October 23, 2000, will be forever remembered by internet marketers worldwide; this is Google Ads' "birthday" Google ads, or AdWords, as it was formerly known, was the first ever self-serve online advertising platform – Google AdWords.
So what is "PPC? Pay Per Click or PPC is an online advertising model in which advertisers pay each time a user clicks on their ads.
There are several types of PPC; the most common type is paid search ads. These ads appear when people search for services online using a search engine like Google, especially when performing buyer intent searches, meaning they're looking for services or products.
This could be anything from a mobile search (someone looking for a "bariatric surgeon near me" on their phone) to a local service search on a laptop (someone looking for a doctor in their area).
In 2021 alone, Google made an astonishing 209.49 billion dollars, and those number will be even higher for 2022
In Google ads "toddler" years, the return on investment was ridiculous, in a good way. Now that the tables have turned, you can lose your tail running under optimized ads.
How Does Pay-Per-Click Advertising Work?
Ads appear above organic search results. An advertiser cannot simply pay to ensure that their ads appear more prominently displayed.
Instead, it is a bloody bidding war with other advertisers and an ad auction algorithm, an entirely automated process that Google and other search engines use to determine the relevance and validity of advertisements that appear on their results page. The computerized algorithm is why so many practices waste their entire marketing budget on ads that do not work! Remember the old saying, "the house always wins" in this case, Google is the real winner in the bidding war, no matter the odds.
Average daily budget for Google Ads
How the hell do you know how much to bid? To calculate the average daily budget from a monthly amount. Let's say you usually spend $608 per month on advertising. To figure out your average daily budget, you'd divide $608 by 30.4 (the average number of days in a month - 365/12) to get an average daily budget of USD 20. But… is $20 a day enough? Well, maybe I've seen service contractors spend upwards of $500 daily! Realistically you can see results for around $10 to $20 per day if you choose your keywords wisely.
Keywords, what are keywords?
Keywords are search terms you want your ad to be displayed for. For example, if you are an orthodontist, you would want your Google ad to show when someone searches for crooked teeth or braces near me. These are keywords and phrases; I don't want to get too deep into the weeds here. Just know that there are three main things to remember about Google Ads.
- Know your budget
- Know who you should be targeting
- Know what terms they use to describe your services
One final note about Pay Per Click and Pay Per Impression. Almost every platform offers some form of PPC, be it Google, Facebook, or even LinkedIn.