Building a business from the ground up is a time-consuming and challenging process. But advertising your brand does not have to be the most difficult part of creating a presence in the consumer market. Marketing strategy can make or break a startup. Having the best product in the world won’t matter if nobody knows your business exists. Luckily you have plenty of options to sift through when it comes to spreading the word about your new business. Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is a popular and effective digital marketing strategy. Since the internet became an integral part of the daily American life, PPC has been helping businesses thrive and grow with minimal effort on the owner’s part. But before you know whether PPC is right for you, you must better understand exactly what it is and how it can affect your startup.

PPC advertising is when you (the owner) pay for traffic using advertising services provided by a third party, such as Google or another search engine. They enable you to display ads for your business in the sponsored results section of each search results page. The fee you pay is based on keywords you choose to represent your business, and how competitive your niche market is with other companies advertising the same or similar product or service. Any time a user clicks your sponsored advertisement, they are rerouted to your website. Then, you pay the fee in exchange for their exposure to your website. The success of PPC is measured quickly when compared to other digital marketing strategies that take longer to build. You will get plenty of clicks quickly, which means your fees may start to pile up. The good news, though, is you can operate PPC on any kind of budget. You can begin with a simple $5 or $10 campaign daily. Remember never to spend more than you can afford. But you will begin to see patterns emerge once you implement PPC on any level. Certain keywords will prove more effective at receiving clicks than others. After experimenting with different keywords to find the optimal word or combination of words, you can begin to expand your budget along the lines of what worked for you.

If PPC sounds like the right choice for your startup, here are some questions to consider before committing a big portion of your marketing budget to this form of advertising.

Will Your Product or Service Bring Repeat Customers?

You want to make sure you will see a return on your investment in advertisements. A one-time purchase customer is less likely to keep a stream of income flowing compared to a loyal customer who uses your services over and over. The more steady customers you draw to your business, the more you will be able to afford to spend more on advertisements to market to a wider consumer base. The key to this is to make sure your keywords in your sponsored ads are specific enough to keep customers coming back for more. Think of what type of search terms you would use if you were a customer looking to buy your product or service.

Do You Have a Niche? Or is Your Business Flexible?

Getting incredibly specific with your product or service helps you find your target audience more effectively. As with finding the perfect keywords, with a niche market, your sponsored ads will receive attention from more consumers because it is less likely that a number of other companies will be offering the same thing as you. Focusing on what makes your business unique can give you an upper hand when it comes to the fees you pay for each click because bigger businesses could outprice you from being able to afford certain search terms. On the other hand, if you sell a range of products, you may be able to use that to your advantage. Using longer, more descriptive keywords to advertise your extensive amount of products could allow you to avoid more generic, expensive keywords. You could also closely mirror the search terms of a larger company’s site to bring more paying customers to you.

What matters most is how many customers buy something from your business. If your PPC is not geared toward the right audience, your advertising campaign could be for naught. The best thing you can do for your company is to hire a digital marketing company. Digital Coast Marketing is a no-nonsense team of professionals ready to help you optimize your advertising strategies. Use their services today, and see how many clicks your ads get tomorrow.