What is Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising?
When you search on Google or Yahoo for any given search term, little text advertisements or ‘Sponsored Links’ appear at the top and on the right hand side of each results page. This is “Pay Per Click” advertising – so called because the advertiser pays when the visitor clicks on their advertisement to take them to their website.
This is distinct from the ‘natural’ or ‘organic listings’ which appear as the main body of the results page on the left hand side – here there is no charge to the website owner for ‘referring’ visitors to their website. The techniques used to gain top positions in the natural listings are known as Search Engine Optimisation or SEO.
How PPC works
Broadly speaking, with PPC the advertiser bids for position – the more you are prepared to pay for the visitor’s click, the higher up the page your ad appears. (It is more complex than that now as PPC search engines factor in relevancy of your ads and your website, but the principle still stands.)
It is generally believed that the top five positions for any given search attract about 75% of the clicks, so it’s not difficult to see why there is often fierce competition for those positions. However it's not always necessary to appear at the top of the listings to get good levels of clicks and conversion - there is normally an optimal position and you have to weigh cost against the return you make.
Why is Pay Per Click Advertising such good news for advertisers?
Lord Leverhulm famously said “I know that half my advertising is wasted. The problem is, I don’t know which half”. Well, with Pay Per Click advertising you do!
There are many benefits to Pay Per Click advertising, but foremost for the advertiser is the fact that you only pay when someone clicks on your ad. You already know they are interested in what you have to offer because they have searched on one of your chosen search terms, so when they click on your ad it demonstrates they have a specific interest in your website. We call this ‘qualified traffic’ or, to put it another way, gold dust!
There are a number of factors which set Pay Per Click advertising apart from conventional forms of advertising:
- It is measurable, so you know whether it’s working or not
- It is immediate – it is quick to setup and it can be turned on and off like a tap
- It is responsive – it begins to produce results within minutes
- It is generally cheap to test – from around £50
- It can be very profitable
Response and conversion are instantly measurable down to the search term level so you can tell which parts of your campaign are most profitable. As with all direct response advertising, the approach is to monitor regularly and consistently prune out the less effective elements of your campaign, concentrating the budget on what works best and testing new things to try to improve its overall profitability.
Click Fraud
Some website owners fear that pay per click advertising is open to ‘click fraud’ – or people repeatedly clicking on your ads to ramp up your costs and spoil your campaign.
The major search engines have systems in place to detect and eradicate suspicious activity. If you think about it, it’s not in their interests to allow click fraud to go unchecked as it could impair your campaign’s effectiveness and ultimately the reputation of pay per click advertising. In our experience click fraud is rare and low-level. Even if it does happen, PPC is often so profitable it can effectively be ignored.
What can we do for you?
To discuss your Pay Per Click Advertising requirements, call Chris Griffiths on 01732 460052 or complete the Enquiry Form here.
Related links:
Pay Per Click advertising >>
Pay Per Click Management Service >>
