Pay per click (PPC) is often overlooked by small businesses because they don’t realize how effective a well-planned PPC campaign can be for them. But, a PPC campaign that has realistic goals can be very lucrative. Here are eight tactics that work very well to improve your business when PPC is used.

1. Remarketing – It’s not just for big business; small businesses can also remarket too. Basically you sign up with an agency such as Google or something like Remarketing.com. They will provide the technology which puts a cookie on the computer that has visited your website but not converted. Then, when the visitor goes to other pages, they will see mention of your website.

2. Build Your List – Instead of using PPC to sell the actual products you want to sell, use it to build your list. You can offer a freebie of some kind in exchange for an email address. Once they’re on your list, you can now market all your products and services to them instead of just one at a time.

3. Local Targeting – Even if you have a national or international business, local targeting is a good thing to do. Write content that is focused on a particular location that has a high amount of your target audience.

4. Segmentation – When you plan a PPC campaign, you want to segment your market down as small as you can for each type of advertisement that you create. You can use the tools available to target only certain people with the ads that you create.

5. Make Better Landing Pages – When you plan a PPC campaign you should create special landing and sales pages for each advertisement. This will help ensure that you target the people that you want to target – not just with the ad that they click, but on the page they land. You can use software like LeadPages.net to make it simpler.

6. Test Everything – Testing is important in all marketing and advertising, but don’t be tempted to skip it with PPC. Try two different PPC ads targeted to the same audience with just one minor thing changed such as headline, or use the same ad targeted to different audiences to figure out which responds most. The important thing is to only change one aspect at a time.

7. People First – With all the focus on keywords, content, and technology, don’t forget that first and foremost you’re marketing to human beings; humans with thoughts and feelings and the ability to differentiate between a good deal and a bad deal.

8. Study Your Numbers – Nothing is ever complete without studying the numbers. At various points during your PPC campaign, compare the results with your goals. If they’re not lining up then you need to adjust the campaign.

Running a successful PPC campaign is easy for small business owners today with the tools available on Google as well as social media like Facebook. But, before you start, ensure that you have a goal in mind, and that you have prepared for the PPC campaign to be successful. Nothing is worse than having your site crash due to too much traffic, or the newsletter sign-up form not working. Be prepared, get ready, and go.