You’ve spent money on ads. People are clicking. Google says your campaign is getting traffic, but your inbox is still quiet. At some point, you have to ask: what exactly are you paying for?
Pay per click advertising can bring potential customers to your website without waiting for organic rankings to improve. But there’s a difference between buying website visits and winning new business. The second one takes a bit more work.
Here’s what you need to know about PPC, from choosing keywords to figuring out whether your money is being well spent.
Key Takeaways
- Pay-per-click advertising gives your business a chance to appear in front of people who are already searching for products or services like yours.
- You don’t need to throw a huge budget at PPC to get started. What matters is choosing the right keywords, reaching the right people, and spending your money where it has a real chance of bringing in customers.
- Google Ads isn’t the only option. Depending on your audience and goals, platforms like Microsoft Advertising, LinkedIn, and Meta could be worth exploring too.
- Getting clicks is one thing. Knowing whether those clicks turn into enquiries, sales, or actual customers is what really matters.
What Is Pay-Per-Click Advertising?
Pay-per-click advertising, or PPC, is pretty much what it sounds like. Someone clicks your ad, and you pay for that click under a CPC pricing model.
Say you run a plumbing business in Leeds. Someone searches for “emergency plumber Leeds” because they’ve got a leak and need help. Your business could appear in Google’s sponsored results, right when that person is looking for a plumber.
That’s the appeal of PPC. You’re not necessarily trying to convince someone they need your service. They may already need it.
Getting your ad into those results isn’t as simple as bidding more than everyone else, though. Google considers your bid, ad quality, relevance, and other factors when deciding which ads appear and in what order.
And here’s something worth thinking about: if your ad promises emergency plumbing but sends visitors to a page about every service you offer, you’ve made the customer do extra work. Some will stick around. Others will leave.
The click costs money either way.
PPC vs SEM vs SEO: What’s the Difference?
You’ll often see these three terms used together, sometimes as if they mean the same thing. They don’t.
PPC: Paid advertising where you pay for clicks under a CPC model.
SEO: Work that helps your website appear in organic search results.
SEM: A term used for paid search by some marketers and for search marketing more broadly by others.
Think of it this way. A Manchester business can use PPC to advertise its services on Google while working on SEO to improve its organic visibility.
One doesn’t cancel out the other. PPC needs advertising spend to maintain paid visibility; SEO takes ongoing work and time, with no guaranteed rankings. Depending on the business, using both may make more sense than relying on just one.
Why Do Businesses Use PPC?
The biggest draw is timing. If someone searches for a service you offer, your ad could appear before they’ve even scrolled through the organic results.
For businesses trying to generate enquiries, that opportunity is worth exploring. But PPC has a few other uses, too.
- Reach relevant searches: A local electrician can target people looking for electrical services in the areas it covers.
- Control spending: Set campaign budgets and choose how bids are managed.
- Test offers: Compare different messages, headlines and landing pages to find out what gets a response.
- Track results: Measure clicks, enquiries, purchases and acquisition costs when tracking is configured properly.
- Support other marketing: Run paid campaigns while building organic visibility or reconnect with eligible previous visitors through remarketing.
There’s a catch, naturally. A campaign can tick every setup box and still bring in poor-quality leads. If the targeting is off or the offer doesn’t match what people want, the budget can disappear without much to show for it.
How to Plan a PPC Campaign
Before you start choosing keywords, decide what you actually want from the campaign. More traffic isn’t much of a goal if what your business needs is five good sales enquiries a week.
Start with the right keywords
Imagine you’re running a commercial cleaning company in Bristol.
Someone searching for “what is commercial cleaning” might be doing research. Someone searching for “commercial cleaning company Bristol” could be looking for a provider.
The second search may be more useful for generating enquiries, though you can’t know a person’s intentions from a keyword alone.
Choose terms that fit your services, then check the search terms report in your advertising account. You may find that your ads are appearing for searches you never intended to target.
That’s where negative keywords help. If your business sells paid training, for instance, you might exclude “free courses” when those searches aren’t relevant to your offer. Just check carefully before excluding terms; some searches can be more useful than they first appear.
Work out what a click is worth
Let’s use a simple example. You spend £1,200 on ads, with an average CPC of £3. That’s around 400 clicks if the whole budget is spent at that average price.
If 5% of those visitors become leads, you get 20 enquiries. Each lead has cost you £60 in advertising spend.
Those numbers are hypothetical, not UK industry averages. And £60 per lead doesn’t tell you whether the campaign is good or bad.
If most of those leads become valuable customers, the cost might be reasonable. If hardly anyone buys, even a seemingly affordable campaign could be wasting money.
Look at what happens after the enquiry. That’s where the real answer lies.
Don’t neglect the landing page
You don’t need a complicated website to run PPC, but the page people land on has a job to do.
If your ad promotes office cleaning in London, show visitors the office cleaning service, the areas you cover, and how they can request a quote. Don’t make them click through three other pages to find it.
It’s a small detail that can easily get overlooked when everyone’s busy adjusting bids and writing new ads.
Which PPC Platforms Can You Use?
Google isn’t the only option. The question is whether another platform can reach the people you’re trying to attract.
Google Ads
Google Ads is a common starting point for search campaigns. Businesses can also use shopping, display, and video formats, depending on their objectives.
Microsoft Advertising
Microsoft Advertising offers search advertising across Microsoft’s network, including Bing. It may be worth testing if your audience uses those services. Compare the leads and sales you get rather than assuming it’ll be cheaper.
Meta Ads
Meta Ads cover Facebook and Instagram. Image ads, videos, and carousels can help businesses showcase products, promote offers, or generate enquiries. These campaigns can reach people who aren’t actively searching for a service.
LinkedIn Ads
LinkedIn Ads is worth considering for B2B businesses. You can target professional audiences using options such as job title, industry, and company characteristics. The cost of reaching that audience needs to make sense for your business.
TikTok and YouTube Ads
TikTok and YouTube Ads offer video-led advertising. They can work well for products or services that benefit from a demonstration, but plenty of views don’t automatically mean more sales.
You don’t have to be on every platform. Start where your audience is most likely to respond, then expand if the numbers justify it.
What Types of PPC Ads Are Available?
The format depends on what you’re advertising and where you want people to see it.
- Search ads: Text ads that appear for relevant search queries.
- Display ads: Visual ads shown on eligible websites and apps.
- Shopping ads: Product listings that can include images and prices.
- Video ads: Ads delivered through platforms such as YouTube.
- Paid social ads: Sponsored posts, images, videos, and carousels on social platforms.
Remarketing ads: Ads shown to eligible audiences who have previously interacted with your business, subject to platform rules and privacy requirements.
These formats don’t all use the same pricing model. Some campaigns use CPC bidding; others optimise for views, impressions or conversions.
Choose the format based on the job you need it to do. A retailer promoting products and a solicitor trying to generate consultation enquiries won’t necessarily need the same approach.
How Do You Know If Your PPC Campaign Is Working?
A busy dashboard can be reassuring. It can also be misleading.
You might have a high click-through rate and plenty of website visitors, but if nobody enquires, something isn’t working. These metrics help you investigate:
| Metric | What it tells you |
| Click-through rate (CTR) | How often people click after seeing an ad |
| Cost per click (CPC) | Average cost of a click |
| Conversion rate | Percentage of visitors completing a desired action |
| Cost per lead (CPL) | Advertising spend per lead |
| Cost per acquisition (CPA) | Cost of acquiring a customer or defined conversion |
| Return on ad spend (ROAS) | Attributed revenue compared with advertising spend |
Say you spend £1,000 and generate £4,000 in attributed revenue. That’s a 4:1 ROAS. It sounds good, but it isn’t £3,000 in profit. You still have product costs, fulfilment and other expenses to consider.
For lead generation, look beyond the form submission. Did the person respond when your team followed up? Were they a suitable prospect? Did they become a customer?
Google Ads conversion tracking and Google Analytics 4 can help you measure what happens after a click. If your sales process takes weeks, connecting advertising data to your CRM can give you a better picture of which campaigns bring in paying customers.
When results disappoint, resist the urge to change everything at once. Check the search terms, landing page, and quality of enquiries first. Otherwise, you might end up fixing the wrong problem.
Where Can You Learn More About PPC?
Advertising platforms change, and campaign settings that worked well before may need reviewing.
Google’s Ads Help Centre covers campaign setup, bidding and measurement. Microsoft’s advertising resources explain its platform and available tools.
Your own results matter, too. Keep an eye on the searches bringing in leads, the ads attracting suitable visitors and the pages where people drop off.
If you’re managing several campaigns and struggling to keep up, a PPC agency can help with strategy, setup, tracking and ongoing management.
Final Thoughts
Pay-per-click advertising can help UK businesses reach people who are already looking for what they offer. But paying for visibility doesn’t guarantee paying customers.
Get the targeting wrong, send people to an unhelpful page, or fail to track conversions, and it’s difficult to know what your money is achieving.
Start with a clear goal, watch what happens after each click, and use actual sales data to guide your decisions. You don’t need a complicated campaign. You need one that makes sense for your business.
At Xparro, we help businesses connect digital marketing activity with commercial goals.
Looking to improve your paid campaigns? Explore Xparro’s digital marketing services to discuss an approach that fits your business.
FAQs
What is PPC?
PPC stands for pay-per-click. It’s an online advertising model in which advertisers pay when someone clicks an ad.
Is PPC suitable for small businesses in the UK?
It can be. Small businesses can target specific services, locations and audiences, but the budget needs to make sense for the value of the customers they acquire.
How long does PPC take to work?
Ads can start appearing once approved and ready to run. Finding out whether they’re generating profitable business takes longer and depends on competition, conversion data, and your sales cycle.
