Melanie
The Monday Morning Marketing Podcast is brought to you by Esther of IPA Group, bringing premier online promotion to your business.
Esther
And Melanie of STOMP Social Media Training, who empower as business owners to manage social media and marketing for themselves. And welcome back to another episode of the Monday Morning Marketing Podcast. Today we're joined by Meriem Nacer to talk about Paid Per Click, or PPC. As we like to call it.
Welcome, Meriem.
Meriem
Hello, nice to be on the show.
Esther
Nice to have you here. So Paid Per Click is one of those jargon words that we talked about a few weeks ago on an episode, things that people just throw out there and most people don't actually know what it is. So could you explain it to us? What is it in? Like, I'm not going to give you a time limit or anything, but as easy a format to understand as possible.
Meriem
Okay, so PPC, in the most simplest terms would be where now I'm like, what is the most simplest term? If you go to Google at the top, you usually see a paid ad. When you click on it. That's basically what it means. It's pay per click and it's normally within Google. When you go into Google.com, Google.co.uk, whatever you use, and it's normally those paid ads. It can be seen in other locations as well, but predominantly it is just paid ads within certain areas within Google's network. But obviously there are other providers like Microsoft ads. But yeah.
Melanie
I was wondering, out of interest, pay per click, would that also be Facebook as well as. It's just, we just tend to associate Pay Per Click with just Google.
Meriem
It depends who you classify it with. Just Google. Some people classify as literally every paid media thing. So display ads, video ads, Facebook ads, LinkedIn ads, and basically anything where you have an ad which you click on, which you pay for. Nothing to do with organic.
Esther
Okay, is it every single ad that is clicked the company has to pay for tech? Or is there like a Cost Per Mill CPM?
Meriem
Yes. So there's CPM, there's Cost Per View. So CPV, there's multiple ways you can pay for ads depending on the format which has been seen. So within Google Ads, for example, you've got text ads which are just in Google search and they're just like literally just text writing telling you basically to click here because we have something you want that is literally pay per click. When you go into the realms of impression based, so like display, so the pretty banners and things like that, which you see and sometimes get stalked by, that's where you pay per impression. So thousand impressions, you also pay like that on Facebook and some other platforms as well. And then when you've got video content, there's multiple ways to pay, but one of them is pay per view and it's when they watch a certain amount of the video itself.
Esther
And those video ones can also be shown then because Google bought YouTube, isn't that correct?
Meriem
Yeah, Google owns YouTube, so your videos are usually in YouTube, but also on platforms which have videos on there. So you can embed videos on websites and stuff like that and they can be sponsored, which means that you can have advertisement on that video before it plays, usually on like newspapers and stuff like that. That's when you can get your videos seen as well.
Melanie
So let's say one of our listeners is deciding to do Pay Per Click for the first time and we speak to them regularly about budgeting. What would be a good budget to start with and how long and how frequently should you do it for?
Esther
And you're not allowed to say, it depends.
Melanie
Just give us one example. Let's give her a scenario.
Esther
Candle Maker.
Melanie
Candle Maker, yeah.
Meriem
Okay. So usually the way I would work is I would say, right, what do you do? Okay, you do this. And how much are those products? Who are your competitors? That kind of gives me an idea of where I should be looking. Then I would normally just have a look at the keywords and see how expensive they are because it's going to be very different for a candle maker if it's not competitive versus an accountant who's incredibly competitive. And that's the problem. Back in the day, back in the day, I used to a lot of fashion retailers, but the really small ones and those fashion brands, I used to say, right, let's start with 1500 pounds because they all sold the same products just with a different logo. And that's what we used to do. And the baseline was perfect, but that was like cheap clothes, whereas it really depends on the brands.
Melanie
Sorry, you cheated, but would you do it again? And mean, would you recommend? Because I know for a fact, with Facebook ads as an example, it doesn't really matter whether you're a candle maker or an accountant, they recommend that you do five to seven days of one type of ad and then do another five to seven days at least, minimum, fortnight preferably, but five to seven days at least. And then do another one quite quickly afterwards and on a regular basis because doing one ad a quarter, it's not going to help.
Meriem
Yeah, basically. Well, it depends. So you're talking about Facebook.
Melanie
She said it depends.
Meriem
Sorry, on Facebook, it's all about so frequency in your target audience. The reason why they say that is because if you over index on your target audience, then they are going to get so annoyed with your brand they're not going to come to you. So that's where Facebook are going down the lines of. However, there's ways to know whether you're kind of over indexing. There's literally a column called frequency and it tells you so if you're sitting at like 1.2, you're okay. If you're targeting such a tiny audience, they're at like seven, then yeah, you do need to change that ad and also cheque out your targeting because if you've got like seven people, your ad has been seen by that person seven times a day, for example, they're going to go mad. Yeah. They just not like you anymore and block you and that's not what you want. So it's really knowing your audience and then going from there.
Esther
Yeah. Because then there's the other extreme where you have nothing to do with the ad that they're putting in front of you, but somehow you're seeing it. I see ads from different countries that I couldn't even buy from. Why are you targeting me? So you said there about keyword research. Where do you go to do keyword research to be able to say, that is a highly competitive keyword and that one's going to cost me more and that one's a low competitive keyword, but it might not be seen as well.
Meriem
So the tool I use is Google Keyword tool. That's the easiest one to use and it's always available in Google Ads. There are multiple others which the SEO team tends to the where it gives loads of insights organically as well as paid and stuff like that. Whereas I tend to just keep to knowing what my CPC is and how much it's actually going to cost.
Melanie
You brought up a word there.
Esther
So CPC is.
Melanie
Okay. You do CPC first.
Meriem
CPC is Cost Per Click. So how much each click is estimated to cost, which is really important. That's how you figure out how much budget you need.
Melanie
Okay. And the insights is what I wanted to pick up on myself. One thing I do know about Google Ads, it's not something I actually do myself. I don't provide it as a service. Hi. I happen to know a couple of people in the room who do now, but I do know that you have to hover over it. You're like a helicopter parent to make it work because as you say, the price goes up and down do you think it's actually fundamentally better to hand this over to an agent who can do this for you? Because if you don't have that sort of time, the reason why you're doing PPC in the first place is because you're trying to draw attention to your business and if you're getting busy and you want somebody to monitor it, I recommend people use an agent because you have to stay over it.
Meriem
I'm a 50 50. I've worked in agency side for like eight, nine years before I became a freelancer. And one of the things I don't like doing as a freelancer and didn't like doing in agency side was charging people and not having enough work to do. Because I just think, like, why? And it really depends on the PPC account. So I would say if you're going to do anything, make sure it's set up properly, because that's why you have to hover over it 24/7 because it's not set up properly, because Google makes you do certain things, because Google are automatically changing stuff. There's so many changes in Google Ads recently where Google have automatically changed your keyword match type from something which is really simple, like an exact match. So it matches exactly to the keyword you want to a match type called broad match, which means it matches to similar things to the term which you're actually bidding on. And this is automatically happening in people's accounts because you don't turn off the recommendations and a lot of people don't know how or they think that because it's Google, it's correct.
Esther
That they know better.
Melanie
Ah, so that's interesting. So you can actually empower yourself to do it in the first.
Meriem
Well, basically what I would recommend is get somebody professional to set up your Google Ads account. Get it set up, have that conversation with them and say, look, this is my plan, this is my aim, this is what I want to achieve. They will be realistic. If it's a good freelancer, they're going to be realistic with you and sit there and say, look, this is how it's going to work. This is what I foresee. And the one thing I do, and I've done it in the last couple of years quite a lot, is what I'll do is I'll set up your account for you, I'll make sure it's running properly for the first couple of months, I will tell you what to look at on a monthly basis and then the next month I'll cheque in with you and I'll get you to show me what you're doing a little bit.
Melanie
Accountability, Esther.
Esther
Yes.
Meriem
It just makes my life easier when you're like. It's not like, no, no, click that button. Oh, yeah, you showed me that. Yes. And then off the back of that, then they kind of feel more empowered to just cheque in every month and that's all you really need to do. But that doesn't work for everyone. Literally doesn't work for everyone. But for significant amount of small businesses, it's literally just making sure that Google aren't making those changes and it's set up properly. I would say every six months, get a cheque in because Google changes so much.
Esther
Yeah, we talk a lot about how much all platforms change, but yes, Google seems to be one of the ones that changes the most recently anyway. Nigh, you said at least cheque in every six months. So how long should people be running ads for?
Meriem
Like, you should always be running ads for your business on the right terms if they're working for really. I suppose it depends what platform you're looking at. So Google Ads evergreen, making sure that you're on the right terms. A cheque in with your freelancer every six months to make sure nothing's changed. Update stuff. Are these the right keywords? If performance isn't going in the right direction, reach out to your freelancer. But having that person. Agencies are great if you're paying a high volume and need people in there 24/7 because that's their job and they have systems built to consistently be checking that. And now I forgot where I was going with that.
Melanie
I know, that's fine. Now, I wanted to ask, is there any particular type of businesses that won't do well in Pay Per Click? Or can any type of business product service amalgamation not do well?
Meriem
I find that some very small businesses who compete with beasts don't do well in Google Ads because the beasts own the Serp and really, for them it's about-.
Melanie
What's a Serp.
Meriem
The search engine? The search engine. If the big beasts are owning the top of the search engine, getting some visibility there is going to be really expensive and sometimes it's just not profitable. So then that's where you would kind of utilise. How can I engage with that audience without paying that much? And that's when you really need some really good-.
Melanie
Bucks, right?
Meriem
Yeah.
Melanie
it's pretty much open to everyone from dentists, accountants, vets, florists. Anybody can use it.
Meriem
Yep. Restaurants, hotels, everything.
Esther
And is it the same sort of idea or the same, like, could you put the same exact system in place to do Google Ads as Bing ads know other search engines.
Meriem
So we only have the two main ones in the UK, which is obviously Bing. Sorry, Microsoft ads and Google Ads going back a few years. Yes. But yeah, you can just link them. I sometimes don't do that because sometimes it's just a bit of wasted spend in Microsoft on certain terms. But I always recommend all clients should be on Microsoft, even if it's just covering your brand terms because so many people are bidding there on Broad Match or Microsoft because it's so much cheaper than Google Ads. So you tend to get competitors bidding on you on Microsoft. So always make sure that you protect your brand.
Melanie
I'm talking as a complete noob here, so apologies if this is a stupid question.
Esther
Never. It is stupid questions.
Melanie
Okay, I'm sorry. I've only ever heard of Google Ads. I'm sorry.
Esther
No, it's quite normal. It's quite normal. I mean, I'm a allowed-.
Melanie
I've heard of Bing, I've heard of Microsoft, but I thought they sold computers.
Esther
They do.
Melanie
So if I did a Microsoft ad, would it show up anywhere else?
Meriem
Yeah. So if you're doing Microsoft ads, it's anything using the Bing search software or all the Android phones. Not Android. Android's Google. Who are the Microsoft phones? I can't remember now. I've gone completely blank. Anybody who's using Bing search on their software would trigger your ad. So back in the day, Apple used to actually use Bing as their automatic kind of search engine, which would be used.
Esther
So ironic.
Meriem
And then now recently, because of everything which is changing in Google, they're actually talking about using Bing for Samsung and something else. But I can't remember what was something. I think it was Apple again, might be going back to using Bing instead of using Google because of all the AI and bard stuff.
Melanie
And what about the likes of. Because some people prefer to use Google Chrome, other people prefer to use Firefox, and other people are using independence now because they're more sustainable, they don't damage the earth and all that sort of stuff. So will this all be found in search doing a paid ad, even if they're using all these other platforms?
Meriem
So a browser, there's a difference between a browser and a search engine. So a search engine is a domain which you would go to or a system which uses one of the search engines. So for example, I always use Chrome. I used to use Firefox. So all of those use Google. I think Google, obviously Google owns Chrome. I can't remember who owns Chrome.
Melanie
But that's why I was asking because I didn't know what Firefox uses and I didn't know what these other independents use. I just assumed they all used Google.
Meriem
Yeah, no they don't. Which is pretty awesome. So Google and Microsoft both have a thing called search partners. So for example, one of Google's search partners is if you, and I only remember this from my days when I worked agency side a very long time ago. There was a new search engine which was brought up and every time you search on it they plant a tree. Now I don't know-.
Melanie
That's the one I was talking about. That's the one I was talking.
Meriem
Is it still around?
Melanie
Yep.
Meriem
I love that so much. Well that's actually a Google Search partner. So that is Google.
Melanie
Ah, right.
Meriem
But Microsoft has the same similar thing. Basically they make friends with all, every other search engine you can think of out there and they call them search partners and then they use the software and pull in the data from either Google or Microsoft.
Melanie
Gotcha. Okay, now I interviewed them a couple of years ago.
Esther
Yeah. So basically Google runs the world, Google is. Everybody knows. I mean they've even got their own verb. They're in the dictionary now. That's just Google it. So you're not likely to hear people saying just bing it or just Microsoft it.
Meriem
We did try that. We tried to get that in a very long time ago. It didn't work.
Esther
No, but it's no bad thing that there are these competitors. I mean you wouldn't just put all your eggs in the one basket when you're doing social media ads either. You're not just going to do Facebook and Instagram ads, you will do other places as well with these other platforms. Like you said, you can link it. So it's almost know sharing your social media post across all your social media platforms without making any changes, which we don't recommend. Is that the same? You said that you can just have the exact same ad going across Bing and Google. Sorry, Microsoft ads and Google Ads, but you wouldn't fully recommend it, isn't that?
Meriem
Yes you can. I would recommend. So for example, if you've got to amend some ad copy because you're a retailer and you've changed your free shipping from 50 to five, for example. Free shipping, sorry. So with stuff like that I would definitely say that you have the auto sync in Microsoft ads which does that. The difference is more. Ok, so in Google Ads you're looking at all of these types of campaigns whereas in Microsoft you may only want to do these three campaigns. You can still sync everything over. Just make sure that you only have the core ones which you actually want to test at that time. Live in that platform. It's quite to the social media though, because you can have tools which push your paid ads to all those platforms. So pinterest, Facebook, Snap and all of them at the same time targeting the similar audiences. But is that how you want to talk to your customer? Microsoft's more of an affluent market. Google is basically everybody else. So it really depends.
Melanie
Scandalous.
Esther
That's a whole other episode on its own. So when people are reading their analytics for the ads, what should they be focused on? Should they be looking at how much each ad cost?
Meriem
Great question.
Esther
How many people were reached? What is the key to knowing if your ad was successful or not, apart from the sales?
Meriem
If we're talking about the literal ad, then it's about click through rate. So how many people actually, or an interaction rate, because sometimes it's not click, sometimes it's how long it was viewed for and stuff like that. So if I got 100 impressions, okay, that's really small. So if you only have 100 impressions, I'd say get more before you make that decision. But how are people interacting with it? Are they, is everybody ignoring it? Why? What's happening there for that to be like that? Or do they just not like your ad?
Melanie
I want to ask a question about how sometimes your competitor, now this happened a long, long time ago, so I don't even know if it's still a thing, but I know that one client I worked with, he thought a competitor had clicked on his ad and went through all of his ad spend in like a couple of days. Is that something that still happens?
Meriem
Yes.
Melanie
Oh, it does?
Meriem
Yes, it does. Not that bad though. So when I first started doing PPC, I used to work on accident lawyers for you. And brands like that clicks like 70, 80 pounds per click. And yes, competitors used to click on their other people's ads. It does happen now. But if you regularly do it, Google sits there and is like, okay, something weird's going on here, why is this person doing it? And then they've put in things in place like ECPC, where if you are ECPC is Enhanced Cost Per Click. So what it does is it optimises that to the person. So for example, if you search on that kind of industry a lot and you trigger their ads a lot, what would tend to happen is that that ad would no longer push the bid up for you. It would think that you're not really in the market to interact with it so it will slowly stop showing for you. Also, if you're just consistently searching and not actually clicking on any of the ads as well, sometimes the ads will stop showing for you as well.
Melanie
So becoming smart, basically.
Esther
Interesting.
Meriem
Yeah.
Esther
Is there ever a time when people don't want to click on the ad?
Meriem
Yeah, normally the brand owners. So multiple times in my career I've had emails going, my ad isn't showing. I'm like, oh, will you stop bloody searching for it? And maybe like my click through Ram so bad, literally used to have a customer who used to search his brand every morning to make sure his ad was showing
Esther
But never clicked it, so therefore the ad stopped showing for him.
Meriem
Yeah, there's ways of doing it without actually googling it, but you have to remember that it's based on quality score and if somebody consistently searching for a term and not actually interacting with it, you're telling Google it's not a good ad.
Melanie
Oh, I'm glad I asked that question now because there'll be other people doing exactly the same.
Meriem
So many people do it, it's untrue. It's so funny.
Esther
My kids the other day were searching for some, or I was searching for something and my kids didn't want me to click the paid ad, even though it was exactly the same as the top result, because they're like, oh, you're going to have to pay for that. No, I don't have to pay for it. So I had to explain to them that if I click on a paid ad, it's not me paying for the ad. I'm sure other people probably have the same idea and probably think, oh, it's going to charge me. I don't know how, but it's going to charge me if I click on this ad. Have you come across that a lot?
Meriem
Never.
Esther
No.
Meriem
I've never really heard anybody not click on something because they think it's going to charge them. It's likely that that probably will happen more because of mobile searches and stuff like that, but I've not heard of it before.
Melanie
Now. I'm going to be a little scandalous here, Meriem. I regularly do start your own business training and I obviously mention as part of the training SEO and how to get found in SEO and that sort of stuff, and there's options of doing it natively and through paid ads as well, certainly like Google. And I frequently ask now, even though these are startups, they're all grown ups at the end of the day, they're all adults, they're all mature, people. And I say, so if you do a search for flowers, let's say where would you typically click on the terms that come up? Would you click on an ad or would you click on the first organic link? And it's not completely across the board, but pretty much most of the people that I speak to when I'm doing this are using the native ones, which is. I understand it. Okay. I do understand it. But if they actually bothered looking at the actual ads, like three or four above them, most of the ads are the native ones. So why is this happening? Why are they having this sort of ad blindness and going down to the first organic one, do you think?
Meriem
I don't think that they're even going to the first organic one. I think it really depends what search term you're searching for. But most people I found recently think that the shopping ads where they're pictures and they're products and you click on the product, they think that those are ads and anything below it, it's not really an organic or paid ad because most people don't really know the difference. They just click on a text ad which is either an organic or paid text.
Melanie
I think it's less obvious on a mobile. I think it's much less obvious on a mobile. If you do it on a laptop, you can see the paid ads on top, you can actually see there's a box and it says ad next to it. But on your phone you don't see that.
Meriem
Yeah, I think in terms of paid ads now they are hidden within the organic ads as well. So if you scroll down on desktop specifically, you'll find that there's actually paid ads halfway down depending on the platform you're using as well. So the browser-.
Of course yeah.
You can literally have scroll forever and if it's on, you will find that every ten or twelve organic listings, there's another paid ad in there and you just don't know. But nobody really scrolls that far. And if they do, they normally work in digital marketing, to be honest.
Melanie
See, I'm looking right now and it says sponsored at the top on my laptop. On my laptop. Okay. And then the exact same company is also the first organic one.
Meriem
So-.
Esther
But they probably have good SEO as well.
Meriem
Yeah.
Esther
So would you say, Meriem, that SEO and Pay Per Click go hand in hand or could you do a really good ad and still not show up in the first ten pages of Google organically?
Meriem
Both.
Esther
Didn't say it depends.
Meriem
I was trying to think of a different word. Sometimes Google does not show a paid ad when you search. Sometimes it just doesn't because it doesn't feel it's relevant to be seen there. Nobody else is there. I've done it a lot of times where I've been. Why doesn't it show? And it says low search volume and there's volume there. It just says no ads whatsoever on that page. And I think that's why it doesn't feel that it's relevant for that. And you could have the best ad in the world, but it just doesn't work.
Esther
Well, I mean, we could geek out on this for the rest of the day and the episode could be one of our longest ever. But we do have to wrap it up because we value our listeners time. Meriem, where can people find you? Where can they learn more about you? Where can they contact you and get more information about you?
Meriem
So to find out more about me, you can reach out on LinkedIn. Just search for Meriem Nacer and I will appear.
Melanie
How do you spell Meriem Nacer? So that our listeners can.
Meriem
It's spelled M-E-R-I-E-M-N-A-C-E-R. Okay.
Esther
All right, perfect. Reach out to Meriem there and connect with her on LinkedIn. Thank you so much for being with us today, Meriem. It was an absolute joy, an eye opener. I'm sure Melanie's head is completely, you know exploded right now. She's going to have to go for a lie down after this. But these are the types of conversations we like having and opening the eyes of our listeners as well. So we'll be back next week, guys, with more Monday Morning Marketing. Until then, bye-bye.
Melanie
Bye, guys. Have a great week. You're waving. You're waving. You waved.
Esther
I shall deny it forever.
Melanie
You waved. I saw you wave.
Esther
I was encouraging Meriem to say goodbye.
Melanie
Oh, ok. Well, that's different. I always flip in waves.
Esther
You didn't today.
Melanie
I didn't because I was too busy pointing.
