When we think of paid ads, the first thing that comes to mind is search engines like Google and Bing. This is quite obvious as all of these are extremely famous and all internet users know their names. But has anyone thought of running a PPC ad campaign without Google and Bing? Now that’s a million dollar question! There are some social networking sites (like Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.) that offer paid ads.
It is very important that you promote your products and services to attract your target audience. And social media can become the platform to help you reach the exact demographic. The best advantage of promoting your ads through social networking sites is customer reviews. Even if people aren’t looking for your product, they can easily find it from the comments left by others. The main players in PPC social networks are Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Here we will discuss them in detail.
facebook ppc
It is probably the most used PPC platform among all the social networking sites. Facebook has over 900 million visitors and the chances of increasing your conversion rate are very high. Even the smallest businesses with a limited budget can try Facebook for their ad campaign.
Starting
Setting up a Facebook campaign is as easy as setting up any traditional PPC campaign: log in and click ‘Announce.‘
But before you start entering your ad text, just think about your goals. Do you want to drive traffic to your website or Facebook page? What will your call to action be? Sell products or generate leads or likes to the page? What are you looking for?
Now, you have to figure out who to target. Options include:
- Rent
- Demographics (age, gender, language, relationships)
- likes and interests
- education and work
- Facebook Connections
Your Facebook connections can be used to reach different Pages, events, groups, and apps. Also, if you are running a campaign for Facebook Likes, you can exclude people who have already liked the page. Just like traditional PPC, both image and text ads can be used on Facebook. You can also test your ads with multiple ad copies. Additionally, Facebook offers free conversion tracking, which is important for any ad campaign.
Facebook PPC can become very useful for startups. If you want to build a brand, Facebook will help you gain exposure, reach more of your audience, and get new customers.
LinkedIn PPC
Another fantastic social media platform for PPC campaign is LinkedIn. More and more companies come here to promote their products and services. LinkedIn has over 200 million members, and that’s a large number to aim for. Allows you to target the right audience based on their Job functions and skills.
Starting
Create a new ad campaign
To create a new ad campaign, go to: LinkedIn Ads. Select new ad campaign and start new.
Choose your language
You can select the language of your ad. LinkedIn supports many languages, including English, French, Spanish, and German.
Choose media type
LinkedIn supports two types of media; basic text ad and a video ad. The duration of the videos must not exceed 30 seconds.
Write the text of your ad
Before writing ad copy, you need to decide what your landing page will be. Here are some important factors to know:
ad title – The title of the ad text must not exceed 25 characters.
ad body – The body of the text of the ad must not have more than 75 characters. You can adjust your ads for different visitors.
Call to action (CTA)– If you have an actionable CTA within your ad text, it will improve your CTR.
target your ad
You can target your ad to specific groups, genre, site, etc. This will help you get more relevant clicks, which will eventually increase conversion. Here are the limits you can aim for:
- Rent
- Company
- Job title
- School
- skills
- Cluster
- Gender
- age
Choose your payment method
After selecting your targeting options, you can select your payment method. There are two payment methods –
1) Cost per click (CTR)
2) Pay per 1000 Impressions (CPM)
Set a daily budget
Set a daily budget based on your target products and customers. You don’t want to lose a lot of money at the beginning of the campaign. You need to go slow, check where your leads are coming from, and then spend more in that market.
Reports
Track your progress on the LinkedIn ads platform home screen. Here you can see the statistics and the average CPC of each campaign. Unlike Google AdWords, here the CTR will be a lower number. It will be around 0.03%.
People use LinkedIn to create connections, search for job opportunities, recommendations, etc. This is the time when you put your ad in front of them. Try the LinkedIn campaign and boost your business.
Twitter PPC
Many advertisers found Twitter to be a great place to promote their products and services as it has over 200 million active users. It offers promoted tweets that can be targeted to timelines, search results, and any geographic area.
Why are Twitter Ads becoming popular these days?
- You can target a specific geographic region
- Interests and gender vary your ads
- Add keywords in tweets
- Orientation to mobile or desktop devices
- You can promote posts, tweets and also trends.
Types of promotions offered by Twitter:
Promoted Tweets
It works for individual promoted tweets. Advertisers have to pay a bid price when another Twitter user replies to, retweets or favors their tweets. There are three targeting options for Promoted Tweets: search results, homepage feed, and your profile.
Promoted Trends
Here, the advertiser needs to contact Twitter directly to buy a particular promotion trend. Twitter will notify you of trends with the ‘Who to Follow’ section, which is located at the top of the Twitter account. This will be very beneficial in gaining followers.
Promoted Accounts
Similar to promoting your Facebook page, promoting a Twitter account will help increase your business or brand. There is a high chance that your content will get shared, if you have a large fan base. Even if you rarely convert your leads into sales, a strong reach is always great for the brand.
While using Twitter Ads, make sure that you provide engaging, new, and valuable content for users. Like Google AdWords and Facebook, Twitter can also help businesses generate leads and convert them into sales.