PPC Search Engine Marketing

The internet has introduced us to the immense possibilities of a highly connected and networked world. Search engines are a new way of searching the web for information. PPC advertising rates of search engines determine how your products get to be seen by people browsing the internet for information. This makes marketing to search engines all the more important.

What is PPC Search Engine Marketing?

PPC stands for Pay-Per-Click. Pay-Per-Click is the paradigm for search engines to charge user’s for their PPC advertising time on their search results. This is very similar to paying for commercials on TV. You pay for the airtime on the shows to which your wares are to be displayed. PPC makes you pay for every click a user generates on search results advertising. PPC search engine advertising can be designed to be more effective and competitive by the proper use of keywords. Bids are placed by advertisers on search engines and other PPC search engine marketing services, on keywords or phrases to let their PPC ads get more exposure. PPC ads can be placed on a single website or on different websites by the ad campaigns. PPC Search Engine Marketing requires proper use of keywords in search engine listings and selective placement of ads on an advertising network.

A PPC bid amount is the PPC advertising rates an advertiser is ready to pay for every click on his ad by a user. This is different from CPM, which are cost-per-thousand-impressions used by some advertising networks. For PPC search engine marketing to be successful, you need to have proper analytics in place. Analytics involves tracking of PPC advertising campaigns on search engines. Google analytics is a service which offers free tracking of your ad campaigns effectively. Most PPC campaigns are contracted to search engine marketing (SEM) agencies. These agencies have dedicated keyword optimization and ad placement executives on stand by to take care of your PPC search engine marketing needs. PPC advertising services offered by these agencies are exclusive in nature. Affiliate/Performance marketing involves calculating advertising revenues based on PPC ads placed on other websites. This is known to be the most effective form of PPC search engine marketing.

How are PPC ads bid for?

Search engines run ongoing auctions for their advertising spaces. When a search query is entered in search engines such as Google, Yahoo or Overture, it will display the latest organic and advertised search results. An advertiser declares his budget for a campaign and is asked to bid for a keyword or a list of keywords. As customers click on his ads, the PPC rates increase and he would be out placed by his competitors for the same ad position unless he has bid high enough to keep them at bay. Hence, bidding for ad positions and keywords is a continuous process of competing bids by advertisers. The bids which receive the most number of clicks are said be relevant to search listings. This is known as the Click-Through-Rate or CTR. Search engines usually award bids based on both PPC and CTR. CTR is construed as the standard for link relevance by search engines. Hence, if your ad is not up to the mark, a high bid might not receive as much attention as one with relevant click rankings.

PPC Affiliate/Performance Marketing

PPC affiliate marketing is a system by which an affiliate of an affiliate network, who is an external entity or agency, places a bid for keywords on a search engine. Once he has won certain bids, he places ads of merchants on this keyword positions. When these ads are clicked on, the customer is tracked. When the customer buys the merchants products, the affiliate network and the affiliate is compensated by the merchant. This is a profit sharing model in which the search engine, the merchants, the affiliate network and the affiliate work together. This is also known as performance marketing as revenue is based on actual sale and profit sharing.

Contextual Advertising Vs PPC Marketing

Contextual advertising involves the placement of ads on other networks such as banner ads, text ads, link ads and popup ads. It is an effective way of reaching a target audience as set by the advertiser. These advertising networks are low on click volumes, but high on impressions. They are also known to be able to place ads based on content, as many of their websites are rich in content. It is also known as precision marketing for its accuracy to place relevant ads on highly targeted positions.

Return on Investment (ROI)

PPC marketing is expected to provide enough returns for merchants to stay profitable in their advertising endeavors. Revenue is derived on performance and conversion rates. As tracking is weak with PPC ads, economies of scale are difficult to come by. Advertising budgets are decided between the merchants and the Search Engine Marketing (SEM) agencies. Merchants usually spend 10-20% of their budgets on PPC advertising. Sometimes a flat or hourly rate is worked out. A large part of PPC advertising is also based on how one targets the audience. This can be based on demographics-also known as geographical targeting, content of the websites the ads are served on, age groups of the audience, economic situations such as a boom or a bust, ad copy. The failure to address such issues can be as serious a flaw as the inability to choose proper keywords or keyword targeting. Conversions depend on such factors for PPC advertising. Keyword choosing tools are provided by many search engines. These are used to analyze the keywords on a targeted website, geographical location or demographic group. Also, posting on blogs and forums, writing articles and optimizing the website for using Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategies can also increase the ROI.