Best PPC Strategies for Your E-commerce Website

By Mobilunity On Dec 12, 2019

For the past decade, the proportion of people spending most of their time on the internet has continued to grow. Whether its working, studying, purchasing, and interacting, the internet has become an integral part of our daily lives. To complicate things further, today’s convenience-oriented society means customers no longer want to venture to the brick and mortar businesses to simply buy items. On the contrary, they are looking for businesses that allow them to shop at the convenience of their homes, which makes e-commerce the best solution for them.

But why is eCommerce important and how can businesses leverage on PPC campaigns to augment their operations?

In this article, we are going to look at what is eCommerce, it’s advantages to a business and the best Pay Per Click strategies for an eCommerce website. At the end of it all, you will have gathered the necessary nuggets on how PPC can help improve your eCommerce website as well as the e-commerce website development cost.

What is eCommerce?

eCommerce is a business process that entails buying and selling of products or services on the internet. It may also involve the transfer of data and money over an electronic medium, allowing people and businesses to transact without the barriers posed by distance and time.

There are multiple types of eCommerce business models that a business can choose based on the industry, capital, and business objectives. These include:

B2B businesses
B2C businesses
C2C businesses
P2P businesses
Mobile commerce

In the eCommerce context, Pay Per Click (PPC) is a form of online advertising whereby business owners are charged by the search engines once prospective customers click on their ads. In short, it means paying for traffic as opposed to using other organic methods such as SEO or Content Marketing to drive traffic towards a website.

Although it doesn’t necessarily come cheap, PPC advertising is an ideal and effective method of increasing conversion rate for a business. However, this does not mean that you should be careless when implementing a PPC advertising strategy. As an eCommerce business owner, you are required to carefully study the prevailing market conditions and the customer’s behaviors to ensure that you don’t just generate casual traffic but generate sales. So, what are the best PPC strategies for your eCommerce website?

Below, we have listed 8 best e-commerce PPC strategies to help you stay ahead of the curve.

Carefully Choose the Advertisement Platform

Just like any other form of advertisement, you need to carefully choose the platform to place your PPC ads. And when it comes to Pay Per Click e-commerce ads, there are plenty more options. Some of the most prominent and fastest-growing PPC ads platforms are Amazon Advertising and Google Merchant Center.

According to a recent report by Slice Intelligence, Amazon Advertising contributed approximately 43% of all online revenue in the US in 2016. Moreover, the company scooped 53% of all online sales in the US during the same period.

Constantly Review and Utilize Relevant Keywords

Another great PPC strategy that you can use to boost your e-commerce business is to find the relevant search queries that have previously generated most purchases from your business. Through this PPC optimization, you are able to profile them into either high converting search queries and low converting search terms.

Consequently, you can merge the best performing keywords group with some of your branded terms, model names, part numbers, and SKU codes.

Adding a list of negative keywords in your PPC ads campaign is also important– if not mandatory. This is because bidding higher on PLAs exposes your products to a wide range of searches as opposed to improving their Google rankings. As a result, you get to bid higher and at the same time avert the unwanted search traffic.

Diversify your PPC Spend

eCommerce marketplaces can be a hard terrain to navigate for business owners who overlook the importance of personalized user experiences. According to a 2019 research, 62% of consumers have indicated they feel more comfortable dealing with a business that sends personalized offers as opposed to one-size-fits-all communications.

As a business owner, this is both a challenge and a great opportunity to build brand loyalty and foster stronger relationships with your customers. One of the best points to kickstart your PPC Marketing is Google’s Ads. The Google ads platform is super-flexible and highly responsive, allowing you to showcase your products and services in an easy-to-navigate layout. Other platforms include RevenueHits, AdBuff, PopAds, Pinterest, etc.

Connect your Local Inventory Ads Both Online to Offline

According to Google, 80% of online shoppers tend to gravitate more towards retailers that have the items they are looking for immediately. One of the best remedies to address this expectation of instant availability is through the local inventory ads.

They help capture customer’s attention, drive them to your store, and highlight the available products at your stores near them.

Invest in Voice Search

Voice search is rapidly gaining popularity within the Digital Marketing world. In 2017, for instance, less than a quarter of all online searches were Voice-based. However, this is set to change. A 2019 projection by Gartner, estimates that 30% of all online searches will be Voice-based by 2020. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the Voice recognition industry is valued at over half a billion dollars in 2019.

In the past, online searches were limited to on-screen searches. However, Voice search will change the way people conduct searches by impersonating real-life conversations and allow for more natural queries. By investing in Voice search, your customers will enjoy a seamless web browsing experiences and relaxed queries.

Invest in AI-Powered Tools

Automation is no longer a soon-to-be-realized concept within the Digital Marketing ecosystems. It’s actually with us and it has already permeated every segment of Marketing, PPC inclusive.

Automated Marketing tools empower eCommerce business owners to create comprehensive PPC campaigns. For instance, Google is always looking for ways to improve its automation bidding options, which marketers use in their Marketing campaigns.

One of the biggest advantages of AI-powered bidding options is that they eliminate the trial and error from Marketing campaigns and helps business owners optimally attain their goals. Furthermore, they are capable of learning continuously using the performance data of the bids, making future operations more effective.

As an online retailer looking to build an e-commerce website or already operating one, using smart such automation tools for repetitive tasks like data collection, bid management, reporting, and ad testing is important. For the tasks that call for deep technical knowledge and context, experienced marketers and PPC services will come in handy.

By combining these two aspects, you will be able to get the best possible results from your PPC ads.

Focus on Quality Content

Just like in any other type of advertising, the ad forms a small part of the larger equation. Simply creating a flashy PPC ad copy doesn’t just cut it in terms of getting customers excited about your offer. You are also required to afford them and provide excellent landing page experience. This may include things like enticing colors, engaging videos, photos, seamless navigation, and product information.

The Importance of Audience Targeting and Collecting Competitor’s Intel in PPC

Audience targeting is a concept that has been grossly underused in PPC Marketing campaigns. However, with the increasing competition in the business environment coupled with pervasive consumer “ad blindness,” businesses must look for ways to reach specific audiences with tailored messages to if their online ad campaigns are to be successful.

To underwrite this statement, a recent research has indicated that 52% of online customers are likely to switch brands if a company fails to deliver personalized communications. Fortunately, there happens to be a “silver bullet” that can help marketers tie together different components of PPC campaigns – understanding the target audience.

Knowing and understanding the target audience eliminates the “one-size-fits-all” online ads and allows business owners and marketers alike to craft their Marketing messages a language that convinces their prospective customers. Therefore, creating and distributing personalized Marketing messages helps businesses maximize your Return On Investment – whether it’s online ads, website copy, and social media posts.

In terms of competition, it’s important to note that not all competitors are created equal. You will find big big budget bullies trying to bulldoze you off the way or the enthusiastic ones trying to overlap you using simple keywords. With that said, as a business owner, it’s important to closely monitor whom and what you’re up against during bidding to determine whether a particular competing domain is negatively affecting your impression share. While at it, you will be competing against:

Affiliates: These are Marketing partners that utilize a third-party link that direct traffic to your website for purposes of earning commissions on sales.

Comparison Shopping Engine (CSE): They list the products that send to outbound links to your retailer’s website.

Partners: These are Marketing partners who aren’t affiliates but help in promoting your products or services.

Search Arbitrager: The work to generate traffic to web pages that display additional ads.

Reseller: Retailers that resell your products or services

No Trademark: Advertisers who don’t have explicit permission to utilize your trademark but do it anyway.

Ultimately, you don’t have to spend all your precious time obsessing with your PPC ads competitors. Instead, you should first prioritize driving results for your website. However, always remember that they have the potential to rock your boat, and having a clear strategy on how to beat them in their game is the first step in the right direction.

The Take Home

As the global eCommerce market continues to expand, business owners will continue to discover new opportunities to successfully sell their products and services online. As time passes by, more and more customers are turning eCommerce websites to research and buy goods. And although it may come at a cost, any successful business will be required to build a coherent, optimized, and multi-faceted PPC presence. Nonetheless, the efforts and the wait will eventually be rewarded by additional revenues.