Beginners Guide to Paid Advertising and Content Marketing

Online visibility is a must-have in the world that businesses operate in today, and paid search has grown into one of the most effective ways to achieve it.

Paid advertising requires an advertiser to pay to attract traffic to a website rather than wait for it to generate organically. Businesses develop ads that target a specific audience then sell them through various models including pay per click, cost per acquisition, and cost per impression.

When done right, paid advertising can bring in quality traffic that converts into paying customers. Conversely, an enterprise can waste a chunk of its marketing budget on advertisements that don’t result in any significant ROI.

Co-relation between Paid Search and Content Marketing

For your paid advertising strategy to work, it must be coupled with superior content marketing. The modern day consumer looks for more than just attractive language and promotional material in marketing messages. Adverts have to provide value if they are to drive acquisitions. For one, great content creates credibility. A consumer has to look at your ad and decide that your company inspires confidence enough to check it out – that is perceived credibility.

Good content also creates engagement and builds trusts. With the thousands of other advertisers presenting similar messages to the same customers, your business must set itself apart. A solid content marketing strategy is necessary to achieve this.

How can you come up with content that is good enough to generate revenue on paid social, PPC ads, affiliate marketing, and other sponsored placements?

Have Clear Goals

The first step of a content marketing plan for your paid advertising is to have definite objectives. What do you intend the material posted on different platforms to accomplish?

Generating leads is obvious but what else should it do? Educate? Inform? Entertain? The aim is to give your customers something more, something different.

The goals you set during this stage will determine the tone of the content, its structure, and even layout. Objectives will also allow you to cover niche topics, which minimize budget waste. If your intention is to educate, then you will tackle topics that do just that.

Understand Your Audience

Creating PPC and CPA ads that give customers what they want is difficult when you don’t know anything about them. Never submit to the temptation of putting up material that is all about your business. Understandably, you want people to learn more about what you do. However, the customer should always be number one. Paid search succeeds when it's targeted.

Advertisers have several points they can base their targeted content off. You can make ads that target the behaviors, interests, or geography of consumers. Big data has made it easy for companies to gather information about their customers. Knowing the purchasing habits of your consumers, their buying power, and preferences will help you to customize ads to suit them.

Pick the Right Ad Network

Advertisers have various options when it comes to generating paid web traffic. Decide where you are going to place content early on in your strategy to avoid paying for a platform that doesn’t produce any ROI. Be cautious about networks that offer cheap traffic because it may end up costing a lot more.

Reputation is everything when selecting an ad network. You want to get legitimate traffic that converts into paying customers, and that means working with a partner that can deliver quality. Pick a platform that suits your content marketing objectives. Google AdWords is a top choice for CPC and PPC ads because it allows targeting. Bing offers the same as well, but it doesn’t have as much competition as Google. If you are going social, LinkedIn is tailored for B2B marketing while Facebook is ideal for display ads.

The Call to Action

When paying for ads to appear on online platforms, the CTA is a critical factor. After giving your audience the content it requires, you have to drive customers to take action. How you do it should be compelling and relevant to the message. Also, ensure that CTAs match the landing page.

Guest Author: Mel Devent is a passionate blogger who enjoys writing about all things digital marketing. She is currently working as a Marketing Associate at Blogger Sidekick, helping small businesses build authority brands with content marketing. In her spare time she loves scuba diving, watching movies and catching up with friends.