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The Pay per Click Advertising Hammer

PPC does work.

It works for small business owners, local business, for retail stores and service businesses. Almost every business in fact.

After all, that’s how Google and Facebook, 2 of the biggest companies in the world, make their money – selling adverting.

If you have “tried” Google or Facebook paid ads in the past and are saying to yourself, right now, that it “didn’t work for you”, then you probably just didn’t do it well.

Or you didn’t understand that it’s a process. A mid-term to long-term commitment to results.

In other words, if you tried the $100 coupon code from Google Ads, or decided to boost a Facebook post for $50 and didn’t sell anything that’s not their fault.

PPC (Pay per Click) advertising is complicated. Even though those 2 big platforms have made it as simple as possible, it’s still unfamiliar territory for most business owners.

So, it makes sense that you would want to hire a PPC Professional. A company or person that’s “certified” in some way, to run those ads for you.

But like hiring someone to do a website for you, or social media marketing for your company – the PPC Management guys are sitting at THEIR desks with a hammer in their hands just waiting for your call.

If you didn’t catch that article about website developer hammers – you can find it here.

The Hammer-Nail Marketing Thing

I talked about this idea at length here You are Not Outsourcing Your Marketing, but the basics are pretty obvious.

To a Hammer, everything looks like a Nail.

In other words, if you’re a business owner and want to grow your business, the marketing people/companies/consultants you approach – MOST of them anyway – have a specialty.

In the case of PPC Management companies, Google Ad Gurus or Facebook Marketing PPC teams – that specialty is the Hammer.

You are the Nail.

When you search for or are introduced to a PPC company you are Volunteering to be the nail right up front.

You have decided you want more business, more leads, more sales and that PPC is the way to get that.

 

Back to the PPC Advertising Hammer

Pay per Click Ad Management

Listen, you’re probably not wrong. PPC done right is a GREAT tool for growing your business.

I haven’t run into a company, product or service that shouldn’t at least test PPC ads to see if it pays off.

So when you call PPC-HammerCompany.com on the phone they will absolutely have a great story to tell. Because PPC is the most easily trackable form of marketing or advertising.

You can get all kinds of sexy numbers like:

  • Impressions Share – out of 100 people that search for my products, how many people will see my ad?
  • Click Through Rate (CTR) – out of all the people that saw my ad, how many clicked on it?
  • Cost per Click (CPC) – how much did each click cost me – or each phone call?

Then if you know how many calls, visits, or leads it takes you to make a sale you can figure out even more:

  • Cost per Acquisition (CPA) – what does it cost for me to actually sell something?

 

Now you can tell if your spending your ad money wisely. You can say almost certainly that you spent $1,000 and you made $10,000, for happy example.

 

Why NOT Just Get Hammered?

Just like most Website Developers pitching themselves as marketing firms don’t address how you get people TO the website OR what happens after your prospects get there…

Like most Social Media Agencies are solely concerned with what happens on their chosen platform…

Or SEO Companies that are only looking at generating traffic…

Almost all PPC firms ONLY concern themselves with what happens inside the Google Ads platform. Or Facebook Business Manager ad stats. Things they can measure in a bubble.

The most common PPC example of this is having GREAT performing ads – amazing click through rates, low cost per click, etc. – but those well-crafted and measured ads go to crappy web pages that just don’t convert into sales.

Those are your pages, not theirs.

Or they can show you how many products you’ve sold on your ecommerce platform and what those revenues are, but that doesn’t tell you if those transactions were actually profitable.

Maybe they are using or accepting automated keyword suggestions with phrases that have high traffic, but don’t apply exactly to what you DO.

You get lots of eyeballs, lots of clicks, and no sales.

Or they use automated bidding strategies because they have tons of clients and can’t really pay that much attention to your business.

So you get some results, but not the best performance per dollar.

ATTN: That’s not the PPC Ad Management Company’s Fault

[Let’s be clear here. When I say “PPC Company” that’s just referring to their specialty. Their favorite Hammer. They could be called a Marketing firm, Advertising company, etc.]

In the end, you called and wanted someone to run your Google ads and you got that. They have lots of happy customers and know what they’re doing. They’re great.

But they’re not part of YOUR business.

They don’t know how much a sale is really worth to you. They’re not looking at your website and making sure you have a good conversion strategy in place.

They’re not responsible for making sure you’re not over-spending or under-spending on ads.

So if you are going to go into the Home Depot of Marketing and wander over to the Pay Per Click Advertising Aisle to pick out a hammer, you better know how to use it… or someone’s going to end up with a nasty bruise. (too much analogy?)

The GOOD news is that you can learn how to use it:

You can create your own simple marketing plan.

You can learn about the basics of pay per click advertising.

You can read enough to understand all the vocabulary and how it relates to your business.

You can find thousands of articles and videos that give you the basics, so you can better understand how to use it as PART of your strategy and not just hand it over to a Hammer.

Or..

You can Hire a Marketing Company that is NOT a Hammer

Because a true “marketing guy” isn’t just going to take your order for PPC Advertising.

You’re trying to solve a problem:

  • You’re not growing fast enough
  • Not profitable enough
  • Don’t have an image that fits YOUR image of the company

None of those are a “lack of PPC advertising” problem.

In fact, Marketing-Advertising may not even be what’s holding you back!

What you need is someone that keeps an open mind when you start working on solving those problems, and doesn’t just immediately reach for their hammer.

If you want to learn more about Marketing for your small business or have questions about where PPC Ads might fit into your plans – just contact me here.

 

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