In the Internet age, where adults spend up to 11 hours per day using digital media (according to Mashable), anything to do with the World Wide Web is profitable. Advertising becomes more and more innovative by the day, because the web offers countless posibilities for companies, corporations and organizations to broadcast their messages. Among the most popular ways of advertising are pop-up ads, retargeting (aka the ads that “follow you around”), and live sponsored ads by Youtube content creators. One of the big moneymakers that is relatively unknown by the mainstream is pay per click advertising.
What is Pay Per Click Advertising?
Pay per click (PPC) ads are ones that direct traffic to websites when clicked. Web publishers are paid by advertisers each time an ad is clicked. In short, PPC is ‘the amount spent to get an advertisement clicked’.
When it comes to search engines, advertisers bid on keyword phrases relevant to their target market. Content sites, however, generally charge a fixed price per click rather than use a bidding system. PPC “display” ads, aka “banner” ads, are shown on web sites/search engine results with related content that have agreed to show ads.
The pay per click marketing model can be abused through click fraud (ex: using bots to generate pay per click traffic), however, Google and other sites have implemented automated systems in order to guard against abusive clicks by competitors or corrupt web developers.
People employed in the pay per click business are pay per click analysts. PPC analysts administer and help to manage PPC media strategies for clients. PPC analysts are experts in internet marketing, and have the ability to quickly understand and support small goals that will contribute to the overall goals and success of client campaigns.
Pay per click advertising is highly successful, due to the amount of time that is spent on the web worldwide. People are constantly connected. PPC advertising can yield a return of up to 300% or more, and 50% of that was driven by mobile usage in 2015. PPC is highly effective and lucrative, which is why it is one of the most popular forms of advertising today.
