Which PPC Networks Are Most Worth Your Time?
Digital marketing is arguably the most important form of paid media outreach in current life. For brands and businesses wanting to expand their horizons, paid digital marketing efforts allow for targeted reach quickly, which is difficult to achieve with organic forms of digital marketing. Likewise, traditional paid marketing strategies often don’t work for online brands seeking to garner attention.
Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is one of the most common forms of digital marketing. There are a plethora of networks and platforms available that allow brands to target select audiences with ads, but are they all worth it?
Today, we’ll look at the most worthwhile PPC networks to consider targeting based on reach, effectiveness and cost.
Google Ads
Arguably the biggest powerhouse of PPC marketing, Google Ads enables brands to reach an unprecedented number of people performing organic searches. With billions of people using the platform every day, pinging URLs to products, services and pages can’t get any easier.
With PPC campaigns able to appear in search results, shopping results and on popular platforms such as YouTube, the versatility of reach is impossible to beat. CPC and CPM pricing options are available. With the ability to display ads in text, video, image and responsive formats, Google Ads is potentially the best single choice.
When it comes to social media, there is no better choice in terms of total cost and total reach than Facebook. With more than 2 billion active users, reaching audiences via its PPC campaign offerings has never been easier. Through Facebook, brands can also tailor ads that can be shown on Instagram as well.
With a plethora of ad formats including text, image, video and slideshow, brands can create PPC ads regardless of their brand or business model (or target audience). Pricing can be based on a variety of factors, including impressions, actions and/or target budget.
Microsoft Ads
While Bing and its Microsoft analogs might not be as popular as Google, the Microsoft Ads network is still an immensely powerful, popular and well-balanced option for PPC campaigns. Ads can be placed on any of the following: Bing-compliant search engines, MSN, LinkedIn and Outlook.com.
A plethora of ad formats can be utilized, including text-based ads, responsive ads that adapt depending on a user’s browser and device, or shopping-exclusive ads. Microsoft Ads utilizes a CPC model in its pricing, which keeps budgeting simpler than on many other platforms.
While Facebook ad options allow for campaigns to appear on Instagram, using the platform itself to target audiences can produce superior results optimized for Instagram proper. Ads appear in Instagram feeds and as stories, depending on the option selected. Images, videos and carousel ads are all possible when customizing your PPC campaigns.
Pinging URLs will be billed to brands based on cost per action, overall ad quality or initial bid placed. Many people decide to focus on Instagram due to the significantly younger average age when compared to other social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook.
Ultimately, brands and businesses can find many different ways to place PPC ads and run campaigns. Nevertheless, some are worth more consideration than others. These four platforms in particular are among the best value for brands when factoring in a variety of elements that make PPC campaigns effective and affordable.
