Pay Per Click (PPC) is one of the most effective web marketing tools and is where advertisers pay for click-through visitors from their adverts. Whereas banner advertising is largely based around a CPM (cost per thousand impressions basis and not clicks), with PPC you only pay for results, i.e. visitors.

The largest source of PPC advertising is through search engines and their model involves advertisers typically bidding on keywords or keyphrases relevant to their target market. Some sites offer a fixed cost per click, or this can be negotiated for, however the more usual bidding model means competitive keyphrase results can cost pounds rather than pence.

Amongst the most competitive keyphrases are those for property or financial services although with careful planning and research cheaper alternatives can often be found.

Targeted traffic

PPC offers advertisers the chance to drive targeted traffic to their site as the visitors clicking on their keyphrase matching advert are unlikely to be searching for something completely different.

Sites which show PPC ads display an advertisement when a keyword query matches an advertiser's keyword list, or when a content site displays relevant content. Such advertisements are called sponsored links or sponsored ads, and appear adjacent to or above organic results on search engine results pages.

Current thinking and research is starting to show that searchers, by their nature looking for the most relevant results, are clicking on PPC advertisements more and more believing they are more likely to be exactly what they are looking for and save them site continuing to trawl often ambiguous organic results.

PPC Choices

There are many PPC providers, however Google Adwords, Yahoo! Search Marketing and Microsoft adCentre are the largest. However, gaining market share, are social networking sites such as Facebook which are exploiting their massive user reach to good effect.

Setting Up A PPC Campaign

Anybody with the time or inclination can easily set-up a PPC campaign. Each provider offers simple wizard based interfaces to choose your matching keyphrases and create adverts to draw in your desired visitors.

Whilst simple to set-up it is true to say that professional PPC managers, such as Think, will help create and manage far more effective campaigns which:

• Reduce costs per click and therefore allow more clicks to be gained per budget.
• Have stronger ad campaigns to capture more targeted traffic and therefore increase the potential for gaining their business or attention.
• Apply geographical or demographic targeting allowing for very specialist campaigns targeting highly specific visitors to match your digital marketing strategy

A PPC campaign can often be as successful as its research, and initial analysis in selecting keywords and phrases as well as how each advert should be crafted. A good SEO manager will regularly look at the competitors for each search result and craft better or alternative ads to the best performing.

Landing Pages

Once a PPC visitor has ‘clicked through’ the advertisement the chances of capturing that visitor in any way are enhanced greatly if the content they first see, or ‘land on’, is highly relevant to the advert they have clicked on. Content managed landing pages are ideal for this as it allows a site manager or marketer to plan a complete PPC strategy from reaching the traffic, to attracting the visitor, to controlling their impression, and how and when they communicate with the site.

Cost Benefit

PPC pointed landing pages provide what can be described as a soft landing compared to organic presented pages which offer a hard landing, especially if not to the homepage. A good SEO strategy will often mean your PPC orientated landing pages automatically become the organic results, and a good SEO strategy will offer lower long term costs compared to PPC which can be a constant, if known, cost.

Whilst PPC can be more expensive in the long-run, it is highly responsive and adaptable. Generally the level of visitors is only dependent on your desired budget which can be increased or decreased to financial or new business appetite.

If you are looking to generate sales enquiries against just casual visitors to read your content, PPC is highly recommended. It is instant whereas SEO can be slow and prone to anomalies, and you are able to track its success whereas organic or direct traffic can be hard to trace.

If you are looking to start a PPC campaign for your existing or new site we thoroughly recommend you come and speak to Think for the greatest return on your investment. Think offers help researching, setting up and managing your campaign. Whatever level of support you need we are happy to help.