PPC stands for Pay-Per-Click, also known as Paid Advertising or Search Engine Marketingor Paid Search Marketing.
It is an online advertising model in which advertisers pay each time a user clicks on one of their ads published online on search engines. These ads appear when people search for things online using a search engine ; like Google – especially when they are performing commercial searches, meaning that they’re looking for something to buy. In pay-per-click advertising, businesses running ads are only charged when a user actually clicks on their ad, hence the name “pay-per-click”.
In order for ads to appear alongside the results on a search engine or on social media (commonly referred to as a Search Engine Results Page), advertisers cannot simply pay more to ensure that their ads appear more prominently than their competitor’s ads. Instead, ads are subject to what is known as the Ad Auction, an entirely automated process that Google and other major search engines use to determine the relevance and validity of advertisements that appear on their SERPs.
As its name implies, the Ad Auction is a bidding system. This means that advertisers must bid on the terms they want to “trigger,” or display, their ads. These terms are known as keywords. At the moment the user submits their search query, the search engine performs the complex algorithmic calculations that the Ad Auction is based upon. This determines which ads are displayed, in which order, and by which advertiser. Since you have to pay for each click on your ads, it’s imperative to only bid on keywords that are relevant to your business, so you can be sure to get ROI from your ad spend.
Our PPC experts demystify pay-per-click advertising management and allow you to focus on what really matters – growing your business and helping your customers.
