What is PPC?
PPC is short for Pay Per Click and means "payment per click". The term refers to the fact that advertisers pay every time a user clicks on one of their online ads - hence the name PPC (Pay Per Click).
PPC ads can be found on many different ad platforms, including:
- SEA (Search Engine Advertising). Includes text ads on Google, for example.
- SMM (Social Media Marketing). Includes, for example, image ads on LinkedIn and Facebook.
You're probably already familiar with the paid PPC search ads on Google. These ads are exposed to users when people search for things online using a search engine such as Google. This is especially when a user is doing commercial searches, meaning they are looking for something to buy.
This can be anything from a mobile search (someone looking for "Burger near me" on their cell phone), to a search for a local service (someone looking for a plumber or carpenter in their area), to someone looking for a gift ("Mother's Day flowers". What these types of searches have in common is that they trigger PPC ads.
In pay-per-click advertising, the companies running ads are only charged when a user actually clicks on their ad. Other forms of PPC advertising include display advertising (typically display banner ads) and remarketing.
Example of a PPC text ad on Google
How does advertising with PPC work?
For ads to appear next to results on a search engine, advertisers can't just pay more to ensure their ads appear more prominently than their competitors' ads.
Instead, ads are subject to the so-called Ad Auction, a completely automated process that Google and other major search engines use to determine the relevance and validity of ads.
Keywords in PPC
As the name suggests, the Ad Auction is a bidding system. This means that advertisers must bid on, for example, the words they want to "trigger" or display their ads.
For example, let's say your business sells fishing tackle and a user wants to buy a new fishing rod and bait, they might search for "fishing tackle" in a search engine like Google to find a store that can sell them these items.
The moment the user submits their search query, the search engine performs the complex algorithmic calculations on which the Ad Auction is based. This determines which ads are displayed, in which order and by which advertiser.
As mentioned earlier, you pay for every click on your ad. Therefore, it's important that you only bid on keywords that are relevant to you and your business.
Frequently asked questions
PPC is a term for a payment model where online advertisers pay an amount every time their ads are clicked.
PPC is short for Pay Per Click.
The price advertisers pay for a click on an ad can vary from anything between a few pennies to hundreds of dollars.
A PPC Manager is a person who manages a company's PPC advertising campaigns.
