How To Know If You’re Ready For PPC

It can be difficult knowing if you’re ready for PPC. You’ve heard that pay-per-click advertising can get you good results, and you’ve even seen other businesses do it successfully…but what about your own situation?

To avoid wasting money before you’re ready, it helps to consider some “qualifying conditions.” Take a look at the eight below for some guidance. If your own situation matches with a few from this list, it might be time to start running PPC ads!

Ready For PPC? Consider These 8 Qualifying Conditions First

1) You already have a certain amount of traffic to your website but are stalling

Sometimes everything is clicking. You are driving traffic to your website and converting that traffic at a high rate for your offer, and you just need to ramp things up.

This is a sign that you’re doing things right but have hit a wall. In this case PPC could very well be the magic bullet to breaking through traffic plateaus. You don’t need to change much, but PPC might be a great option for adding more potential customers to your funnel.

2) You’ve run ad campaigns before

For most companies, PPC is not the format they should be starting out with if they are new to online advertising. There are a number of reasons for this, including more components necessary for effective results and the importance of expertise.

Of course, if you have already run PPC ads before, you might have learned enough to do it more successfully a second time. In this case PPC might be worth a shot. And if you do decide to start? Give our post on PPC trends in 2022 a look!

3) You see competitors in your niche or industry running similar ads

This is a great sign that PPC ads can also work for your company. Often, simply seeing an ad from your competitors is proof enough that it’s worth the money. Otherwise, the company wouldn’t be running it!

Take these ads not as frustration that your competitor is “ahead” of you, but as a green light to start yourself. You don’t want to be the first company in your industry running ads, after all.

4) You have a very expensive product or service

PPC is not something you should consider if you have a cheap offer. The money you make via sales simply won’t make up for the loss in advertising costs.

This is much less of a problem with expensive products. For example, if you are a B2B company or in one of the pricier industries, PPC can be a great option. Like any ad campaign, the majority of people won’t convert, but that doesn’t matter so much with higher end items.

5) You have awesome email marketing

Often, companies that spend money on PPC ads don’t expect to make money right away. Rather, they are planning to gather email addresses, get these contacts into their “zone of influence”, and then make money through their own email marketing.

A good email marketing system in place can be a good sign that you are ready for PPC. As for what this system looks like? Check out our ultimate guide to email marketing for more background.

6) You have a high conversion rate with your subscribers

This is the second half of the previous point, as good email marketing often goes hand-in-hand with high conversions (but not always). Let’s say, for example, that you have an awesome welcoming sequence. At the end of this you have an online course that you sell for 1,000 dollars. And further, let’s say you converted 3% off all signups. 

Even though paying 1,000 dollars for 100 email signups sounds terrible, with these numbers, you’d still be making 3,000 dollars for every 1,000 dollars spent! Remember to consider where your break even point is and how much money you are actually making for every dollar spent.

7) You have skills in data analysis

Effective PPC requires a lot of skills, and data analysis is one of them. Many businesses that don’t have a strong background in paid advertising put together a budget, throw some ads up, and then hope for the best. While this can be effective with a little bit of luck, what separates a successful campaign from a bust is often data analysis.

Give this article on the most important PPC metrics a read. It will give you the background you need to hit the ground running with PPC.

8) You have the budget for it and are willing to spend money to learn

If there is one thing you should remember from this post, remember this:  in paid advertising you have to pay to learn. If you only have a budget of $10 per day, for example, it’s going to be very difficult to learn much. Your ad reach will be so small that results of statistical significance will be hard to come by. 

However, maybe you’re ready for PPC if you simply want to learn. You’d be surprised at the insights you can gain from setting aside just a couple hundred dollars. Everything from what kind of copy converts best to the sort of offer people are most drawn to.

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Are you an enterprise, nonprofit or small business looking for help on your website? Give us a shout! We provide a free consultation. Email us at info@lughstudio.com or call us at (718) 855-1919!