Getting big results from your PPC ads requires more marketing knowledge than the average person. Anyone can run ads and get clicks, but few achieve an exceptional conversion rate of >12%.
How do you rise above the average conversion rate of 2.35%? You need higher knowledge and a stronger strategy. However, you need to learn the ins and outs of each ad platform to supplement your general PPC knowledge.
Whether you’re running PPC ads for your own businesses or for clients, building your skill set for specific platforms will greatly improve your results. Even though all paid ads generally work the same way, each marketing channel is slightly different in terms of strategy, how you target your audience, and the market you can reach. For optimal results, you need to know where platforms share similarities, how they differ, and how to leverage each one.
Certifications will also prove your expertise to clients, look great in your portfolio, and will help you build confidence in your online advertising abilities.
If you’re new to PPC ads, you’re not hitting a conversion rate of at least 10%, or you need tangible evidence of your expertise, consider obtaining the following PPC certifications.
Most businesses that run paid ads rely on Google Ads certifications specifically for the majority of their leads. Google is the top search engine and has about 92% of the entire search market, which makes advertising on this platform essential.
Here’s an overview of the 8 PPC certifications you can get from Google, all of which are at the beginner level and include a series of assessments to prepare you for the exam.
This course takes about 4.7 hours to complete and will train you to “measure and optimizing Google search campaigns performance.” You’ll learn how to translate marketing objectives into measurable actions and derive actionable insights from data.
This course can be completed in around 3.9 hours and will teach you how to use Google’s tools to create “effective ads for Video, Display, App, and Search campaigns.” You’ll also learn how to boost performance by experimenting with ads.
After 2.6 hours of study, this course will teach you how to “connect products and services with shoppers across their purchase journey.” Running an offline sales strategy is just as important as your PPC ads, and you’ll learn all about how they are connected.
With an average completion time of 3.7 hours, this course will help you master “building and optimizing Google Ads Search campaigns.” This is one of the most important courses, and you’ll learn to boost performance with automated processes like Bidding and Audience Solutions.
This course can be completed in around 2.6 hours and will teach you to “deliver effective display advertising to meet specific marketing objectives.” Using Display Audiences, you’ll learn how to reach more customers and align your Display Ads marketing plan with your budget.
Shopping Ads Certification
This course takes about 3.1 hours to complete and you’ll learn how to “connect products and services with shoppers across their purchase journey.” Although the objective is similar to the Grow Offline Sales Certification, this course specifically pertains to Google’s Shopping ads.
With around 4 hours of study, you’ll learn how to “get results from YouTube and Google Video advertising solutions.” These two platforms are essential for paid ads, especially when you’re working with clients. YouTube Ads are an essential component of any PPC campaign. Running ads on videos requires a slightly different approach, and this course will teach you how to navigate this aspect of PPC advertising.
This is one of Google’s shorter PPC certification courses and takes around 2.8 hours to complete. This course will teach you to “create and optimize App campaigns to meet specific marketing objectives.” You’ll learn advanced strategies to elevate your App campaign performance and increase app quality an discoverability.
When you take the above courses, you’ll get video lessons, a knowledge assessment, and preparation assessments to help you pass. The exams generally take just over an hour to complete, and it’s recommended to get certified in every area to get the best results in PPC advertising.
All of these certifications are free, and you only need a Google account to get started.
You can never go wrong with Semrush. Considered a leader in digital marketing, Semrush offers high-quality, valuable resources to digital marketers, and the PPC Fundamentals certification is no exception.
If you’re just getting started with PPC and are a complete beginner, you want to start with this certification. You’ll be asked 35 multiple choice questions spanning a total of eight topics:
To pass this exam, take the free PPC Fundamentals Course offered by Semrush Academy.
This is a basic exam, but it’s essential for beginners as it makes complicated and advanced concepts easier to learn.
You can take the training and get certified for free with a Semrush account.
The Microsoft Ad network displays PPC ads across several channels, including Bing search, Yahoo, and AOL. Next to Google, this is one certification you don’t want to skip if you’re serious about your paid Google Ads campaigns.
As a Microsoft Advertising Certified Professional, you’ll learn how to manage, set up, and optimize PPC campaigns across the Microsoft Ad network. To prepare for this exam, you’ll use a free 232-page study guide that covers an extensive amount of information that will be on the exam.
When you access the study guide, you’ll learn about Microsoft advertising policies and how the platform works. Once you pass the exam, you’ll get a certificate to print and your name will be added to Microsoft’s member directory.
Like Google, Microsoft offers this course and exam free of charge; you only need a Microsoft account to get certified.
PPC advertising on social media is huge, and most businesses use Facebook Ads because that’s where people spend a majority of their time. If you want to promote your business on Facebook, you need to learn how to use their advertising platform.
This certification course will teach you how to create and manage ads, establish your presence on Facebook, and read reports. This is important because Facebook offers some of the most nuanced and detailed audience targeting options. You can even target your competitors’ audiences.
There aren’t many courses or certifications specific to social media advertising, so this is a valuable certification that you can apply to other social channels. To start learning, access Meta Blueprint and select your certifications from there.
This certification is free, and you only need a Facebook account to get started.
This is a 10-hour certification course that covers 13 different aspects of PPC marketing. You’ll learn how to build, manage, and optimize PPC campaigns on any platform.
Compared to other courses that focus more on the details, this takes a more general approach that will help you get started right away. In addition to video tutorials and text lessons, you’ll get access to templates to build ads and landing pages so you can start your first PPC campaign quickly.
Currently, it costs a one-time fee of $99 to access all of the Direct institute courses and certifications. This includes PPC, CRO, SEO, Data Analytics, and Optimization.
Like any exam, you’ll need to study hard to pass your PPC certifications on the first try. Even though most exams are free, that doesn’t mean they’re easy. Here are some tips to prepare yourself to achieve a passing score.
Never underestimate the importance of knowing PPC basics like the back of your hand. Most course certifications place a strong emphasis on fundamentals, so make sure you don’t skip the basics. If you’ve been doing PPC ads for a while, brush up on your general knowledge to make sure you haven’t forgotten any important details.
Sometimes it helps to have a study partner you can talk to and go over points within real time. Text and video materials are helpful, but nothing beats discussing your points of confusion with someone else who might be able to rephrase things for you. You can also make up your own quizzes and run some paid search advertising campaign experiments together.
Most people make the mistake of waiting too long to take exams because they never feel ready. The truth is, you’re probably more ready than you think. It’s important to pace yourself and not rush into taking an exam, but if you’ve done a fair amount of studying, don’t wait until you feel like you’ll get a perfect score. The goal is not to get 100% on every exam. The goal is to pass and then use the feedback from the questions you missed to round out your knowledge and study more.
If you wait too long to take the exam, you’ll forget some of the things you’ve learned. However, if you take it before you’re truly ready, you either won’t pass or your knowledge won’t be retained afterward.
Last but not least, start acting on what you’ve learned as soon as possible. PPC advertising knowledge is important, but nothing solidifies concepts like applying them in the real world. If you want to leverage PPC marketing to get big results, you need to apply what you’ve learned to see how it all works.
Don’t be afraid of making mistakes. Start experimenting with a small test budget as soon as possible and in time, with dedication, your skills will improve and you’ll be able to get the higher conversion rates most businesses only dream of achieving.
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When you want to use paid search marketing platforms, Google Ads often leads the list. Because of its versatility, simplicity, and popularity, it’s obvious why it’s a popular choice. But when you drop all of your PPC advertising money into one marketing strategy, you could lose some leads.
That’s why some businesses explore paid advertising marketing outside of Google, with many turning to Linkedin Ads.
Google Ads and Linkedin Ads are highly efficient ways to market your products and services to businesses and consumers. But each marketing channel has its advantages and disadvantages. Whatever you choose, make sure you discuss the matter with your web development company.
Below is a closer look at each option.
We think it’s reasonable to conclude that Google reaches a vast audience worldwide – its ad reach is a stunning 4 billion people. Google search handles about 70% of desktop searches, and many companies report that they get about 90% of their organic traffic from the search engines. Also, up to 95% of the mobile search market comes from Google.
People use Google’s search a lot, and having the ability to target search terms with specific search ads is a massive benefit of Adwords. People tend to search for very specific things in Google, so if you can customize your Google advertising for your targeted audience, you’ll receive plenty of leads.
So, we can assume that most people’s targeted audience uses Google to some degree. That’s a massive advantage for companies when they want to target an audience.
However, businesses that want to narrow down their search may have issues getting their Google ads settings right with both Google Ads. And if you blunder when segmenting your audiences, your digital ad campaign could suffer.
LinkedIn features a narrower audience – 500 million users – namely businesses and business professionals. But this more limited audience makes it the perfect place for effective B2B marketing. LinkedIn lets marketers serve online ads to decision-makers and vital audience members in several ways.
Summary: For B2B firms that want to reach decision-makers, Linkedin is a terrific advertising platforms. If your B2C company intends to increase its reach, Google Ads could be the best fit.
When you target your audience with Google Ads, you have a few options: location, affinity, technology, buyer behavior, demographics, and interactions with your app or website.
No matter how much you know about your buyer, you may struggle to avoid clicks from worthless leads that cost too much.
In some cases on Google, people may not even know what they’re looking for. You can try to advertise to your desired targeted audience on Google Ads, but it can be challenging to get to the precise people who will most likely buy what you sell.
When people sign up for LinkedIn, they usually provide many details, such as their occupation, title/job title, experience, industry, education, interests, and more. All of this information can be leveraged for great advantage when you start your marketing campaigns.
Also, LinkedIn users can join many groups, start conversations, and obtain followers. The data is priceless when you want to target a specific audience and market to them. LinkedIn also has a Matched Audience that helps advertisers match their email marketing lists and website visitors with users on LinkedIn.
Many marketing experts think that LinkedIn Ads offer more value. LinkedIn has refined targeting, and you can make your product known to them so that you can tell them about something they didn’t know existed.
Summary: For B2B and B2C companies looking for a broad audience, Google Ads has enough targeting features. But for B2B firms that want to target specific groups, LinkedIn Ads has about 100 segmentation methods for micro targeting.
When you want lead generation, Google Ads has a broader reach and is the most effective. First, you can bring in a lot of prospects to your site without breaking the bank. The audience you’re after on Google visits the search giant with the idea to find the best product or service. This makes generating leads easier.
Getting leads from LinkedIn can be more challenging. Users of the platform may sign in to read industry news or talk to group members. No matter how perfect your ad is, viewers may not be in the mood to buy anything.
That said, Linkedin has a way to target ad leads through in-site messaging, which can generate plenty of leads.
When it comes down to dollars and cents, LinkedIn Ads usually are more pricey than Google Ads. As in Google, you can select cost-per-click or cost-per-impression.
LinkedIn also features a cost-per-send for InMail advertising. Typically, you’ll pay about $5 for each click, $6 for 1,000 impressions, and .80 for each send.
With Google Ads, the average CPC is $1. But to leverage that low cost, you need to work on your audience segmentation. If you don’t your ROI may be below what you want.
Summary: Advertising budgets for each platform depends on several factors. On average, Google Ads cost less than LinkedIn Ads. If your B2B company has a tight budget, you may want to focus on a limited variety of LinkedIn ads instead of a broad range of Google Ads.
So should you advertise with Google Ads vs LinkedIn Ads? Yes!
What we mean is, it depends. The correct choice depends on your budget, product or service offered, marketing goals, and target audience. You should not assume that when you need a digital marketing campaign, Google Analytics Adwords is the only choice.
It’s critical to evaluate the market, understand who your buyer is, and make a data-driven decision about the best marketing platform to reach your well-defined goals. One type of company might do better with Google Ads, and another may find LinkedIn Ads preferable.
The great news is you don’t need to choose between the two platforms. Many businesses use both, as well as Facebook, Instagram, and others. If you have the budget, it may pay off to diversify your paid search advertising to get the best ROI.
Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Digital marketing is a classic marketing strategy that’s commonly used to supplement organic web traffic, but it’s hardly the most straightforward way to increase your site’s audience. In fact, from a technological perspective, it’s a rather fussy practice. That’s why brands that want to include a PPC marketing strategy in their overall strategic decisions need to work with an experienced agency. Agencies facilitate ad distribution, track clicks, and calculate fees – and the best ones can help their clients thrive. Unfortunately, there are a lot of subpar agencies and bad actors out there, and you need to know how to spot them.
So, how do you know if it’s time to fire your PPC agencies? Keep an eye out for these 9 red flags. They could indicate you’re working with the wrong agency and that it’s time to make a move.
Companies leave their PPC agencies behind for all sorts of reasons, but according to a 2015 report by the Society for Digital Agencies (SoDA), the most common reasons include outgrowing the agency’s capabilities, cost overruns, and dissatisfaction with their strategy. These are all valid reasons, and ultimately many of them can be reduced to an agency’s failure to generate any or enough growth. After all, disliking the agency’s strategy isn’t likely to be much of a problem if that strategy is generating major growth. Similarly, a brand is unlikely to view itself as having outgrown the agency is their accounts continue to grow.
Ultimately, what these different reasons for firing PPC agencies demonstrate is that, any way you slice it, no one wants to work with an agency that isn’t making them money. So, while it might take a little while for your PPC ads to gain traction, if you’re not seeing growth based on the launch of or changes to your PPC campaign, it’s time to move on to a different agency.
While most brands work with a PPC advertising agency to run their campaigns, it’s not only possible but advisable for you to set up your own accounts with the major PPC advertising platforms, which include sites like Google AdWords, Yahoo, and Facebook. Still, if you’re not the most technologically savvy, it can be tempting to let your agency do it for you. Don’t give in to the impulse. Instead, ask them to guide you through it so that you can ensure that you’re the one with owner access rights.
Unless you have the owner access rights to your company’s PPC accounts, you can’t be sure you have unmediated access to your campaign metrics or feel good/ confident that you’ll be able to transfer your accounts to another agency or bring them in-house if needed. In other words, your agency could be misrepresenting best results to you or could refuse to relinquish control if you end your contract. You need to retain those rights and then give your PPC agent the appropriate permissions to manage your campaigns. If they balk at this arrangement, show them the door.
Typically, when you look at your company’s profile on a site like Google AdWords, you’ll see that your PPC agency has set up specific goals to help your business grow. These commonly include such metrics as Cost Per Acquisition, Return On Advertising Spend, and Cost Per Lead, though there are plenty of other valuable metrics that are worth tracking. Such measurements assure you that you’re spending your Digital marketing money in the right place, help you budget for ad spending, and offer insights into what’s working and what isn’t.
Unfortunately, you’ll occasionally encounter PPC advertising agencies that fail to set up these metric reports, and they’re not to be trusted. Even if they claim to be using an in-house system, it’s your right to demand they use the standard reporting system for each PPC platform and to fire them if they refuse to. Dashboard-based metrics exist to provide consistent measurements regarding the success of PPC campaigns ad those are the numbers you want to reference.
In a similar vein, some PPC advertising agencies skip the core metrics noted above in favor of less valuable but more appealing “vanity metrics.” Vanity metrics don’t help your business make money and they offer limited insight into your operations. Examples of vanity metrics include any campaign value based on impressions, engagement metrics that don’t drive conversions, and even many of the behavior-based metrics that used to be considered the gold standard in website evaluation, such as bounce rate or time on site.
Ultimately, vanity metrics don’t serve your company because they can be created artificially. An untrustworthy PPC agency might drive up engagement numbers by sharing a great meme on your brand’s landing pages, which will drive likes and other reactions, but won’t actually funnel clients to your site or create sales. Similarly, you can get a huge number of impressions by getting your PPC new ads onto a very popular site, but if no one is clicking on it, all you’ve got is a tally of how many people visited/ web traffic to someone else’s website.
Having the right metrics is important, but if you’re going to meet your goals then your Good PPC agency needs to be adjusting your account settings regularly to refine your campaigns. At a minimum, that means accessing your account to regularly monitoring and fine-tune the settings at least once a week. Such regular check-ins allow your agency to quickly adjust your social media campaigns based on updates to the search engines algorithm, catch any conversion mistakes that could cost your company money, and even react to competitors campaigns.
Be sure that you not only ask your PPC agency how often they access and update your accounts, but that you’re also checking your accounts regularly for updates. The reality is that, although many companies run PPC campaigns, only 10% of AdWords accounts are updated weekly. If your PPC agency can’t meet that standard, ditch them for one that will stay on top of your campaigns.
Just as your PPC agency needs to be fine tuning your accounts regularly, they should also be reporting back on your campaigns at least monthly. While seeing week-to-week progress would be great, as with many kinds of growth, this can be hard to evaluate. Comprehensive, monthly reports, on the other hand, can help you see what your agency has been doing on your behalf, how your accounts are growing, and allow you to be an active participant in your Digital marketing strategy.
Never settle for a company that doesn’t offer substantive reporting. While great reports may offer added insights from your account manager or more labor intensive explanatory work, the majority of PPC reporting is automated – any company that doesn’t provide it is just lazy.
It’s unrealistic to expect that you’ll speak to the same person every time you contact your PPC agency; that doesn’t even happen at your bank or your doctor’s office. That being said, there should be one person who acts as the lead on your account because that allows them to master your brand’s voice, develop a big picture strategy, and generally build up a knowledge base around your brand’s needs and preferences. They might be busy or out of the office occasionally, but anyone whose experienced both approaches – a core account manager and a rotating cast of agents – can tell you that having a point person makes a difference.
If your PPC agency doesn’t have you working with a single, core agent, you may want to ask a few questions to get a better sense of what’s happening. Do they have an unusual in-house strategy, or are they having trouble with employee retention? Do they think it doesn’t make a difference? You can also request that they place you with a single representative, but if that’s not their standard practice already, you’re probably better off going elsewhere. It just doesn’t bode well.
Google AdWords isn’t a new program and there are plenty of other PPC programs out there, but if an agency is committed to this work, then they should have complete Google’s AdWords certification program. You can check on this by asking them to show you their Premier Partner page – it really is that simple. Not having one isn’t necessarily the worst offense a company can commit, but it’s a good indicator that you can do better and should commit your ads spend elsewhere.
Did you pick your PPC agency based on their portfolio of appealing PPC ads/ads or optimized images? That’s a great starting point – it certainly indicates that they can do high-quality work – but it’s not enough if they’re not actually showing you your brand’s own ads before they launch them. Obvious, right? It should be, but many entrepreneurs have been duped by PPC agencies who tell them that their ad is similar to another ad product, which is called ad copy; the client, not wanting to be pushy, walks away with their own notion of their brand’s ad, and meanwhile the agency may not have done any work at all.
Your PPC agency should be giving you the final say on all your paid ads, so if you’ve supposedly got a campaign running and you haven’t seen your ads, ask to see them right away. Odds are good that if your agency isn’t showing you your PPC ads before launching them that they either don’t exist or they’re extremely low quality for online visibility. Great PPC agencies are proud of their work and they want you to see it. Anything less should raise concerns.
Hiring an agency to manage your PPC campaigns will obviously cost more than just the fees for the campaign itself, but the costs involved in running ads with your agency shouldn’t be confusing. That’s because, ultimately, your money should only be going two different places – to the agency and to the ad platform – and everyone at the company should be clear on the split. So, when we say you should be wary about confusing fees, we’re not talking about total cost (that’s a matter for you and your budget), but rather about how the money is split up. For any payment there should be the fee to the agency and the ads spend and it should always be obvious what the division is there.
As popular as PPC marketing is with businesses today, many of the agencies that execute these campaigns don’t do a very good job. They’re wasting your ad spend and your time, and you deserve better. That’s why you should switch to PPC.co’s PPC Management Service.
At PPC.co, we’re committed to ensuring that your ads are reaching the right audience and we know that most agencies just don’t deliver that. Starting from our understanding that website conversions often top out at 2%, we emphasize PPC marketing that pairs first contacts with retargeting efforts to ensure that your brand remains a top-of-mind solution for past visitors. A non-converting visitor is often just someone who hasn’t seen the right content yet, and we want to help you make those connections.
What else makes our PPC Management program stand out? With dual Google Ads and Google Analytics certifications, we have a deep understanding of the systems & AdWords account that get your ads seen and can use tracking data to its fullest potential of web traffic. In fact, that’s why we start every client engagement with a full PPC audit, because even when we’re not leading the campaigns, our skilled professionals can quickly see what’s working and what’s falling short in your current campaigns. From the start, we put our expertise to work for you.
If your PPC agency has exhibited any of the above warning signs, you can’t afford to wait around for progress. It’s time for the protection of business and moves on – to PPC.co. Contact us today to learn more about our PPC Management Services and say goodbye to wasted ad spend and rock bottom conversions. Once you’ve seen the difference a top PPC agency can make in your campaigns, you’ll never believe you let anyone else handle your PPC needs.
