Quite a few referrals have come my way over the years. I have one thing to say about pay-per-click (PPC) ads. Are you ready? Ads alone won’t save your business. If that is your goal, you will be throwing away money.

“Don’t simply wish for results to show up; know what your looking for specifically and how the strategy your company has come up with is helping you achieve those goals in a way which is both realistic and relatively speedy.” Mitch Britt

Organic social media with a killer website and PPC is a great combination. It’s marketing love. In other words, PPC done right is in concert with a wholistic marking plan.

What is Organic Social Media?

Social media is a way to post online. Organic social media is the combined efforts of your organization through various platforms (media) to build relationships (social) that will lead back to your website (findability). When you start paying for posts to be boosted or buying clicks, you’re in the world of advertising.

What is Pay Per Click (PPC)?

Pay Per Click is the art of creating campaigns and landing pages in order to be seen by a particular audience. There are generally several campaigns and keywords being bid upon during this practice.

“Pay-per-click (PPC) is an advertising model that lets marketers place ads on an ad platform and pay the host of that platform every time their ad is clicked.” Search Engine Journal

Steve Bastien is one of my favorite people to have worked with during my time at Thought House. As an agency specializing in franchise development, we would create the website, write persuasive copy, and create landing pages. As we shared these pages on social media, we would look at what worked and what didn’t. Those high-performing organic campaigns, more often than not, became PPC campaigns.

Of course, my partner Warren Laine-Naida offers both Search Engine Advertising (SEA) for small businesses. In combination with your organic social media efforts, this is an excellent use of your Google ad budget.

“Taking advantage of all the opportunities you have to measure and improve your online marketing is the key to success. Google search is the gold standard for learning in real-time, and Google Ads is a great way to get on board.” Warren Laine-Naida

If you can, it is always best to think of every part of your marketing plan from the website to the people at the other end of the lead generation email.

Isn’t PPC just SEO?

In one word: no. PPC is not SEO. SEO is an acronym for search engine optimization. I like to call it “findability.” Meaning, SEO is a comprehensive strategy combining the technical structure of your website, the quality of your website’s content, and social signals.

“SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, which is the practice of increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to your website through organic search engine results.” Moz.com 

Granted, I’m not a technical SEO professional. If you’re looking for that, contact my friend Pam Aungst’s agency.

Views, Clicks, and Impressions

An impression means the number of potential people who saw the thing. Think about billboards. Clear Channel sells these to this day. The rates are based upon how many eyes will potentially see them. Impressions are important in brand awareness campaigns.

A click is an action taken by a viewer. They viewed the website, video, or went to the app you’re selling.

A conversion is what happens after the person comes to your website. It can be a sale, joining a email list, a completed form, or a download. Your advertising agency should set up conversions for you in Google Analytics.

Data, Data, Data!

We’re all obsessed with data these days. Me? Not so much. Why? Because data only tells you what you measure. Read this again: data only tells you what you measure. It is impossible to measure everything.

Data is a snapshot of the past. It can’t predict the future. The data you do have is only helpful if you actually look at it and change your behavior. Confirmation bias and pride are generally deterrents to change.

I’ll never forget a client who insisted that the website didn’t work since all of their leads came via telephone.

“How did they find your number? Oh yeah. The website.”

These are the things that make me shake my head. It’s so important to ask where your leads came from. But that’s another blog post. You can watch me talk about it in this video.

Getting the Customer to Convert

You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink. Also, if your social media manager leads the horse to the “water” and the trough is empty, whose fault is that? Right. Not the SMM.

This is where a holistic marketing strategy is important. Hiring an agency that has professionals or gathering vendors and coordinating them is important to the effectiveness of your marketing.

Often, the business owner needs to focus their efforts. Founders tend to be idea people. Marketers execute on ideas. With that said, we still need participation from the business itself.

Get a Consultation

If your business doesn’t have a solid plan, let’s schedule a paid consultation with me. My partner Warren Laine-Naida and I include ads in one of our Small Business Packages. Why? Because without the right organic strategy, your ad dollars will be wasted.

But you can also hire another advertising agency. Educate yourself. Empower yourself. This is the key to hiring better vendors and making great marketing decisions for your business.

Remember, social media and advertising are long-term solutions. If short-term is your last hope, you may want to try something else.