Why PPC is Inbound Marketing’s Best Friend

You’ve heard us talk quite a bit about inbound marketing and serving up exactly the right content, to the right people, at the right time. You’ve also heard us say that interruptive marketing is on its way out. So, that must mean that paid online advertising can’t possibly be something you should do, right? Wrong. Pay per click advertising (PPC) is actually inbound marketing’s best friend, and when combined and executed correctly, the two digital activities can fuel your success.

Here are 3 ways PPC can boost your overall inbound marketing efforts (and if you’d like to learn even more, download our on-demand webinar, “Making it Click: Why PPC is Inbound Marketing’s Best Friend”).

1. Better Reach Your Audience

Before you begin any type of marketing program, it’s important to conduct audience research so you know who you’re trying to target. When doing this audience research, we suggest creating buyer personas, or semi-fictional representations of your ideal customers. You’ll want to identify their demographics, goals, pain points, common questions they have and where they spend time online. Once you’ve done so, you should be able to turn their goals, pain points and common questions into keywords that they’re likely searching for online.

Sometimes, these keywords might be highly competitive to rank for organically – like “maternity program” if you’re a healthcare organization, “best HR software” if you’re in technology or “college admissions help” if you’re in higher education, for example. This is where PPC comes in – specifically on Google AdWords. Craft ads that include the keywords you’d like to rank for, and with a competitive bid, you could end up on the first page of Google’s search results – maybe even higher than the organic listings on the page if your ad makes it into one of the top positions. Keeping in tune with inbound marketing, these ads will relate to what your target audience is searching for and will present them with relevant information at exactly the time they’re searching for it.

2. Increase Your Online Visibility

While PPC can increase your visibility on Google, it can do so across many other platforms, too. From your persona research and creation, you should know where your target audience spends time online, so why not enhance your presence on those platforms with paid ads?

Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and Pinterest also offer paid advertising options. There are many different targeting options associated with these platforms, such as targeting by specific behaviors, demographics, interests and more.

Again, following the inbound marketing methodology, PPC allows you to use specific targeting that will decide who your ad is served up to, based on what they have stated as their interests and demographics, as well as their past behavior on each platform.

3. Utilize Resources You Already Have

With an inbound marketing program, you likely have landing pages that you use to gate certain pieces of content, in hopes of convincing your audience to download said content in exchange for their contact information. No need to reinvent the wheel – use these landing pages in your PPC campaigns, too. If you’re trying to increase lead numbers and want to see a certain number of downloads of your newest white paper, create ad copy that promotes the white paper and a call to action to download it. Remember to include relevant keywords that your target audience will be searching! Then, link to your pre-existing landing page – this will extend the reach of your landing pages beyond those contacts who are already in your database.

Pay per click advertising can help you reach a larger portion of your target audience. Optimizing your ads around keywords your audience is searching, along with their interests and online behavior is a great way to further your reach while still adhering to the inbound marketing methodology.

Interested in learning more? Download our on-demand webinar, “Making it Click: Why PPC is Inbound Marketing’s Best Friend.”

Updated: Apr 13, 2022