Online Business

Pay Per Click is an advertising method used online in websites, blogs, search engines, and more. Advertisers only pay the host of their ad when their site is clicked, as opposed to when the site is only viewed.

Pay Per Click, or PPC as it’s called, stemmed from Cost per Mille, or CPM. When advertisers realized they weren’t reaching a target market, and were therefore paying for partially useless ads, they decided something needed to be done about it. PPC was soon invented to help take away that burden. Both are still useful; some companies would rather spend more efforts on attracting a wide audience, while some companies like the targeted nature of PPC. What’s more cost-effective? That’s up to the advertiser.

 

Let’s get back to PPC ads. Several companies have specific programs dedicated to PPC advertising. Within Google there’s AdWords. Yahoo! Has Search Marketing, Microsoft has adCenter, etc. This is designed so that businesses of any size can display ads on Google. The best part? They only have to pay if people click directly on the ads.

 

When businesses normally go about trying to find customers, many resources are wasted. There are hours and hours put into researching the best place to put ads, what they should look like, etc. Then there’s the decision of where to put it. The biggest problem? There’s no way to target your market. Let’s pretend you have a candy company. When you advertise on a billboard, you’re paying a lot of money to attract only a portion of your audience. Not everyone driving by likes candy! If you advertise in the newspaper, you may get a somewhat more specific audience, but it’s still general. If you were to advertise in a magazine, well, you wouldn’t advertise in Gun & Garden Magazine, would you? No, but you could advertise in kids’ magazines, food and candy related magazines, women’s weeklies, and more.

 

Where the internet is concerned, however, you have the greatest way of targeting your audience, and you don’t even have to work at it! What happens is that you create the ads and choose the keywords that are most relevant. In this case they might be candy, sweets, sweet shop, candy shop, sugar, treat, (name of store), (name of store’s candy), the name of the town the shop is in, etc. Google will even give you ideas to help you out. When people do a Google search for your company or for something related, your ad may appear next to the search results (in the right-hand side bar). This is truly targeted marketing. You’re attracting people you know are interested in what your business has to offer.

 

The secret to an effective PPC campaign? Knowing the right keywords, having a concise, luring ad, and having a persuasive page that the potential customer will click through to. You must be able to deliver. If you’re going to go to the effort and cost to use a PPC campaign, make sure the end product is worth it.

 

If you don’t have an experience team writing for you, at least find an SEO professional. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) writers know exactly the keywords and sites to use to net you the best result, so invest wisely.

Now is it possible that someone could try to sabotage a business, or worse, up their own income as a host to ads? Yes, by clicking multiple times on links, this was possible not long ago. Recently, however, Google and other search engines came up with a system to prevent this so-called click fraud.

 

There are two ways to determine the cost per click: flat-rate and bid-based.

 

-         In a flat-rate PPC system, both the advertiser and the publisher agree upon a fixed amount that will be paid for each click. Many companies will do this negotiation before it reaches a host. Content that attracts the most targeted visitors have a higher PPC.

 

-         In a bid-based model, the advertiser will sign a special contract allowing them to compete against other advertisers in an advertising network on even in a private auction.

 

Each unique keyword phrase, such as “homemade candy,” has a specific bidding price. Remember, however, that thousands are competing against your company. Make sure you and your SEO writer know what you’re doing to achieve high rankings.

 

Since blogs and websites are still growing, investing in targeted PPC campaigns is a definite way to go. Costs are usually cheap and pay off quickly. You’re essentially getting people who are already interested in your subject interested in your company.

 

Overall, Pay Per Click advertising is still hailed as one of the most cost-effective ways to advertise in the current world. While television and movie ads are decreasing or being skipped entirely by internet watchers and Tivo users, internet marketing is still going strong, and PPC advertising takes full advantage of this, creating over 15 billion dollars in paid search markets.

Advertisers benefit from PPC campaigns because it’s simple, they have great control, and they receive almost immediate feedback. Ads usually range between $5 to $10 per click, but prices vary widely. It’s effective, but not cheap, so be sure your ad is catchy and delivers the right keywords!