Building a PPC Campaign for Golf Courses

Golfing is a popular pastime and professional sport, creating a wide market for golf courses. As a local business, targeting the online audience searching to play in your area is critical. One of the best approaches to targeting these audiences quickly and effectively is pay-per-click (PPC) advertising.

The PPC method lets you set your budget and capture high-intent leads when they’re searching keywords like “golf courses near me.”

On this page, the experts at WebFX will walk you through PPC campaign basics and the steps you can use to launch a successful campaign. If you’d like more professional insights from WebFX, subscribe to Revenue Weekly!

What is a PPC campaign, and how does it work?

PPC is a widely used digital advertising method where the marketer pays a fee each time a lead clicks their ad. Every time someone searches, the Google algorithm has an almost instant bidding process to decide advertiser ranking based on the maximum bids and ad quality scores. Essentially, you pay the advertiser to deliver visits to your website.

PPC ads can appear on search engines, social media, third-party websites, and more. The most popular method is search engine advertising — the links that appear at the top of the search engine results page (SERP) are PPC ads. 

When you have a highly effective PPC campaign, the cost of the click becomes insignificant because the actual return on investment (ROI) is so valuable.

How can a PPC campaign help my golf course?

A particular audience is searching for golf courses in their area or as a destination vacation. Your goal is to target the leads in your area at the right time.

There are multiple benefits to choosing a PPC campaign for a golf course, including:

• Fast results: PPC campaigns allow you to see rapid results. When you launch your campaign, PPC works for you and provides real-time analytics.
• Controlled budget: Whether you spend thousands of dollars or a hundred, you only pay for the ad space when leads respond by clicking.
• Targeted leads: 65% of all high-intent searches lead users to choose a PPC ad rather than an organic link on the SERP. This audience is actively seeking to find your golf course, and if they want to plan their next outing, you’ve caught them at the right time.

5 phases to building a successful PPC campaign for your golf course

Walk through these five steps to prep and launch your PPC campaign.

1. Determine your budget

Before launching your PPC campaign, you must determine your budget. Google Ads provides helpful estimates to help you choose the cost-per-click (CPC). The tool allows you to enter your maximum bid and estimate how much it costs to rank for your selected keywords. 

2. Choose your campaign type

There are many campaign types you can use to reach your audience. The main options include:

• Ecommerce ads: These ads focus on the Google Shopping platform to sell products. 
• Instream ads: Like a television commercial, these ads play before a YouTube video. 
• Search ads: These ads appear above the organic search results on the SERP. 
• Social ads: As users scroll through the platform, they will see social ads on their feeds. 
• Remarketing ads: These ads target customers who have already visited your website to invite them back with a call-to-action (CTA). 
• Display ads: A display ad appears on a third-party website to target users as they browse the Internet. 

3. Design action-oriented landing pages

Once a lead clicks through your PPC ad, they go to a landing page. These pages include a strong call-to-action (CTA), which is critical to drawing users to make a purchase or contact you. 

Include a CTA on the page so the customer doesn’t have to navigate away from the landing page to accomplish something. For example, a golf course might feature a CTA inviting users to schedule their time slot at the course or book a coaching session. 

4. Select your keywords

The next phase in the process is to use a tool like KeywordsFX to learn the keywords you’d like to target and how much competition you face. Your golf course might target the keyword “golf training course near me.” If there are multiple golf courses in your area, you may need to compete for this keyword. 

5. Test and optimize your ads

The final step is to test each PPC ad through the A/B test. For A/B testing, you must create two identical ads, with each having a single key difference. You present each to your audience and observe which ad is more popular to optimize your campaign.

Meet WebFX:

Your world-class, tech-enabled marketing agency with over 1.6 million hours of combined expertise.

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Are you ready to level up your advertising with a PPC ad campaign?

A properly strategized PPC campaign can help your golf course to reach the sports lovers who can become your customers. If you’d like to expand your brand’s reach dramatically, WebFX is ready to help with world-class PPC services.

WebFX is an all-in-one digital marketing firm that provides solutions for various industries. We have an extensive team of digital advertising and PPC experts who drive online success for your business. 

Our team also offers keyword research services to discover the best targets for your campaign and design ads and landing pages. Then, we’ll analyze your ad’s performance and optimize it for maximum effectiveness.

Ready to take the next step? Contact WebFX online now or give us a call at 888-601-5359.

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