Pay per click (PPC) online marketing models allow small and medium businesses to compete with the mega brand who normally crush them with traditional marketing. In order to understand this better, let’s take a walk down memory lane. Think back to 3^rd grade elementary school. Life was easy back then and the two things you cared most deeply about were probably getting your bed time extended and maximizing your play time with friends. If you’re anything like me, recess was a huge part of your day. I remember I would devour my lunch and then race out to the playground to play tag, four-square, hide and seek, kickball, or tether ball. Then when the recess whistle blew, I would race back into class and finish the school day.

Now let’s think about a time where you witnessed someone being bullied. It was always a terrible thing to witness―a person overpowered and harassed by an individual who typically looked like he had hit puberty five years too early. Sometimes he would even have a gross little mustache with roughly ten hairs that had grown since he’d shaved four months earlier.

I can remember a specific time where I stood up for a friend of mine who was being bullied. The bully was an intimidating hulk who had been harassing my friend for the past couple of days. Although I was normally the playground peacemaker, I had become fed up with this behavior, and had decided someone needed to put him in his place. One day the bully, who will remain anonymous, was picking on my friend for what he was wearing. He was calling him names, overpowering him and getting physical. When I saw him push my friend, I suddenly charged at him with a two-handed shove. The bully flew backwards and landed in the bushes and the kids around me cheered. It was a great feeling to be the playground hero for that brief moment.

So how does this related to the PPC industry? Well, think about a small clothing boutique that is trying to get in the top search results. When someone types in a specific search query like “Raf Simmons” a small clothing boutique doesn’t stand a chance against competitors like Nordstrom, Barney’s New York, Neiman Marcus and so on. These big name retailers use their market dominance to bully the small fashion boutiques by shoving them down to the bottom of the search engine rankings and making sure that they have no voice.

This is where the playground hero comes into play. Google created this AWESOME online advertising program called, Google AdWords. This program allows you to reach people at the precise moment they’re searching for what you offer. It allows you to build awareness, compete with businesses of all sizes and ultimately land above their sites. Before Google AdWords, you would have to have impeccable search engine optimization skills to land at the top of a search result. Now with Google AdWords, small businesses have the chance to stand-up to competitors and say “No More!” They just have to tap on the shoulder of their buddy Google AdWords and then stand aside and let it do its job as the playground hero, or in this instance, the search engine hero.

PPC is evolving like crazy and is rapidly becoming a part of companies’ overall marketing budgets. Traditional media has become like a vintage bottle of wine. It looks good but it is also a really expensive luxury. With Google AdWords, however, the business controls the budget. They don’t have to fork over a million dollars for a commercial on MTV. The business simply sets a maximum cost-per-click bid (the maximum amount of money you would be willing to pay every time someone clicks on your ad) and then they have the freedom to increase or decrease the bid amount. By utilizing the handy Keyword Planner (see below), you can make sure that you are making smart business decisions.

In the above chart, you can see that the competition is medium, there is an average of 170 searches per month and the suggested bid is $1.53. This is super handy when you are trying to decide what keywords to use and how much you should bid. When you get the recipe perfect, the competitors won’t stand a chance. It’s not all about having a higher bid than your competitors. An advertiser must also make sure that they have an excellent Quality Score. This is a measurement of the quality of your ads, keywords and landing page. You can check your quality score in the Google AdWords campaign area.

Remarketing Lists for Search Ads (RLSA) is becoming a hot trend too. Google launched this nifty program back in 2013 and it has revolutionized the way we advertise to our target market. It allows businesses to reach customers in the search results page with a text ad based on:

• Having visited the advertiser’s site (received a cookie).
• Search keywords bid on.

The advertiser must add the Google SmartPixel to their website to take full advantage of RLSA features. Once the code is added to their website, the business is able to reach their customer more effectively and practice remarketing.

SearchEngineWatch.org created an article titled, Google AdWords RLS: 3 Ways to Take Full Advantage. In this article, an advertiser can learn how to maximize their full potential when using this awesome program. Here are some of the ways:

1. New Keyword Targeting: Think back to my Raf Simons example. It might be costly to maintain a high maximum cost-per-click bid. So it would be smart to target only individuals who have visited my site in the past looking for Raf Simons. RLSA allows you to do just that. I know it’s crazy, but it is creative at the same time.
2. Bidding or Even Displaying an Ad: The advertiser can also choose to not display an ad or reduce their bid if a certain customer is searching for a branded term to service their account. The opposite can also be true about a repeat customer that is consistently making purchases. It would be smart for the advertiser to raise the bid the likelihood of being spotted.
3. Targeted Ad Copy: An advertiser can welcome back a customer when using RLSA. The customer will think that it is totally cool or totally creepy. The advertiser can analyze the data to figure out if it ultimately worked.

Paid-per-click is not a marketing fad; it is here to stay. Search engine marketing will become more and more prominent as businesses rethink their marketing budgets. With technical advancements like RLSA, you are able to learn more about your customer and in return increase your ROI. It is an awesome time to be a marketer and I am glad to say that I fully support the search engine heroes like Google AdWords and their counterpart on Bing Ads. Tools like these are leveling the playing field and the winner in this case isn’t necessarily a mega brand, it’s the marketer who figures out how to configure their PPC platform most effectively.