You might have heard that no one clicks on Google ads and sponsored results, but that would be wrong. Studies continue to show increased importance of PPC and companies jumping to expand their PPC marketing plans.

What the User Doesn’t Know…

When Wordstream put together an infographic on PPC results, they found that over 64 percent of high commercial intent keyword searchers (or people clearly looking to buy) clicked on sponsored results, compared to the 35 percent who clicked on organic (or unpaid) links. When customers are looking to purchase, they see sponsored results sooner and choose them over other options.

• On average the top three paid ad spots get 41% of clicks
• 45% of users couldn’t identify paid ads on page when there wasn’t a separated column

These numbers mean that most users don’t even realize they are looking at ads. Thus, the frequent exposure, higher in the search results, generates more clicks for PPC companies.

Professional Opinion Says “Yes”

When Marketing Sherpa did a study with various marketing professionals they found a majority considered PPC to be more effective than email marketing, social media and print advertising. In fact, out of the 1,915 surveyed, only 9 percent of marketing experts said they did not consider PPC effective at generating business leads. Yet, PPC came in as the second highest effective marketing tactic (right under SEO), as only 48 percent of those market experts said they used PPC as a major part of their marketing tactics.

PPC Expansion for 2014

Hanapin Marketing found in their 2013 State of Paid Search report, 63 percent of the companies who responded were spending over $300,000 on their PPC budgets. These companies included many different industries, with the highest number working in retail.

• 95% said text ads were very important
• 65% said remarketing was very important
• 68% said social ads were moderate-to-not important

In this same study by Hanapin, they found that 64 percent of these company leaders planned to expand their spending in search engine ads.

• 83% of those surveyed said they felt “good or very good” about the PPC market.
• Google Adwords and Bing Ads were the top two markets where companies were looking to increase their spending in 2014
• 85% plan to focus more on their landing pages and conversion rate optimization (CRO)