Pay Per Click! What Is It?
Typically Pay Per Click ads are the first results presented following a search query on a major search engine. If consumers then click on an advertiser’s link and visit their site a charge is accrued. There is no charge just for seeing the advertiser’s 3 line ad copy. The consumer must actually click on the link. The quality score determines link position on a results page. It is made up of the advertiser’s bid price and the ad click-through rate also known as ctr.
Pay per click advertising has evolved rapidly over the last couple of years, though relatively new in the market. From its inception in late 90s it has taken internet marketing and advertising to exciting new levels. Prior to the Pay Per Click model it was very difficult if not impossible for new advertisers to get to the top of the search results on major search engines. With the advent of Pay Per Click all that changed. Now the subtle difference between a seller doing well and another doing better on the internet usually boils down to targeting the right keywords and sending the searcher to the right landing pages.
There’s lots of debate about Pay-Per Click advertising. Many companies love it and others feel they’ve been burned by it. All a Pay-Per-Click campaign can do is bring customers to your website. Many entrepreneurs mistakenly believe that just getting customers to their website is the final goal instead of just the beginning of the selling process. Once a advertiser understands this simple concept then they look at pay-per-click with a new appreciation.
Why? Because there’s something to gain for everyone here; the customer finds the product, the advertiser generates business and profit, and the search engine gets paid for it! With all the analytical tools that are readily available today Advertisers can invest money on the keywords they expect potential customers would enter in search queries.
Presently Google Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing and Microsoft Ad Center are the most popular search engines offering the Pay-Per-Click model. Even though it’s similar the submission process differs with each search engine. Unless an advertiser is experienced in dealing with the nuances of each engine, it is probably wise to outsource the submission and maintenance to a third party firm.
By paying for search engine traffic advertisers can make sure that the product or service gets listed and is made available to the market . Moreover, it is a total misconception that there won’t be any marketing costs in models like SEO. The amount of money spent in optimizing your keywords, creating in-bound links, understanding and applying the correct keyword density and designing a site that still converts at a reasonable roi might just overshoot what one would have paid to the search engine in exchange for sure visibility!
The pay per click model is tailor made for advertisers seeking quick results. This goes for seasonal products say chocolates, cards and other gifts which become hot selling items during festive season of Christmas. But since the market for these products exists only for a very short period the sellers wants to hog all the limelight during this period. A PPC model assures the advertiser his products or services can be found by the consumer in time to take advantage of the season.
Filed under: PPC Advertising