Paid Traffic Campaigns: Get Started with PPC and Paid Social
This introductory article will discuss getting started with paid traffic campaigns, focusing on PPC and Paid Social Campaigns. Paid Traffic campaigns also include sponsored content and influencer marketing, but this article will not discuss these topics. Instead, we will discuss PPC, SEA, Google Ads, Paid Social, and Meta Ads.
Paid Campaigns in a nutshell
The most popular paid traffic channels are Google Ads and Meta Ads. Google Ads is often referred to as PPC (Pay-Per-Click) or SEA (Search Engine Acquisition). Meta Ads is often referred to as Paid Social.
Every campaign setup starts with a goal. Whether you are talking about SEA or Paid social, you can set up different campaigns according to your goals, which can be resumed as follows:
Brand awareness - get as many people to see your brand as possible
Traffic - get traffic to your website or Instagram account
Conversion - get as many e-commerce purchases as possible
Leads - collecting user’s e-mail addresses and/or phone numbers
App promoting campaigns
Drive to Store (DTS) campaigns: generate calls or visits to a physical store
While we will not discuss KPIs in this specific article, it’s important to differentiate impressions and reach. Impressions are the total number of times your content was displayed, while reach indicates the total number of people your content was displayed to.
For example, let’s say your campaign had 5700 impressions with a reach of 3500. This means that in total, your ad was seen 5700 times by 3500 people, meaning that many people saw the ad multiple times. Whether these metrics are “good” or “bad” depends on your campaign setup and budget, more on that later.
Google Ads vs Meta Ads
While both Google and Meta Ads are paid campaign platforms with similar concepts, they are set up differently and have key differences.
For example, starting your campaign with a goal is mandatory on Meta Ads but optional in Google Ads. That aside, I believe every campaign should start with a goal.
PS if you have examples of Google Campaigns that work best without an objective, feel free to leave a comment below!
Google Ads are displayed on:
Google network: Search, YouTube, Gmail
Partner sites: search & video partner sites
Google Display Network: websites that monetize using Google AdSense
Meta Ads are displayed on:
Meta (or Facebook) posts, stories and ad spaces
Instagram posts and stories
Boosted or sponsored Instagram posts appear in your post feed
The algorithm chooses whether it will prioritize Facebook or Instagram.
Even though Meta acquired WhatsApp, its advertising usage is a bit unclear. However, you can create ads that open a conversation in WhatsApp.
Compelling copywriting and ad creatives are important on both platforms. However, I would say having interesting visual creatives is more important for Meta. Unless you truly focus on Google Display Ads, you can run your Search Campaigns with a few key visuals from your brand or bestselling products when you are getting started.
Both platforms allow you to connect your e-shop product catalog with either a manual or automatic product upload, and then use this product catalog in your advertisements.
Both platforms use retargeting (Google Ads) or remarketing (Meta Ads) to target users who have already interacted with your brand content or website, but again, they are set up in a different way.
Which campaigns should I start with?
Instead of scattering your budget on all the campaign types just for the sake of it, start with what your brand currently needs the most:
Brand awareness - you want to increase your brand’s visibility
Traffic - you want to boost traffic to your website
Leads - You want to grow your e-mail database
Conversion - you have traffic coming to your website
DTS - you want to focus on your physical sales points or specific offers in those sales points
A conversion campaign will bring you fewer impressions than an awareness campaign, but it will bring you more users who are ready to purchase, ie more conversions. Prioritize which metric (impressions, reach, website visits, or conversions) is of utmost importance and start from there. If you currently need conversions but also lack traffic to your website, I would suggest a traffic campaign first, or even awareness.
Ideally, a fifth of your budget should be invested in awareness campaigns for visibility and as a “reminder” to your audience. You should also create one campaign per country. Therefore, if your budget is limited, limit the number of countries you target. You can have 2-3 main countries you invest most of your budget in, and a few “smaller” countries you invest less in. The “smaller countries” may not bring you as many results, but they can be interesting to keep if these are geographical zones of interest, just don’t scatter your budget around too much.
Planning your campaigns should also take into account your business’ general strategy and target markets. If you are an international business, focus on your top 3 markets or countries as a starter.
How much budget should I invest?
Planning your paid campaigns’ budgets should consider the following:
General business strategy
Goal revenue - your paid budget should be around 15-20% of this
Seasonality - a great article about it here
If the budget is tight, start with 500€ a month on each platform and work your way up gradually every month. Ideally, I would say around 5 000 € to split between Google and Meta Ads is a healthy budget, with a ratio around 60/40 depending on which platform works best for you.
It’s not a golden ratio, however, it gives you a starting point when you need one.
And the most important: having a budget is one aspect, optimizing it for performance is another. This meansreviewing your audiences, creatives, copywriting, and keeping a steady eye on your ads performance and general trends.
Evolving as you go
Once you have set up your campaigns, it’s important to keep an eye on them and make a few adjustments when needed, such as copywriting, creatives, audiences, etc. If you see a specific type of visual isn’t performing after 3-4 weeks, change it. Or if it’s not the visual, maybe it’s the copywriting.
You can change your campaign objectives on Google Ads. Changing your campaign objectives will impact your campaign performance, so it’s important not to do it too often. When you do change campaign objectives, monitor the results carefully, but also give the campaign some time to optimize itself according to the new campaign, ideally around 4 to 6 weeks but no less than 2 to 3 weeks.
You can also change campaign objectives on Meta, but it often entails creating a new campaign.
Other platforms
The most popular paid traffic channels are Google Ads and Meta Ads. There are other less talked about channels like Bing Ads or Microsoft Ads, a complementary platform to Google Ads because of their lower cost and diversified audiences. The Media Captain details the pros and cons of Bing Ads in this article.
If you want to know more about the differences between Meta Ads and Google Ads, I suggest you read this Wordstream article.
What did you think of this article? Leave a comment below!
Coming soon: a separate article on PPC & Paid Social KPIs