In 2024, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising remains a crucial part of any digital marketing strategy. As competition grows and online marketing becomes more complex, using the best PPC tools available can make a significant difference. These tools help businesses optimize their ads, manage campaigns more efficiently, and get better returns on their advertising spend (ROAS).
Keep reading our article to find out more about the best PPC tools and why you should consider adding them to your technology stack.
Why PPC Tools Are Essential in 2024
The digital world is constantly changing. With new technologies emerging and user behaviors shifting, businesses need to adapt quickly. PPC tools help marketers stay up-to-date with these changes by providing the latest features and insights. These tools allow businesses to navigate the complexities of online advertising, ensuring that their campaigns are effective and relevant to their target audience.
Managing multiple campaigns across different platforms, targeting the right audience, and optimizing ad performance can also be challenging. PPC tools simplify this process by automating many tasks, providing detailed analytics, and offering strategic, data-driven recommendations so businesses can make informed decisions and campaigns can reach the best results possible.
What to Look for in a PPC Tool
Several key trends are shaping the PPC industry in 2024. The most prominent are Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. These technologies enable smarter targeting, personalized ad experiences, and predictive analytics. By using AI, marketers can create more effective campaigns that reach the right audience at the right time.
Managing PPC campaigns across multiple platforms, like Google Ads, Facebook Ads, and LinkedIn, can be overwhelming. Cross-platform management tools allow marketers to control all their campaigns from a single dashboard, making it easier to track performance and make adjustments as needed. This goes hand in hand with automation, which is becoming a standard feature in the best PPC tools. From automatic bid adjustments to ad scheduling, these tools help streamline campaign management, allowing marketers to focus on strategy and creativity.
And finally, with increasing concerns about privacy and data security, PPC tools are evolving to ensure compliance with regulations like GDPR. These tools help businesses protect user data while still delivering targeted ads. Marketers need to be aware of these considerations to keep trust with their audience.
Some other very important points to consider when choosing the best PPC tool for your business are:
- A good PPC tool should be easy to use, even for beginners. Look for tools with a simple and intuitive interface that makes campaign management straightforward.
- Your PPC tool should integrate smoothly with other marketing platforms and tools, such as CRM systems, email marketing software, and social media platforms.
- As your business grows, your PPC needs may change. Choose a tool that offers customization options and can scale with your business.
The Best PPC Tools in 2024
Whether you’re looking to refine your targeting, optimize bids, or gain deeper insights into your audience, the following PPC tools are poised to help you achieve your marketing goals more effectively than ever before. And to help you find the one that best fits your goals, we’ve categorized them for you.
PPC Analysis Tools
PPC analysis tools can help you monitor your campaigns and gather relevant data to uncover insights and trends. This data allows you to make data-driven decisions and improve your campaign performance. Here are some remarkable PPC analysis tools:
Semrush: A powerful all-in-one marketing toolkit, Semrush offers comprehensive PPC analysis features. You can track campaign performance, analyze competitors, and identify keyword opportunities.
Attribution App: This PPC analysis tool allows you to track and analyze your ROAS by channel. It works by collecting cost data from all major ad platforms; this data can then be used to correlate ad spend to users.
ClickGUARD: ClickGUARD offers advanced click forensics—that is, detailed information about each and every click on your Google Ads campaigns. This allows you to make data-driven decisions about each of your ad campaigns. You can effectively block spammy clicks, click bots, or irrelevant traffic, allowing your campaigns to be shown to relevant users.
Ruler Analytics: Ruler Analytics is a marketing analytics and attribution tool that allows you to better understand and track the entire customer journey. It works by tracking visitors over multiple sessions, traffic sources, ads, etc. This is also a great tool to track the ROI and impact of PPC campaigns.
PPC Management Tools
PPC management tools automate many time-consuming tasks while providing relevant campaign insights. These tools usually bring the benefit of simplifying campaign management and saving marketers precious time. Here are some of the best PPC management tools in 2024:
AdEspresso: One of the many marketing software powered by Hootsuite, AdEspresso helps you create and optimize Facebook, Instagram, and Google Ads campaigns. The tool has features for ad creation, optimization, and reporting.
Optimyzr: As the name suggests, this popular tool optimizes nearly every aspect of PPC management—bidding, budget, keywords management, quality score, and reporting. It is a complex tool and fully compatible with Google, Microsoft, and Amazon ads.
Wordstream: Another PPC campaign management software that has a lot of interesting features for PPC marketers. It is a good choice for marketing agencies, as it supports unlimited users and allows tracking different client accounts. The tool also has keyword research capabilities and is compatible with Google, Microsoft, and Facebook ads.
PPC Keyword Research Tools
Keyword research is an essential part of building a PPC campaign. While both Google and Microsoft offer their own keyword planners, marketers’ constant need for more and better data has led to the creation of several good keyword research tools. These top PPC keyword research tools help you identify and prioritize the right keywords for your ad campaigns:
Semrush: Among its many interesting tools, Semrush offers both a keyword and a competitor research tool. It gives you insight into potential keywords and what keywords your competitors are already using. Now, with the help of an AI-powered feature, it also provides specific data for your site, such as personal keyword difficulty, your topical authority on a certain keyword, and your potential position on SERP.
Ahrefs: A popular SEO tool that also offers robust keyword research capabilities, including keyword difficulty and backlink analysis. Uncover hidden keyword opportunities, powerful keyword suggestions, and competitive analysis, and gain a competitive edge by identifying low-hanging keywords and untapped niches.
KWFinder: A straightforward keyword research tool, known to offer good keyword insights across categories. The platform makes it easy to find keywords with low SEO difficulty.
PPC Competitor Analysis Tools
Running PPC campaigns can be a competitive activity. You are, after all, competing for clicks. Luckily, you don’t have to rely on just guesswork. Competitor research tools offer insights into what your competition is doing in terms of PPC campaigns. Some of these best PPC tools can provide a good way to boost your PPC campaigns.
Ahrefs: Even though it is generally known as an SEO tool, Ahrefs also offers some useful features for PPC campaigns. In addition to keyword research, it can also give offer a lot of insight into your competition.
Semrush: Semrush allows you to perform competitive research on ads. You can find out what keywords your competition is targeting and understand their landing page strategies and how much they’re spending.
SimilarWeb: With SimilarWeb, you can compare your results to your closest competitors. This can help you identify what you are doing well or how you can improve your campaigns, and also new trends and opportunities.
PPC Landing Page Tools
Using custom landing pages for each of your PPC campaigns allows you to ensure the landing page created is highly relevant to your campaign. This will give your marketing strategy coherence. Relevancy should also give you a higher conversion rate for your PPC efforts. Here are our best PPC tools for custom landing pages:
Unbounce: A popular landing page builder known for its user-friendly interface and extensive customization options. Create high-converting landing pages tailored to your specific goals and track their performance with Unbounce’s built-in analytics.
Leadpages: Focuses on lead generation and conversion optimization. With Leadpages, you can quickly build landing pages, capture leads, and integrate with popular marketing tools.
Optimizely: A powerful A/B testing platform that helps you optimize your landing pages for maximum conversions. Experiment with different elements, track performance, and make data-driven decisions to improve results.
Free PPC tools
A tight budget shouldn’t hinder your marketing efforts. There are amazing free PPC tools out there that can deliver impressive results without breaking the bank. Some even offer freemium versions with advanced features. Check out these top free PPC tools:
Google Keyword Planner and Microsoft Advertising Keyword Planner: While they offer limited data compared to paid options, these keyword planners are valuable free tools for beginners, providing keyword suggestions, search volume data, and competition analysis.
Google Trends: This tool helps you identify trending topics and keywords, which can be useful for your PPC campaigns.
Ubersuggest: A free keyword research tool that offers suggestions, search volume data, and competitor analysis. It also provides backlink data and social media metrics.
Google Search Console: While not exclusively a Google PPC tool, Search Console is essential for understanding your website’s performance in search results. Monitor your website’s visibility, identify technical issues, and submit sitemaps to improve organic search rankings.
Google Analytics: A powerful tool for tracking website traffic and user behavior. Google Analytics provides valuable insights into your audience, conversion rates, and other key metrics that can inform your PPC campaigns. By understanding your website visitors, you can create more targeted and effective ads.
