What is PPC?

The concept of Pay Per Click (PPC) probably originated when Jeffrey Brewer of Goto.com (now part of Yahoo) developed a Pay Per Click search engine concept in February 1998 at the TED conference in California. Yahoo integrated this full blast from November 2001. Google refined this PPC and gave it new direction with its adwords system and targeted SEO Experts, web developers and others to the extent of even training them, leading to spread of PPC Experts with deep knowledge of how this model works and how to exploit it to the full.

While normal search engine optimization strategies are organic and yield results over time, the fast track to getting traffic is to go in for Pay Per Click (PPC) model of internet advertising offered. PPC Experts are familiar with the Pay Per Click models offered by Google Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing and Microsoft Ad Center. PPC Experts know how to use the offers by these search engines to the best advantage of their clients by choosing appropriate keywords and making the right bid, spread out budget and to ensure the best ROI. These popular search engines will display sponsored ads or sponsored links on the first page or on the  inner pages when anyone has input the relevant key words that match the advertiser’s choice of keywords or if the site has relevant content. PPC charges for display on the first page are usually higher than for the subsequent inner pages of search results.  The PPC Expert will usually carefully select keywords after considering competition and searcher’s preferences to ensure displays on only relevant search pages. Each time anyone clicks on the links, the advertiser has to pay. Select keywords attract a higher bid and therefore a higher cost to the advertiser, whereas other keywords carefully chosen by the PPC Expert will be just as effective but at a much lower cost. It needs the PPC Expert’s knowledge and experience of the way this system works to fine tune the PPC model on bid basis.

Another PPC method adopted by PPC Experts is to post his client’s advertisement banners on selected sites. In this arrangement, the client has to pay only when any visitor to the site clicks on the banner advertisement and is directed to the client’s website. Such banner ads deployed on various business sites, portals and social sites can cost a tidy sum of money but also ensure quick and instant traffic.

Then there are sites that allow you to post links at a fixed cost regardless of whether visitors click the link or not. PPC Experts may include such models in their ad campaigns based on various considerations. Each site owner has different policies and B2B Sites these days are also narrowly segmented with industry specific sites giving the opportunity to reach out to specific groups of potential buyers. When links or ads are posted here by the PPC Expert, chances of receiving inquiries from potential clients are high. However, similar relevant ads may also be posted alongside and dilute the effectiveness since potential clients are also likely to click through to those sites. There are various options open to the PPC Expert here in the context of long term contract, displaying ads on pages with relevant content that would attract valuable visitors, product and service categories for fine tuning the targeting process. 

Yet another method PPC Experts adapt is to go in for affiliate marketing method to generate traffic and business for his client’s website. In this model, the affiliate marketing website displays links or small ads placed by the PPC Expert on that website on behalf of his client. Visitor to the affiliate’s website can click on the links and visit the client’s website. However, clients do not have to pay unless the click through results in business for them.

In the bid model, PPC Experts contract with the advertising network that spreads the ads through its network of websites by placing bids in a sort of auction, competing with similar products and services offered by others. This is an automated process and only the highest bidder has his ad displayed though the network’s partner websites when visitors input the keywords.

Contextual ads display through the advertising market on its network is another model adopted by PPC Experts to drive traffic to their clients’ websites. When visitors to the advertising network websites input keywords and relevant content is displayed, the ad is also triggered automatically. These are considered less effective by PPC Experts than similar ads on Search Engine pages.

Knowledge and experience are vital tools of the PPC Expert when he deploys an ad campaign in this sphere for his client to ensure the maximum traffic and returns on investment.