Pay-per-click, or PPC marketing, can return traffic to your website overnight. The thing about PPC is that it’s limited in lots of ways. Here are a few things providers of eCommerce PPC services don’t want you to know.
Lots of Industries Can’t Advertise
Google and other platforms don’t allow you to run PPC campaigns. Just a few of these are those that sell weapons such as knives or firearms, adult materials or products, and any business that sells CBD, THC or paraphernalia, along with alcohol or tobacco – among other industries.
The Average Click-Through Rate Is 2%
You can put as much money as you want into eCommerce PPC services, but unless you’re operating in a sphere in which you have a lot of influence, or you bid a lot to get your ads in front of the right people, you’ll likely enjoy a click-through rate somewhere around 2%.
The Average Conversion Rate on PPC Is Just Above 2%
Compounding matters even further, conversions through PPC leads tend to be pretty low. Even with the best minds in the marketing industry working day and night on your campaigns, you shouldn’t expect crazy conversions. The average conversion rate for PPC campaigns is just about 2%. So not only will you only get a small portion of clicks in the first place, hardly any will convert.
Once You Stop, Traffic Stops
It is true that an eCommerce PPC services provider can optimize your campaign and return serious profit for your investment – but the second you stop running the campaign, traffic will drop overnight. That’s the thing about PPC and other paid search marketing – it’s only so good so long as it lasts and the immediate second you pull the plug those benefits vaporize.
As Many As 90% of Online Shoppers Ignore the Paid Ads
This is perhaps the most disturbing metric of all that’s associated with PPC. The vast, overwhelming majority of online shoppers won’t even look at your ads in the first place. As many as 90% of users will scroll right past them, and some studies indicate that people will actually intentionally ignore a search result if they know it’s an ad (more on that below).
As More Competitors Enter the Marketplace, You Need to Bid More
You could enter a sphere with an eCommerce PPC services provider and bid almost nothing to get quality ads in front of qualified leads. But here’s the thing. The second anyone else enters that same market and wants to show up for those keywords, they will immediately be bidding against you. What’s worse, if your industry is actually promising, it’s then only a matter of time before this exact thing happens, and there’s nothing to stop it. This paradigm will eat away at your returns over time.
So What’s the Long-Term Solution?
There are two ways to go about the issues mentioned in this post.
One is to hire a qualified eCommerce PPC services provider that has significant experience optimizing PPC campaigns for a high return. A partner like this will help maximize your profitability so that, even in the face of users that ignore your ads, low CTR and conversion rates, and bidding wars, the campaign will still pay for itself.
The other is to lean more heavily on other marketing channels that don’t suffer from these ills. Namely, SEO, or search engine optimization, is a good way to go. Unlike PPC marketing, the results you gain from SEO are yours to keep and traffic will continue to come in months after you halt work. More importantly, SEO improves your brand’s credibility, gets it to show up in the organic (not the paid) results, and leads that originate organically are more likely to close and generally offer a higher return.
