Do you remember when the DIY home improvement craze took hold in the 1990s? DIY is still pretty popular today, although it’s no longer limited to renovating one’s house. The mindset has expanded to include lots of other things. Take pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. So many businesses try to do it themselves when they really should hire a professional.

PPC services are exactly what their name implies. They are a set of services designed to leverage PPC advertising on behalf of a company. That company, also known as the advertiser, is hoping to drive traffic and increase revenue.

It might seem simple enough to buy some PPC ads and let them run. but PPC is far more complicated. That being the case, here are five reasons to pay for PPC services rather than trying to handle it on your own:

1. Keyword Competition Is Fierce

When, wear, and how frequently your PPC ads run depend heavily on targeted keywords. And according to Webtek Digital Marketing based in Salt Lake City, UT, keyword competition is fierce in the PPC game. Choose the wrong keywords and you could spend a ton of money while getting very little in return.

It’s not always about choosing the most competitive keywords. Sometimes you want significantly less competitive keywords more conducive to lower bids while still generating more traffic over the long term. Simply put, your PPC efforts could fail if you don’t understand both how to do keyword research and how to use the data that it reveals.

2. Bidding Can Be Tricky

Webtek explains that PPC advertising is built on a bidding model. Advertisers bid a price they are willing to pay for certain keywords. That price determines how much they pay every time an ad is clicked. However, bidding can be tricky business. It can be so difficult that Google offers an automated bidding tool. The tool works well for newbies, but there’s no way it can maximize on advertisers bid potential because it needs to appeal to so many different needs.

3. PPC Is Linked With SEO

PPC services are often provided by digital marketing and SEO providers because they are so closely linked with SEO itself. It doesn’t make any sense to invest in PPC if you are not also investing in SEO. Likewise, it makes sense to consider PPC if you’re already paying for SEO services.

4. Where Traffic Goes Matters

A lot of small business owners who handle PPC on their own don’t understand a fundamental truth: where traffic generated from their ads ends up actually matters. Paid ads are designed to drive traffic, but not for traffic’s sake. The goal is to increase traffic in order to also increase conversions. Therefore, visitors need to land on a page capable of guiding them to whatever action the website owner is looking for.

5. PPC Fraud Is a Real and Serious Problem

Last but not least is PPC fraud. It is a very real and serious problem that collectively costs advertisers billions annually. A reputable PPC service provider understands PPC fraud, how to identify it, and how to stop it. A small business owner ignorant of the realities of this problem could spend his entire advertising budget on fraudulent clicks that don’t produce a single sale.

PPC advertising still works today. It represents an effective way to drive traffic and do so quickly. But if it’s not done properly, you can waste a lot of money. If you want to utilize PPC to enhance your marketing efforts, I would personally recommend paid PPC services.