For businesses looking to communicate directly with their target audience, few mediums offer the reach, accuracy, and immediacy of paid search advertising. Across commercial sectors, PPC (pay-per-click) advertising has fundamentally changed how businesses market their products and services, allowing even the smallest firms to compete with larger companies in terms of global visibility.
However, running a paid search ads campaign can be a risky—and potentially expensive—proposition. It’s not uncommon for PPC advertising campaigns to run over budget, particularly when operated on the back of a rusty or poorly optimised digital marketing strategy. And, for businesses without the resources necessary to run an in-house PPC marketing team, the problem becomes one of finding a paid search agency that can cost-effectively manage campaigns on an outsourced basis.
That’s where a digital marketing agency like The Bank can help.
At The Bank, our paid search marketing services are tailored to meet the individual needs of each client, allowing us to provide effective paid search management that is both cost-effective and performance-driven. We offer a diverse range of pay-per-click solutions, including keyword research and targeting, ad copywriting, bid optimisation, and landing page testing—all designed to drive quality traffic, generate leads, and boost conversions.
To learn more about how our digital marketing services can help you reach your business goals, contact our team today. Alternatively, keep reading for our comprehensive guide to paid search.
What Is Paid Search Marketing?
Simply put, paid search marketing is a form of digital advertising which involves bidding on popular search engine keywords for prominent positions in search engine results. Whenever a user searches for something relevant to their business, an advertiser’s ad will appear alongside organic search results; if the user clicks on that ad, the advertiser is charged for that lead—hence: pay-per-click.
In practice, running a paid advertising campaign is more complex, with businesses needing to manage their budgets and carefully optimise campaigns for maximum ROI. And, as the number of paid search platforms continues to increase, paid advertising professionals must account for different rules, regulations, and ad format standards to ensure cross-channel success.
The Benefits of Running a Paid Search Campaign
Despite the complexity of running PPC ad campaigns, there are numerous tangible benefits to be had from investing in paid search marketing.
Visibility Across Search Engine Results Pages
The most apparent benefit of PPC ads is the favourable placement they provide across key SERPs (search engine results pages). SEO and techniques for generating organic traffic often take a lot of time to bear fruit; with PPC advertising, businesses can enjoy instant visibility and access to their target audience.
Targeting Audiences by Keyword and Interests
Paid search grants advertisers the ability to target users based on a predefined keyword search query or set of interests. This unparalleled level of targeting is highly beneficial, giving businesses a better chance of engaging with potential customers, and of satisfying their needs, wants, and desires.
Increased Control Over Ad Budgets
Unlike traditional media, paid search marketing offers granular control of budgets and ad spend. By examining ad quality impact and conversion rates, brands can see which campaigns are performing well and can quickly and easily adjust their budget accordingly. This allows them to spend more on high-performing ads while reducing or even stopping those not delivering a return.
Multi-Channel Paid Search Management Services
The digital marketing landscape is increasingly fragmented, with an evergrowing number of search engines, social media platforms, and retail services. For effective search engine marketing, this means businesses should be looking to run multi-channel PPC campaigns, taking full advantage of opportunities unique to each of the various platforms available.
Google Ads
By some margin, Google is the most popular search platform in the world. The platform boasts a 91.9% share of the market, with some 90 billion visits every month.
Google’s astonishingly high search volume makes running ads across its services an extremely desirable proposition. Google Ads is the tool used to create and manage these campaigns, allowing advertisers to target users across the Google Search Network (which includes the main search engine), as well as its massive network of partner sites.
Bing Ads
Whilst Google search ads dominate the market, competitors like Bing Ads should not be ignored. Bing’s smaller share of the search engine market still translates to billions of searches each month, and with the platform skewing towards older, more affluent web users, Bing Ads offers incredible opportunities for businesses that would benefit from targeting this audience.
Bing also offers businesses additional benefits such as better targeting options and lower pay-per-click rates than Google Ads. Meanwhile, its integration with Yahoo Search makes it incredibly easy to manage paid ads across both platforms.
Google Shopping
If you’re a merchant or online retailer, Google Shopping ads should be a cornerstone of your PPC strategy. The service allows businesses to create product listing ads that appear above organic search results, giving them a distinct competitive advantage across the most valuable SERPs.
Google Shopping ads are significantly more likely to attract clicks than other forms of paid search, and with users able to view images and pricing information directly in their SERPs, businesses have a much better chance of engaging and converting potential customers.
Amazon
As the world’s largest online marketplace, millions daily turn to Amazon to search, browse, and research products of all shapes and sizes. This presents incredible opportunities for businesses to get their products in front of qualified, motivated consumers.
Amazon Ads offers a range of effective targeting options and can be integrated with a number of automation platforms. The service also offers businesses access to a broad range of customer insights, allowing them to run retargeting campaigns that hit potential customers throughout the funnel.
YouTube Ads
When we search engines, we don’t usually think of YouTube. However, the video-sharing platform is increasingly the place where we head for search and research, with some 4 billion videos watched every day.
YouTube video ads offer a powerful way for businesses to get their content in front of these users, allowing them to target potential customers through channels, topics, and interests. The platform also offers advanced metrics and insights, enabling businesses to track the performance of their ads and maximize ROI. Moreover, a video ad is significantly more memorable than a text or display module, meaning your painstakingly produced high-quality ads are more likely to result in a click.
The Nuts and Bolts of Our Paid Search Campaigns
When it comes to developing new ad campaigns for our clients, The Bank puts extensive work into making sure that each campaign is tailored to the specific goals of our clients.
PPC Audit
Before anything else, we conduct a free PPC audit to assess how your business has fared with paid search ads in the past.
Our PPC specialists will examine historical ad performance, current ad copy or creatives, and any existing campaign data. With this information, we’ll develop a roadmap for future success, with actionable insights and recommendations aimed at tailoring your next ad campaign to maximise business goals.
Competitor Analysis
Competitor analysis is a vital element of any marketing campaign—if you don’t know who your competitors are and how they’re marketing their services, it can be challenging to understand what’s working in the industry and what opportunities may exist for growth.
Our PPC agency team conduct a thorough review of our clients’ competitive landscape. We analyse competitor ad copy and landing page relevance, as well as any new strategies that have been successful for other businesses in the industry. Significantly, we also look at which keywords and search terms they are targeting, and look for underserved long-tail opportunities.
Keyword Research
Speaking of keywords, our team have developed some of the most advanced keyword analysis procedures you’ll find. Our methods have been built from the ground up, and allow us to identify relevant keywords that are likely to result in more clicks and conversions (for lower ad spend).
We start the process by examining the current keyword landscape for your business, including any terms that have been successful in the past. We then use a range of powerful tools to identify new search term opportunities that could help us target buyers who may not be aware of your brand or services. Using advanced keyword relevancy tools, we ensure that the right search terms are used to target the right audience.
Ad Creative
The Bank is not only a PPC management agency—we’re a creative agency too. Our creative specialists can help with building high-quality modules that advance your business goals, whether you’re looking to generate leads or raise awareness.
We can help you create ad extensions that make sense for your objectives, and come up with ad copy that is consistent with your brand voice across social media platforms. We can also examine your existing landing pages and site links to ensure your ad spend is working to maximise conversion at all times.
Tracking and Optimisation
You want to know that the paid search work we’re conducting on your behalf is actually making a difference to your bottom line. That’s why The Bank puts tracking and optimisation at the heart of all client campaigns.
Using tools like Google Analytics, we track all key metrics, from impressions and clicks to conversions, cost-per-click (CPC), cost-per-acquisition (CPA) and Return on Investment (ROI). Using this data, we continually assess and optimise our PPC campaigns to ensure that they continue to drive strong results for our clients.
Reporting
Finally, with all of the data gathered from these activities, our PPC agency team is able to provide thorough reporting on how each campaign is performing and make suggestions for further improvements. This helps us understand what’s working and identify fresh growth opportunities.
At The Bank, we consider ourselves invested partners in our clients’ success. We always strive to provide the highest quality of paid search campaigns, designed with best practices and industry standards in mind. Our goal is to ensure that each campaign not only meets but exceeds your expectations when it comes to ROI. We believe that this is the key to successful PPC campaigns, and we’re excited to help you get there.
The Bank: Paid Search Management Services You Can Count On
Your search for a new paid search management agency is over—The Bank is here.
At The Bank, we are dedicated to creating and executing successful paid search campaigns that help your business grow. Our professional, experienced experts will work diligently to ensure you get the best possible results from your search marketing efforts.
We are well-versed in the latest trends and industry technologies and have a proven track record of success in identifying search intent and building the most successful PPC accounts. We are driven by the business goals of our clients, and take pride in developing bespoke solutions for every client on our books.
Contact The Bank today to see how our paid search management services can help take your next PPC marketing campaign to the next level. We can’t wait to get to work!