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Pay Per Click Advertising
AF
An introduction to the pros and cons of Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising.
Pay Per Click (PPC) is an advertising model where adverts appear alongside targeted content and the advertiser only actually pays for that space when someone clicks on their advert. There are a number of PPC providers, with Google Adwords being the most well known, followed by Yahoo! Search Marketing and Microsoft adCentre.
PPC campaigns can be largely categorised into two different systems: Sponsored (or Keyword) Match is where the advertiser bids for certain keywords and their advert appears alongside the results in search engines; their position based on how much they bid and how much competition there is. Content Match is where adverts appear on particular websites alongside related content: such as on blogs, networking sites and online email.
In its infancy, PPC advertising was open to abuse from companies clicking repeatedly on their competitors' adverts, but Google and other Search Engines quickly implemented sophisticated detection systems to combat this.
The Pros
The biggest advantage in using PPC is that your advertising is available online instantly. No waiting for search engine optimisaton to kick in. As long as your pockets are deep enough you can guarantee a number one position.
The second advantage is that your ads can be carefully targeted - using keywords chosen by you from a list based on previous searches done in Google.
The third advantage is that your ads are completely variable, as are the keywords you choose. If your ad is not working, you can change it. Google provides you with a lot of tools to help you with this.
The Cons
PPC advertising can become very expensive, particularly if you are in a very competitive sector.
Advertising studies have identified a phenomena known as 'Advertising Blindness'. This occurs particularly when adverts always appear in the same place on the screen, such as Google Adwords alongside their search results. People simply get used to ignoring that part of their screen. And research has found that people tend to prefer to look through the organic search results rather than click on the PPC adverts.
More and more adverts are appearing on the most popular social networking sites, but research has shown that users not only dislike the adverts, but are abandoning their favourite sites in huge numbers, simply because they are fed up with the huge amount of advertising forced on them.