So, when it comes to a strategy, it’s so important that you are creating a strategy that is effective and works best for you and your audience.
And according to a recent study by Michael Kitces, data shows that Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Marketing is the second most cost-effective way to attract prospects. However, this tactic may be intimidating to advisors. So, we’re here to break it down for you so that you can get the most out of your marketing and really shine this year.
1. What Is Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Marketing?
For starters, what exactly is PPC marketing?
Answer: It’s a type of digital marketing where advertisers pay a fee each time an ad is clicked. So, you are only paying for advertising if your ad is actually clicked on, which serves as a method for “buying” visits to your website while also driving in visits organically. You may be thinking, “I don’t want to pay for people to click my ads…that can really add up!” But when it works well, the cost is trivial, especially when it drives more business. And like most good strategies, they take work! We’re going to dive into what it takes and how you can effectively use PPC in your strategy.
In the above image, we have created an ad where our audience can learn more about our “Do It For Me” marketing program. It’s enticing and motivates those who are interested to learn more, and then when someone clicks or requests a demo, we would pay a small fee.
2. How Can You Use PPC In Your Marketing?
Is PPC marketing something that you want to try? Here are some questions that you can start to ask:
- What are your digital marketing goals?
- What is the current status of your website?
- What is your budget?
- Where does the majority of your site traffic come from?
Once you figure out the answer to these questions, then you can dive in. The following are some key aspects to focus on:
Keyword Research:
What words do you want to show up for and what is your niche? Keywords are essential to bringing traffic to your website and marketing your advisor firm, so choose ones that best describe your firm, the services you offer and the audience that you want to attract.
Creative Copy and Imagery:
Are you creating copy that your audience wants to click on? That is obviously a crucial aspect of the success of your ads. Can you offer something that will help out your prospects? Maybe you speak to their pain points…whatever they may be, make sure that is enticing them to learn more.
And make sure you are using captivating imagery to “stop the scroll.” In the image below, it’s straight to the point with our tagline, “Our expertise is showing off yours,” and an eye-catching image is used in the ad.
The Quality of your Landing Pages:
When someone clicks on the ads and is taken to a landing page, make sure your landing pages are up to speed. They should have:
- One Headline
- One Unique Selling Proposition
- One Call-to-Action
If your visitors are taken to a page without a CTA or you can’t really tell what the page is trying to accomplish, then you are not going to see the types of conversions that you want.
Once your new campaigns are created, it’s important to keep an eye on them and manage them to ensure that your ad campaigns remain effective. Regular account activity is one of the best predictors of account success, so make sure you’re keeping tabs on it!
3. Pros and Cons of PPC Marketing
Though PPC is beneficial to your marketing, it does come with advantages and disadvantages. Below is a list of pros and cons for PPC marketing.
Pros:
1. Instant Results
Unlike SEO, you can see basically immediate results from PPC. As long as you are driving traffic to your landing page then you have a higher chance for success. But to build on that, it’s important that your landing page has all the aspects to ensure that your leads move further down the sales funnel efficiently. This includes:
- A strong call to action
- Accessible contact form
- Easy site navigation
So, when done well, PPC marketing can have amazing results for your firm…much faster than organic marketing and SEO.
2. Easier to Master
In the long run, PPC is easier to master than SEO, and even though learning best PPC practices does cost money, once you’ve set up a proper campaign and optimized it for a couple of months, you’re good to go. And if necessary, you can get support from professionals on Google who can help you get started.
3. It’s Buyer-Oriented
Google only shows ads if it thinks that they are relevant to potential customers, so if the keyword that you choose is a buyer keyword, there’s a higher chance of your ad displaying for them. You’ll only be targeting commercial keywords when you place your ad, which makes it much more likely your site will be displayed to someone looking for your specific service. This is why it’s so important to do your research and choose the best keywords for your
4. There is No Uncertainty
When it comes to PPC, you are working with the search engine, so the updates are upfront and your ad won’t change even if the algorithms change. This means that your rankings won’t suddenly change since they are hand-in-hand with the search engine.
5. Easy to Scale
Changing an organic strategy can take a lot of time and effort, but with PPC marketing, the only thing that you have to change is that you have to pay more. You can pay for more keywords or a larger daily budget, but either way, your ad and website will reach more potential clients with very little effort.
Cons:
1. It Will Cost You Money
Even though it is highly effective and cost-efficient when it works, a click doesn’t always mean a sale. For the ROI to be good, you need high conversions, so ensure you have a strong website to make each click worth it.
2. The ROI is Lower
So, when you stop paying for the clicks, the strategy no longer works. Your content will no longer be displayed once the ad comes down, so this will put a Once the ad comes down, your content won’t be displayed which slow down the traffic to your website significantly.
3. There is a Steeper Learning Curve
If you don’t have much background in advertising, there can be a lot to learn. Campaigns, negative keywords, budgets, bids … you’ll be swimming in a pool of advertising jargon that you’ll have to work hard to understand. If you don’t know what you’re doing or what the intricacies mean, PPC can be a big waste of money.
4. There is Less Control and Trust
When it comes to advertisements, there can often be more rules. Titles, descriptions and content can be limited which gives you much less control over how you market your brand. What’s even more difficult is that some keywords or niches may be banned, which can severely limit the audience that you are marketing to.
And for some people, advertisements can feel manipulative and much less organic to your audience, especially since people know that ads are created to sell them something. This can really hurt
Key Takeaways
Ready to give PPC marketing a shot? We hope that this helped you to better understand how to incorporate it into your overall marketing strategy. When coupled with SEO best practices, this is an incredible way to boost your overall online presence and grow your business.
Struggling to find the time to market your business as much as you would like?
Learn more about our “Do It For Me” marketing program where you can
build your brand, stay in touch with clients grow your business and more.
