In digital marketing, it’s very easy (and tempting) to divide the various sub-fields into small worlds.

Here comes SEO. It’s a big one.

Then there is social media marketing, and here is PPC advertising.

But that’s a black and white view of things.

Today I want to talk to you about the intersection of PPC and great content.

If that statement doesn’t make sense to you, this post is for you.

Content and PPC data can complement each other in several ways.

From landing page copy to CPC data to improved click-through rates, there are many points at which these two digital marketing layers come together to form a stronger whole.

And if you’re looking to improve both your PPC performance and your content traffic, you can get something out of this.

Read on for helpful tips for using content and PPC campaigns together.

1. Get traffic faster with PPC advertising

The problem with organic search strategies is that it’s nearly impossible to get your website noticed without an established audience.

Consider that over 6 million blog posts are published every day. As such, it’s nearly impossible to get your blog posts exposed without some basic strategy.

Leveraging PPC advertising to drive traffic to your website in the early stages of development provides brand exposure and early revenue.

Above all, the traffic you get from paid clicks is a large part of the target audience you’re trying to sell your brand to.

It’s like killing two birds with one stone.

With Google Ads and Facebook Audience Insights, you can reach your audience and gain brand exposure while extracting more meaningful insights from them.

Slap detailed or informative content to further differentiate your brand from other advertisers.

Great, quality content is more closely related to PPC than you might think, so read up on what these two areas of digital marketing have in common.

The idea is to focus both campaigns at the same time and target similar keywords.

Content can be used to provide information, but paid advertising should be a tool for conversion.

This strategy helps keep your brand in mind every time you appear in search results for keyword queries.

2. Use PPC advertising to bias people toward your brand

Contrary to popular belief, paid advertising can help drive traffic to Google’s organic search results (indirectly) because it increases brand awareness in users’ minds.

This is because people who see your paid ad are likely to subconsciously remember your brand in future searches.

This can make the brand appear more authoritative or larger than life.

Brand affinity also dramatically increases repeat customer CTR.

Research shows that it’s cheaper to retain existing customers than to acquire new ones.

3. Provide a great landing page experience

Even the most experienced paid media manager can struggle to create landing pages that satisfy their clients and their vision.

Content marketers are naturally good storytellers and creative in their own way.

Leverage your creative content to create unique landing page experiences that nurture inbound leads through the conversion funnel.

Visitors who click on your ad may research your website before converting.

Consider the buyer’s journey and how your content applies throughout this process.

• consciousness: Customers are alerted to specific needs or issues (blog posts, curated content, infographics, videos, articles).
• consideration: A customer identifies a specific need and researches it (white papers, testimonials, reviews, landing pages, ebooks).
• decision: Customer decides to make a purchase or conversion (tutorial, trial, product demo).

Consider providing testimonials, user reviews, and links to related articles separate from your landing page content for visitors to read before making a purchase.

Not every visitor who clicks on your ad will make a purchase during that session or on that day.

Providing relevant, quality content on your site can be a valuable touchpoint in your attribution path to generating conversions.

4. Discover content insights from PPC keyword data

If there’s one feature that SEO and PPC campaigns already share, it’s keywords.

Leverage your PPC keyword data to identify the keywords with the highest traffic and revenue.

You can also analyze the performance of your ad copy and apply it to your organic content campaigns.

Consider using commercial keywords in your content to promote your services/products to your customers.

Branded keywords are very successful and have a much higher CTR than other standard keywords.

Group your keyword strategies and transfer the success of one campaign to another.

Run A/B tests to identify the most effective keywords within each campaign.

5. Steal as much SERP real estate as possible

Naturally, having two links on the same page increases clicks on your website.

In addition to increasing CTR on both listings, the additional links increase your brand’s visibility and authority in the eyes of searchers.

While it’s true that 53% of website traffic comes from organic search results, PPC advertising continues to be strong on Google today.

Well, if only you could get rich snippets too!

Actionable Tactics to Improve Your Content Marketing ROI Through PPC Campaigns

Now that you understand the benefits of combining PPC and content marketing, here are some ways to make the most of it.

1. Promote great content with Facebook ads

Use Facebook’s Audience Insights to segment your audience and target ads to new audience members relevant to your industry.

Promote your best-performing content by promoting Facebook posts and targeting specific audience groups.

Boosting Facebook posts promotes your content and ads to two audiences:

• “People who like your page and its friends”
• “People who choose by targeting”

Use PPC advertising to build an audience for your content and take advantage of “boost posts” to reach more people who may be interested in your content.

Facebook Audience Insights and Twitter’s Tailored Audiences offer unique remarketing tools for all your PPC ads and promotional content.

Leverage your PPC spend to build your brand’s audience and target it with different advertising campaigns based on the most shared and liked content.

2. Write irresistibly clickable headlines

Use BuzzSumo to discover the content that’s currently going viral in your industry.

Leverage these keywords and topics to create engaging and relevant headlines for your ad display.

This allows you to attract users who would not normally engage in click-through advertising to view your ad.

A/B test different headlines targeting different niches and see which ones get the most clicks and conversions.

Note that clickables are not the same as clickbait. Creating headlines that relate to the content itself remains essential to the user experience.

3. Think Mobile First

Increase mobile conversion rates for paid advertising with images, infographics, and all forms of visual content.

Landing page content rules are different on mobile. Optimizing your content for mobile by enabling responsive design is paramount.

Some tips:

• Write a short headline.
• Use concise paragraphs.
• Avoid popups.
• Use small image sizes.
• Include a clear call to action.

4. Craft killer CTA to convert more visitors

Especially for paid promotional articles, the landing page should have a clear call to action.

This can be accomplished with horizontal form fields or pop-up CTAs. This helps convert leads into conversions for paid promotional campaigns.

There is still debate about whether to place the CTA above-the-fold or at the end of the content.

When it comes to paid promotions, we recommend using content to engage readers and place a CTA at the end of your landing page to increase conversions.

Conclusion

Once again, we understand that content marketing and PPC can seem like completely different things.

Often they run in parallel and common areas can be hard to see.

But by integrating proper content marketing into PPC, and integrating PPC data into content marketing and SEO, you can learn a lot and improve your site’s overall performance.

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Featured Image: Dean Drobot/Shutterstock