PPC can initially seem intimidating, but with the right guidance and a little effort, you can set up and manage successful campaigns for your business.

In this section, we’ll walk you through the steps to getting started with PPC.

1. Get Your Website or at Least a Landing Page for Your Ad Campaign.

You’re about to receive a lot of new guests into your home (so to speak), so you want to make sure people are comfortable once they arrive.

2. Be Clear on What Exactly You’re Promoting for This Campaign.

We suggest you stick to one product or service for the duration of a particular campaign. Later on, when you get the hang of it, you can run multiple campaigns–each one showcasing a different promotion.

3. Review Your Target Audience.

Do you have a clear idea of which market segment you’ll be reaching out to for this PPC campaign? This includes understanding who your potential customers are, their interest, and what motivates them to make a purchase. The more specific you get, the better.

To do this, consider factors such as demographics, location, interests, and search history. You can also use tools such as Google Analytics to gain insights into the behavior and interests of your website visitors.

By clearly defining your audience, you can create more effective PPC campaigns that are better aligned with the needs and preferences of your potential customers. These highly relevant ads will more likely to resonate with your audience and drive conversions.

4. Prepare a Budget.

We know you’re excited to run your campaign right away and get going; however, for your first campaign, set aside a few hundred dollars—maybe around $200 to $500 for your first run.

5. Know Your Options.

We have a section below on the different advertising networks you might want to consider using for your PPC campaign. Each has its own pros and cons, and each one can be best leveraged toward a particular market segment.

PPC can be run on various platforms, such as Google Ads, Bing Ads, and social media networks like Facebook and Instagram. Each platform offers different targeting options and ad formats, so consider your business goals and audience when deciding which platform is right for you.

Knowing your option is important so you can choose the best strategy for your business and create more effective PPC campaigns that drive targeted traffic and generate leads and sales.

6. Start Signing Up for Your Accounts.

You might choose to do Google Ads or Facebook ads for now, so go ahead and sign up for an account.

You’ll be given access to a dashboard for your campaigns, to study different ad scenarios, and look into different market segments, and so on.

7. Make Your Projections.

Using the info you have on your target audience. Start running a few ad scenarios so you can have an idea of how much you might be spending each day, how many people you will be reaching, and what sort of ads they’d see on their end.

8. Craft Your Ads.

Whether it’s plain text or a bit of video, images, or other rich media, make sure you come up with something relevant and interesting to your target audience.

Remember: frequently, you’ll be competing with other ads, too; so you’d want to somehow cut through all the noise and connect with your intended market.

9. Manage Your Expectations.

Think of Pay-Per-Click as betting in a casino, except that instead of winning chips, you win more business. However, unlike a casino, you can do a lot of things to swing the odds in your favor.

In brief: as long as you know what you’re doing and as you’re keeping an eye on things, you’re going to be just fine.

10. Make Adjustments.

At the end of every campaign, review your stats and see what you can learn from them.

Fine-tune your online advertising strategy, and feel free to test things out: maybe a different ad copy or a slightly more focused market segment. You can even study trends across your different ad campaigns over time to see what works (and what doesn’t too).