So what exactly is Google PPC (Pay Per Click)?

Also known as Google Ads, Pay Per Click (PPC) marketing is a form of paid advertising where you pay a fee each time an online consumer clicks on one of your adverts. This might sound expensive but in reality once the campaigns are properly optimised, you will pay far less for the click than you’ll gain from the enquiry conversion.

PPC ads come in a variety of forms. You’ll likely know the text based search ads best - those that are positioned at the top of the Google search results and marked ‘Ad’ or 'Sponsored'. However, PPC ads can also be image-based (like the display banners you find on third-party websites) or even include video content.

Traditional PPC text advertising works like an auction system, by enabling you to bid on a specific keyword for which you want to be visible, such as ‘bookkeeping in Kent’ or ‘accountants near me’. Depending on your bid amount, the relevance of your ad copy, and several other factors, Google will assign your advert a position. In order to obtain the best possible results, careful thought needs to go into the relevance of your keywords, the structure of your campaigns, your bidding strategy, and the quality of your adverts and landing pages.

Why should your accounting firm invest in PPC marketing?

PPC provides a warmer lead

Accounting is a highly competitive industry and, in order to get the edge, your business must be visible to those who are searching for your services. PPC is an effective and immediate way of increasing your brand exposure for keywords that are important and relevant to your business. Not only will it lead to increased traffic to your website, it also provides you with 'warmer' enquiries than many other methods of marketing. PPC allows you to target customers/clients who are actively searching for your services. So they end up chasing you and wanting to make an enquiry... rather than you trying to cold-contact customers for business.

PPC is entirely performance based

Because you only pay when your adverts are clicked on, it means you are billed entirely on your advert's performance. Example: Let's assume your adverts cost £1 for every click. If 300 people click your advert, then you are billed £300. If only 150 click on that advert, then the cost is reduced to £150. But if you were to spend £300 on a print magazine advert, you will be charged £300 regardless of how many people saw the advert or came to your website - it's fixed and not performance related. PPC is better.

PPC overs full coverage for brand and tactical campaigns

PPC has several functions. The first is to ensure your business is dominating the search results for your brand terms. Luckily, branded keywords are relatively inexpensive, so you can run these campaigns indefinitely. It’s also effective for seasonal advertising, enabling you to increase your visibility at key times of the year, (such as Self Assessment Tax Return dates towards December and January). But ideally you will want to target customers based on your core services. All of this can be done easily through PPC.

Complete flexibility over who to target and what message to promote

As an accounting practice, you’ll have a strong notion of who your ideal clients are. Since PPC is highly targeted, it enables you to reach those who you most wish to attract. You can target consumers by their geographic location, the device they use, specific services, and whether they’ve interacted with your ads before. This enables you to tailor your messaging to different people or businesses depending on where they are in the buying cycle.

Benefits of PPC

  • Immediate Visibility

    Unlike other forms of marketing, Google PPC Ads can be set live within 24hrs. So your advert can appear at the top of Google search results and start generating traffic and leads very quickly.

  • Highly Targeted

    You can be very specific with PPC targeting, enabling you to reach those who are more likely to convert, and avoid wastage.

  • Flexible and Adjustable Campaigns

    PPC campaigns are quick to adjust, and once the optimisation changes are entered they go live immediately. As a result, advertising on this channel can be very flexible and adaptable to your needs and any changes in your marketing campaigns.

  • Quantifiable Results

    With Google PPC advertising, KPI reports are very transparent and full of intelligent data. You will receive a clear picture of the marketing performance, so you can make informed decisions on what campaigns deliver the lion’s share of your traffic and enquiries.

  • Seasonal Advantages

    Individual PPC campaigns can be turned on and off at the touch of a button, making them ideal for seasonal advertising or to promote special offers, or new services.

Drawbacks of PPC

  • Long-term Costs

    PPC can prove costly as a long-term strategy if it isn’t properly optimised and managed professionally. For highly competitive keywords, bids can also be high and drain your budget quickly.

  • Requires Proper Management

    Regular monitoring and optimisation changes are required to achieve cost effective PPC campaigns. Poor management can be very costly if you get it wrong.

  • Traffic Doesn't Automatically Mean Sales

    PPC is great for driving relevant traffic to your site, but once visitors are there they still need to be converted into an enquiry. Effective landing pages and user experience optimisation are required to gain maximum benefit from your campaigns. Some attention may be required for your landing pages.

  • Consumers May Ignore Adverts

    Google clearly marks PPC ads, and some clients don’t like the idea of being ‘sold to’, so they avoid adverts entirely. However, that attitude is in the minority of people, and there are so many statistics from Google that show the real power and click through efficiency behind PPC adverts.

  • Ad Creative Must Be On Point

    Copy and creative for PPC and display ads can be difficult to get right first time. It’s a question of regular tweaking and optimisation before the ads will have maximum impact.

Our approach to PPC

Our approach to PPC for accountants

Our Paid Ads service will see us audit your campaigns to a significant level and include the likes of:

• Competitor research
• Keyword research
• Advert creation
• Conversion tracking
• Bid management
• Negative keywords
• Remarketing adverts
• Landing pages
• KPI reporting

PPC Features

Core Paid Ad Types

Paid Search Platforms

Leverage Google and Bing Ads to place your ads in search results, targeting users searching for keywords related to your offerings to efficiently capture high-intent traffic.

Paid Social

Engage your audience on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn with targeted ads that resonate based on user demographics, interests, and behaviours to maximise engagement and conversions.

Display Adverts

Grab attention with striking ads across the Google Display Network and other platforms, targeting users by interests and browsing behaviours to ensure your message hits the mark at just the right time.

Specialised Ad Strategies

Remarketing

Reignite interest among past website visitors who left without making a purchase. Our targeted remarketing ads follow them as they browse online, drawing them back to complete their transaction and convert.

Performance Max Campaigns

Harness the power of Google's advanced machine learning to supercharge your ads across all Google channels to automatically optimise and position your ads to hit your conversion targets with precision.

Landing Page Development

Craft bespoke landing pages that resonate powerfully with your target audience. Our optimised designs enhance user experience and skyrocket conversion rates by delivering content that captivates and converts.

Get in touch for a customised quote

Why choose us for your Google PPC marketing campaigns?

We specialise in the UK accounting sector

Whitefish Marketing is a specialist in digital marketing for accountants. Not only do we have the expert knowledge required to make you competitive online, we also have a deep understanding of the UK accounting industry, and can offer tailored marketing services to ensure you meet your goals and targets.

We are Google Ads Certified

As a Google Ads certified agency, we have a professional accreditation that demonstrates our proficiency in both basic and advanced aspects of Google PPC advertising. Google recognises us as an expert in this area of digital marketing, meaning you can trust our judgement and guidance.

We have 10+ years experience working with accountants

We have over 10 years of experience in digital marketing for this sector, and our current clients range from small & independent accountancy practices, right through to firms on the Accountancy Age Top 100 list. Whatever your needs, we can help you grow your business with strategic and highly-targeted PPC campaigns.

We are proactive and professional

Our proactive approach means we are constantly monitoring your account and optimising it where necessary to ensure the best possible performance. We will also provide recommendations that we feel will benefit you, as well as updating you on any changes in the digital sphere that may impact you. Get in touch today for a consultation.

PPC Advertising For Accountants
Frequently Asked Questions

PPC FAQs

The cost of PPC advertising varies widely depending on geographic location, seasonality, activity from competitors, and campaign target (for example; bookkeeping campaigns might cost more than auditing campaigns). A Whitefish Marketing expert can help advise you on projected costs after a discussion about your specific needs.
No. While you will need to sign our standard contract to take up any of our marketing services, in terms of PPC we work on a rolling monthly basis, so should you decide to cancel you will simply need to give a month’s notice. Simple as that.
Your PPC budget - or ad spend - is solely for the purpose of advertising, and is paid directly to Google. Every penny from it goes into your campaigns, ensuring you get maximum exposure and an optimal cost per lead. We charge a separate management fee on top, for the service of our PPC experts who will meticulously monitor and optimise your campaigns for improved cost efficiency. That management fee goes to Whitefish Marketing.
Yes, this is a possibility if not managed correctly. If we manage your PPC campaigns, we monitor your ad spend throughout the course of the month and make adjustments accordingly to try and reach your budget limit without going over. We create daily caps, so once your spend limit has been reached for the day your advert won't show again until the next day. We can also advise on how your budget could be better spent, or if there are areas where we can see added exposure by adding in more budget. We have all these tools at our disposal to give you an informed decision on your marketing spend.
Yes and No. Yes they can click on your adverts, but No it won't negatively impact your budget in a big way. "Click fraud" is something that Google are very attuned with, and their systems try to reduce any invalid activity for your account. E.g. one method is if they see multiple clicks routinely from the same IP address, then they will not bill you for those additional clicks as they believe it to be suspect. Google's interest is to keep you advertising with them every month, so they want to minimize any misconduct.
We’re happy to take over the management of existing campaigns. As a first step when they are transferred to us, we always analyse the account setup and the performance of your current campaigns before advising on the best course of action. It may be that the current structure isn’t working as efficiently as it could and a new set of campaigns would perform better.
Yes - if you choose to manage your own paid advertising campaigns, we can conduct a thorough PPC audit and give recommendations that you can implement yourself. Speak with one of the team for more information and costs on that.
Our PPC manager will monitor and optimise your account and each campaign at least three times a week, making changes where necessary to improve performance. In addition to this, we have a weekly team meeting to go through each PPC client account and ensure things are progressing in the best direction. If there are any major updates, or we have access to pertinent information that we feel should be brought to your attention, we will also contact you. We also provide you with a comprehensive KPI report at the end of each month, including commentary and recommendations for the next month.
All the key performance indicators (KPIs) that are relevant to your campaigns will be included in your monthly reports. We’ll tell you how many impressions and clicks your ads are receiving, what the average cost per click is, and how much each enquiry is costing. Of course, if you feel the report is missing something that’s important to your goals, we’ll be happy to add it in. We also have some comprehensive lead tracking software which can show you your enquiry data live, during the month. Ask one of our team for a demo!
Yes. Each campaign is comprised of an advert, and that advert is in turn broken down into numerous elements (E.g. a Heading and a Description). By using multiple variations of each element, it offers multiple split test combinations of the advert, which Google will continuously ‘cycle’ through to find the best performing variation.
PPC click through rates (CTR) are typically fairly low to begin with. It might seem to you that a 4% CTR is very low; however, the average CTR across all industries is 3.17%, which would mean your campaigns are outperforming those of many businesses. Over time, we can help improve your ‘AdCopy’ efficiency and increase your CTR – we have achieved rates as high as 20%+ in the past. (But everything is also dependant on levels of competition, your USPs and marketing message, and the types of keywords being targeted.) If you have any concerns about the performance of your campaigns, please speak to our team.
There are many options for PPC advert placement, but we focus on Google’s platform, which includes Google search results and the Google Display Network, which comprises over two million websites, videos (E.g. YouTube) and apps where your adverts can be displayed. Where appropriate we can also manage PPC advertising on other platforms such as Bing, Facebook and LinkedIn.
PPC is a really useful addition to your SEO efforts. It’s much more reactive than SEO, enabling you to advertise offers and services immediately. It also enables you to control targeting, spend and advert copy with ease. Tweaks and adjustments can be made and set live in a matter of minutes, giving you unrivalled flexibility over your advertising. Moreover, PPC is completely performance based – you are only ever charged when someone clicks on your advert.
Retargeting is a form of PPC advertising. It specifically targets people who have already visited your website recently. Your adverts will then ‘follow’ them around the internet whilst they browse other websites, enticing them to return back to your website. Retargeting enables you to create customised display ads for the user’s needs based on their activity on your site. If, for example, they looked at your bookkeeping page, you can serve them adverts solely about your bookkeeping services. And once again, you only pay when they click on the advert and return back to your site, so you get a lot of brand exposure for free as well.
You will likely hear us mention negative keywords at some point when we’re managing your campaigns. These are words or phrases that we DON’T want your adverts appearing for. Negative keywords for accountants might include “vacancies” or “jobs” if you are not advertising any vacancies. Another example might be when doing a self-assessment tax return campaign, we might include “HRMC” as a negative keyword as many people might wastefully click on your advert assuming you are a contact for HMRC.
There are a number of reasons why you might not see your PPC advert when you search for it yourself. If a daily budget has been set, this may have been reached, meaning your ads won’t be shown until the following day. It wouldn’t appear either if you are making the search from outside a targeted location for a campaign. There are many other reasons why you might not be seeing your advert live, constantly whenever you search. Speak with a member of our team and we can better explain in more detail.

So what's stopping you?

Call today on 01303 720 288 or fill out our enquiry form below.