IMPAKT ARTICLES - PAY PER CLICK ADVERTISING

What Is PPC Advertising?

Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC) is a simple way to drive traffic to your website from search engines. Simply put, PPC search engines enable businesses to bid for a position on keywords and phrases that relate to their website (e.g. "antique furniture in Kent"). The higher you bid, the higher your listing will be.

The beauty of PPC advertising is that you only pay when someone clicks through to your website. This makes it a very attractive proposition to businesses because not only is the customer already actively searching for your product or service, but you only pay for the traffic you receive. Imagine if you took out an advert in a newspaper, but only had to pay once a potential customer walked through your shop door!

Many UK search engines offer PPC advertising, but two major players in the industry are Google and Yahoo Search Marketing, so the information below focuses on them.

How Does PPC Advertising Work?

For each keyword in your campaign, you will have associated ad text: a title, description and a link to the page of your website that you want your users to see (known as a 'landing page'). This enables you to provide brief but targeted information that helps you to directly connect with specific audiences.

Let's say you bid 25p on "antique furniture in Kent". When a user searches for this term, your listing will appear on the right hand side of the page under the heading of 'Sponsored Links'. How high your ad is listed depends on how competitive the keyword is and the cost you have associated for that keyword.

The Benefits of PPC Advertising

Precise targeted advertising
Successful advertising means making sure your ad reaches the right people. By selecting the most appropriate keywords associated with your business, you will reach the right people and help ensure that traffic to your site is targeted.

Guaranteed Listing
It can be difficult to achieve a top natural search engine placement because where you are listed is dependent on numerous factors. PPC results, however, are dependent on just one factor: how much you want to bid for a particular keyword. Remember, the higher you bid, the higher your listing will be.

Cost can be controlled
A major benefit of PPC advertising is that you only pay for clicks. This means that you only pay for users who actually visit your website. This is why PPC advertising is so popular and why it has been so successful.

Flexible Terms
You control how much you spend on each keyword, how much you want to spend per day and how long you want the campaign to run for. This gives you full control over the campaign, thus avoiding any unwanted surprises.

Reach
If you run a Google and Yahoo Search Marketing PPC campaign, your ad has the potential to be listed in the majority of the most-used UK search engines.

Generate Traffic Instantly
With Google, you can generate targeted traffic within just a few minutes of opening an account (Yahoo Search Marketing PPC campaigns can take longer to go live). This obviously compares favourably to organic ranking, as achieving a high listing (and therefore the ability to generate traffic) can take a long time.

What Does It Cost?

The cost per click (CPC) varies between keywords and is dependent on the competitiveness of the keyword - i.e. as more people bid on it, the cost increases. Remember though, you have ultimate control over how much you spend on your ad campaign because you can set a maximum spend per day. With the help of Impakt Media's account management team, you can look to receive a good return on investment.

Why Use Impakt Media Ltd?

PPC advertising appears simple to carry out, but it is important to use people with the necessary experience and expertise in PPC account management to help enable you to attain a good return on your investment.

Ad Writing
It is important to write effective and appropriate titles and descriptions for the ad text. You need to sell your company, service or product to the user in a very limited amount of space.

Choosing the Right Keywords
You need an experienced account manager to help target the traffic in order to avoid 'junk traffic'. If your keywords aren't properly and effectively targeted, you are likely to receive clicks from irrelevant browsers - and of course the PPC search engines will still charge you for these.

The Right Balance
It is important for the account manager to carry out the necessary research and monitor your bids on a regular basis in order to ensure you maintain a good listing, but without spending excessively.

Time Management
Using an account manager frees up your time to focus on other areas of your business.