What is Pay Per Click?

Pay Per Click (PPC) is a form of online advertising where advertisers pay a fee each time one of their ads is clicked. It’s a way to buy visits to your website rather than attempt to attract them organically.

Introduction

Have you ever seen advertisements alongside the search results when browsing the internet? These advertisements, whether on Google or other search engines, are a form of pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. 

Pay-per-click, or PPC, is an advertising model commonly used in online campaigns to drive more traffic to a website. It is considered one of the most crucial aspects of digital marketing, especially considering how effective the strategy is in increasing the visibility of a website. Therefore, people looking to successfully market their products or services should consider engaging in PPC advertising.

But what exactly is PPC? And how does it work? Read this article to find out PPC meaning and the different PPC services associated with this form of advertising!

What is Pay-Per-Click Advertising?

Pay-per-click is a digital marketing model aiming to generate traffic to a particular website. With this advertising model, the advertiser pays a set fee to the publisher (or host website) each time an ad is clicked on. In other words, the company or firm looking to drive traffic to their website pays for targeted visits to their landing pages.

PPC ads come in different forms depending on the type of product or service being advertised. They can be made up of videos, images, text, or even a combination of these types. Also, the ads come in a wide range of sizes and shapes. They are usually designed to appear on different search engines, social media platforms, and websites. They feature an appealing design that tempts website visitors to click on them and engage with the ad.

How Does Pay-Per-Click Advertising Work?

An important fact to note is that PPC advertising varies from one platform to another. However, regardless of the platform used, all advertising processes follow these six simple steps:

1. Identify and analyze your marketing objectives.
2. Choose your ideal type of campaign.
3. Refine your audience targeting, schedule, devices, and settings.
4. Outline your bidding strategy and intended budget.
5. Input your landing page or destination URL.
6. Start building your PPC ad, after which it can then be added to the host website pages for marketing.

But what if you want your PPC ads to appear more prominently alongside the search engine results than your competitors? Contrary to what most people think, paying a higher fee does not mean your ads will rank high on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). Instead, all PPC ads are subject to the Ad Auction, an automated process that search engines, such as Google, use to analyze the validity and relevance of any ads that appear on the SERPs.

Also, factors such as the amount of money you pay for every click and when and where the PPC ad appears are determined algorithmically considering your campaign settings, budget, ad quality, bid and the ad’s relevance. However, if you always create trustworthy and relevant PPC campaigns, you can rest assured of having higher positioning on search engine results, as well as lower costs of PPC advertising.

Advantages of Pay-Per-Click

So why should you consider including PPC services in your digital marketing strategy? Consider these four advantages that you stand to gain from engaging in PPC advertising:

1. Saves Costs

PPC is one of the most cost-effective methods of advertising sellers can engage in. Since advertisers only pay the host website when an online ad gets clicked on, they save on a lot of cash which would’ve otherwise been spent investing into multiple campaigns whose profitability cannot be measured quantitatively. 

Besides, the fee you pay the host website is very trivial, considering the worth of every click. Say, for instance, that you pay a fee of $3 for every click. If this particular click results in a $500 sale or more, you will have made a significant profit worth more than the fee you pay. This makes PPC very cost-effective and a worthwhile model of advertising to undertake.

2. Provides Ad Information 

When you start PPC advertising, you want to create ads that drive traffic to your site, not dormant ads that do not generate positive results. However, you cannot determine how well an ad is performing if you do not have access to this information. 

Fortunately, most platforms that offer PPC services provide the advertiser with all the information they need to analyze the performance of their ads. Some of the information included the total number of impressions made on the ad, conversions, clicks, and any other information about what is happening with the ad. With this information, the advertiser can customise the ad to attract a higher number of the target audience and generate more conversions.

3. Reaches the Target Audience

PPC advertising offers many segmentation options, ensuring that you do not get to waste even a single click. After all, only your target audience will be able to see your ads. And since someone who is part of your target audience has a higher likelihood of clicking on the ads, you can expect to yield better results from your advertising. Besides, the more your ads get clicked on, the lower the overall cost of the ads will be.

4. Guarantees Better Performance and Visibility

In other advertising models, the advertiser is required to pay a fee for their ads to be shown without any guarantee that the ads will generate positive results. On the contrary, pay-per-click allows advertisers to pay only for the site visits they receive, which guarantees the performance of their ads.

Even better, some sites allow you to choose when and where your ads will be shown. Not only does this permit you to choose as many locations and platforms as possible, but you can also choose specific sites that your target audience frequently visits. This strategy can help you drive more website traffic and increase your conversion rate.

Conclusion

So, is Pay-Per-Click or PPC worth it? Absolutely! When you understand the key concepts of PPC advertising and learn how to use it well, you can rest assured of higher traffic towards your site, which will lead to more conversions and sales. Indeed, PPC advertising is compulsory for all those looking to improve their digital marketing strategies!