For those out there that may have thought about pay per click (PPC) but never taken it further because they think there are no opportunities left or that costs are sky high and only something the big boys can do, then read on.
You may have heard horror stories of companies that have spent thousands of pounds and not received a single sale or enquiry – making the thought of PPC a turn off.
While this may have been true in the past with a number of companies who did not research and invest in learning what they were getting involved with. PPC, however, done correctly can still have real benefits.
So what is PPC?
Google Adwords is the biggest PPC engine that allows you to buy clicks from their search results to your website, hence the term pay per click. They have literally millions of people searching all day and you can buy some of that traffic. And Google are not the only engine that you can buy traffic from on a pay per click basis.
Opportunities
There are still a wide number of opportunities for the niche or local broker to take advantage of PPC as part of their online marketing mix. The main effort is not entering your credit card details but researching what you want from pay per click and what keywords will work for your business. Yes the term “Car Insurance” has lots and lots of traffic but will be highly competitive and therefore costly. Plus can you really compete? It may be you look a bit closer to home – literally – “Car Insurance Manchester” or “Motor Insurance Leicester” might have a lot less traffic but it will be cheaper and can you give you the local edge over the bigger sites. The searcher is looking for something locally.
This is one opportunity you can look to take advantage of.
If you are a niche broker, again look for longer keyword phrases on your product or service, and stay focussed on them. Don’t fall into the trap of looking at the bigger terms that you “could” service, just to drive more traffic.
What next?
For those of you out there that have taken the plunge and are self managing your own PPC campaign, there are a number of things you can be looking at to improve the quality and Return on Investment. These include:
- testing advertisements;
- testing landing pages;
- making sure you are tracking and, if possible, set up goal tracking.
With all forms of online marketing you always need to be testing – a small improvement on a few elements can turn a campaign to a highly profitable one.
Go Pro
You can also look to get an outside opinion on your campaigns, but not all PPC experts are the same. Insurance has its own quirks as you know, so you need to make sure those that look at your campaigns understand compliance regulation. You don’t need any issues!
If you already have campaigns running in house and have a specialist looking after them for you and it is working well, you might want to consider secondary PPC engines – yes these will drive less traffic, but there could be less competition and they could be cheaper. So overall, having PPC campaigns on multiple engines could be a way to reduce your overall cost per acquisition. You should take a look at:
- www.bingads.co.uk;
- www.facebook.com/ads;
- www.linkedin.com/ads – good for commercial insurance or niche offers.
We hope this gives you some ideas to help you at whatever level you are at currently at.
FREE consultancy offer
We have also secured an insurance PPC specialist who has agreed to offer a free 30 minute consultancy for any reader that either:
- needs help with setting up a campaign;
- needs advice on how to grow a campaign.
To book your slot please complete the contact form and use the words “PPC Consultancy” in the comments section.
