The internet and technology dynamic have fundamentally changed the way we shop and purchase products. Today many consumers who shop in-store still turn to the web to compare prices and read product reviews.

Whether it be an online business, store-front or combination of both, retailers have little to no chance of surviving unless they have a robust Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising strategy to promote their products to shoppers online.

What is Pay-Per-Click?

Pay-Per-Click is a way of using search engine advertising to generate clicks to your website, rather than earning those clicks organically. All those sponsored ads you often see at the top of Google’s search results page are pay-per-click advertising.

Here’s how it works, every time your ad is clicked, sending a visitor to your website, you pay the search engine a small fee. This is why it’s called “pay per click”. If the campaign is a success, that fee will be a minimal investment from your overall advertising budget, because the visit is worth more to your retail outlet than what you pay for it.

A huge advantage of pay-per-click is its accountability. Pay-per-click enables you to track activity right through to conversion. Knowing your conversion rate however isn’t enough. Often retailers get it wrong because they don’t target the right audience, they use the wrong platform, send the wrong keywords to the wrong people or just spend too much time on inefficient keywords. All these issues mean your PPC campaign won’t work.

So, if you are a retailer looking to invest in a pay-per-click agency how do you find the right one? Here are some options to consider before you search for a pay-per-click agency:

How much experience do you have?

This is an interesting one because you’re not looking for the years that the agency has been in business. You’re looking for examples of how they worked with similar clients to get great results. Ask the agency to generate statistics, such as Cost-Per-Click (CPC), Cost-Per-Acquisition (CPA), and general return on investment information for previous retailers they have worked with. In the retail space, you’re looking for experience.

How transparent are you?

Be aware of any agency that won’t offer access to your own campaign. This means that they don’t want you to see the raw data. Also avoid any agency that offers inconsistent reporting. They should be able to provide information on leads, sales and other important indicators. You need to know your CPC, your CPA, and everything in between. If you don’t, you’re not working with a transparent agency.

What do you know about landing pages?

The quality of your landing pages is vital to the success of your pay-per-click campaign. This is vital because landing page quality affects your quality score in Google AdWords. A bad landing page means a low-quality score. That means a higher CPC. But that’s not all. The number of landing pages that you have has a massive effect too.

Retailers with more than 40 landing pages get 12 times the amount of leads than businesses with five or fewer landing pages.

Bad landing pages can damage your campaigns, so do un-optimised landing pages. And having one landing page spread across dozens of ads will never raise your conversion rate. Your landing page is as important as your ad copy for your products.

How can you reduce excess spend?

A pay-per-click campaign is only successful if it delivers a return on your investment. Great agencies know that efficiency is the key, so they’ll know how to reduce excess spending. Good signs include mentioning on how to target different demographics and how to tailor ad copy to your intended audience.

By considering these questions, retailers can ensure they secure the right pay-per-click agency which gets them fantastic results.

By Andrew Raso, Co-Founder and CEO of Online Marketing Gurus

About Online Marketing Gurus

Online Marketing Gurus is an award-winning Australian search and digital agency with expertise in SEO, Google Ads, social media advertising and content marketing. We help businesses grow faster, through making the web simpler and more profitable. By leveraging the power of digital, our clients get more leads, more traffic and grow their businesses with explosive results visit: www.onlinemarketinggurus.com.au