Using PPC Ads To Build Brand and Product Awareness

Building Brand and Product Awareness Through PPC Ads

Part of an effective marketing campaign is factoring in time, money, and effort toward building your brand and product awareness. Think about TV commercials. How many times do you see the same commercials, at the same time, throughout any given week or month? A significant reason for this exposure and repetition is to build awareness for a brand or product.

This is particularly helpful for new companies (or products), but is still effective for any long-standing company hoping to introduce themselves to a new market.

That seems pretty straightforward for your TV or radio ads, but what about PPC ads? Most marketers scratch their heads in a collective grunt of confusion when trying to determine how to build awareness online. The struggles are evident. Your PPC ads don’t show up unless someone searches for your related brand or product. Why would anyone be searching for what you sell if you’re new to the market?

They won’t. But does that mean that any new and burgeoning enterprise might as well give up when it comes to building awareness, and an audience, online?

Absolutely not. PPC ads can, in fact, help you build awareness and a search volume for your key terms and product. Here’s how.

Creating Awareness With Your PPC Ads

The first step to creating awareness with your PPC ads is to rethink your entire approach to these types of ads. PPC ads are usually used to increase clicks and, in turn, conversions. But these clicks are happening as a direct result of searches. When no one’s searching for your goods or services, you’re not going to get the clicks. That means your new goal, with PPC ads, is to so encourage people to start searching for you. This requires finding them where they congregate.

So, Where Does Your Audience Hangout?

Encouraging people to start searching for you means reaching them where they already are. So, where does your target audience spend their online time? If you haven’t built a solid customer profile by now, this is the time to do it. Generic identifiers such as “18 – 45, middle class” will not suffice. What types of sites does your audience visit? What programs do they watch at home? What magazines would they read?

It’s vital that you pinpoint your audience to a T so that you can direct your energy where it matters most.

Social Media And PPC

If your audience spends time on social media, then you’re in a very good position, as social PPC will help you spread your message like wildfire.

But wait, before you say your audience is not on social media, stop and reconsider. Chances are they’re spending time on at least one site.

Younger crowds like YouTube for all of their watching needs. Older crowds flock to Facebook these days, while organizations and freelancers spend time on Google Plus. LinkedIn has a hefty following of focused professionals, and Pinterest is largely used by women. The percentage of social media users out there today is staggering, so chances are you can target one of these sites to help build awareness with your PPC ads.

Promoted Tweets, YouTube Ads, LinkedIn Sponsored Updates and Facebook Promoted Posts are all ways you can boost your message to a wider audience, while also gaining access to the data required to make changes for future campaigns.

But even without social media, your PPC ads can build awareness. It’s about rethinking the approach. With your typical PPC ad, you’re targeting consumers during their search activities. With PPC ads for awareness, you’re targeting them just before they get to searching. You’re reaching into their minds as they congregate online at certain magazine sites, forums, and yes, social media.

Be Mindful Of Your Metrics

Social media and building awareness, in general, can be a time suck like none other. By measuring everything across all channels you can toss away the sites and avenues that aren’t working and focus in on what’s most effective.

While marketers might complain that building awareness trough PPC ads is a struggle, they can’t argue with the amount of data afforded to PPC advertisers. No other form of advertisement gives you such precise information about who saw your ad, where they saw it, and what they did after they saw it, like a PPC ad. By using these metrics to your advantage, you can add a whole new level to your PPC ads – building awareness.

Need help building your brand awareness online? OperationROI can help. Call us at 1-888-277-5429 or fill out our contact form to learn how.