Given the increasing competition in the digital space, marketers are always on the lookout to take their clients’ businesses a step further. While most marketers prefer taking the safe route to achieve results, a few others charter unexplored, cutthroat (and sometimes dubious) waters which test the limits on business ethics.
Not only can unethical practices tarnish your practice, it could also do more harm than good and get your client’s business into legal trouble. No matter which aspect of the job you’re dealing with, ethics must be a priority.
Let’s examine Business Ethics from a PPC point of view. When you use good business ethics to set up your PPC campaign, you gain the trust of your customers, build a strong relationship with them, garner a better reputation and establish yourself as a transparent and honest marketer. Your ad performance will be better and your customers transform into brand ambassadors. The PPC campaign should be constructed to aid customers without deceiving them, while also benefiting the business.
Here’s what you must ensure to seal your reputation as an ethical business from a PPC perspective:
Healthy competition is appreciated in the business space, but click fraud is unhealthy. Click fraud refers to the unhealthy practice of generating fraudulent charges for competitors by clicking on their ads over and over again, thus exhausting their ad budget. This is an instance of fraud and is a level not worth stooping to.
Follow the EAT guidelines (Expertise in your industry, Authoritativeness with a good reputation and Trustworthiness) as a rule of thumb when drafting PPC copy.
Misinformation with misleading advertisements is a highly unethical practice which could tarnish a customer’s trust in a business.
Remember, PPC campaigns are not just about getting people onto your page, it is about getting their attention, winning their trust and converting them into customers.
Ethics are those guiding moral principles which set the tone for everything you do. From a digital marketer’s perspective, it could range from how you use advertisements to rope in customers to what information your client captures to how your client completes a sale.