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Pay-per-click and paid search advertising

Pay-per-click and paid search advertising

Introduction
Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising means that you pay a fee every time your online ad is clicked. Paid search marketing is a type of PPC advertising that lets you target potential customers actively searching the internet for the products or services you offer.

Because you only pay when users actually click on an ad to visit your website, PPC is cost effective. When users search the internet using keywords, sponsored links/ads appear above the ‘organic’ results on search engine results pages.

PPC advertising can be set up quickly, offers flexible targeting options, and provides data to help the evaluate campaign performance. To be successful, PPC advertising requires strategic thinking, in depth analysis and careful, ongoing management.

This guide describes how PPC works and how to use it to get your ad a stronger rating, drive more targeted traffic to your website and turn a customer’s interest into a sale.

Types of pay-per-click advertising
You will find a range of online advertising options that charge you per click to your website.

Paid search marketing
Paid search marketing is one of the most common types of pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. Providers such as Google AdWords and the Bing Network show your ad to users who search for certain keywords. You set up campaigns by writing ad copy, selecting relevant keywords and choosing a suitable landing page on your site.

Display advertising
Display ads are banner, image or text ads that appear on different websites, selected to target particular audiences. These ads will link to your website. They generally return a lower click-through rate than search ads, but can be useful for building brand awareness.

See advantages and disadvantages of display advertising.

Social media advertising
Social media platforms, such as Facebook, have high numbers of users who could be your potential customers. PPC advertising on these platforms can help you achieve higher click-through rates and increase awareness of your product or services. The channels can be used to target specific demographics and interests.

Retargeting PPC advertising
Retargeting, also called remarketing, uses cookies on a user’s browser to show them specific ads based on their previous online actions. For example, a user who searched for holidays could be shown display ads for a travel agent’s latest deals. Retargeting can be used as part of display, search and social media PPC advertising campaigns. It can also be used in other forms of digital marketing, such as email.

Price comparison website advertising
Price comparison or aggregator websites gather and display prices and special offers for products and services from their own and partner merchant websites. Users click through on the offers of interest and buy directly from the merchant or from the price comparison portal itself.

This can be useful for spending your PPC budget in a targeted way as price comparison websites offer you access to qualified leads – ie customers who are actively looking for a product or service like yours. However, some of these sites tend to be ‘busy’ with many similar products from different resellers and other content such as customer reviews and ratings. This can distract potential customers before they complete the purchase process.

Price comparison websites offer different PPC options and you are advised to regularly check your conversion rate against the click-through rate if you use them.

Affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketers create PPC adverts promoting your products or services and place these on:

search engines
price comparison websites
targeted content sites
heavily-trafficked websites
Affiliate marketing uses a performance-based payment model, eg Cost per Action – in which payment is closely aligned with results. Affiliate marketing programmes can be set up and managed in house or alternately outsourced to a third party provider, eg affiliate networks.

Successful affiliate marketing requires ongoing management and can be quite time intensive. There are also certain risks such as including poor ad placement – which can result in poor response or reputational damage – and competitive keyword bidding on your brand terms by affiliate networks.

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising can be a cost effective way to drive traffic to your website. There are a number of benefits and challenges to consider.

Advantages of pay-per-click advertising
The benefits of running PPC advertising include:

Cost effective – because you only pay when a user actually reaches your website, it can be good value for money. You can choose to spend as much or as little as you like.
Targeted – you can choose your audience according to demographics like location, language and device
Measurable – PPC campaigns can be set up to carefully measure effectiveness. You can determine exactly how much your return on investment is.
Customisable – as you run your campaigns, you can make many small adjustments to improve based on what works best.
Training resources – there are many (often free) online courses and training materials to help you develop your skills.
Fast – you will see the impact of your PPC efforts almost immediately. Organic search engine optimisation (SEO) tactics can take months to make a difference.

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