PPC (Pay-per-Click) marketing is a type of internet marketing which makes use of advertisement which appear on websites, search engine results pages, videos etc. The advertising provider charges the client organisation per “click”, that is, per user that clicks the advertisement and is directed to the client organisation’s webpage. The charges depend on the type of advertisement and other factors such as frequency of appearance and the quality of the advertisement itself. The most common type of PPC marketing is search engine marketing where companies pay to have their advertisement appear on top of a search engine user’s results page. Other types include social media PPC where the advertisements appear on users’ social media feeds, display advertising where the advertisement appears on other websites the user visits that has enabled the advertising providers advertisements on the website. PPC advertising is the most popular form of advertising on the internet, and it enables companies to increase their reach substantially more than traditional advertising methods. Generally, internet marketing campaigns are outsourced to management companies such as PPC Management Brisbane who offer various technical assistance as well as setting up the advertisement campaign. The statistics about successful and unsuccessful campaigns can be used to improve future marketing techniques and develop strategies that ensure the long-term success of the business.

The main concern with using PPC advertising is the cost. Since you are charged per click but not every click is a sale, there is a risk that uninterested customers click the advertisement because it claims something they are not actually interested in and turn away at the website. Therefore, the quality of the ad is of paramount importance. This is also relevant for search engine advertising as search engines value user experiences, meaning that it would be more expensive to display an irrelevant advertisement in a particular search phrase if the search engine decides that the page content do not sufficiently meet the user’s requirements.

Social media PPC refers to advertisements that appear on the user’s feed quite similar to posts made by actual users. The advertisement may be a post promoted by the social media algorithm or a pure advertisement. Social media PPC have the advantage of appearing to only users who are interested in such products and services as they have access to the users’ interests, behaviour, purchasing patterns etc. due to the data collected through the user of social media and are able to accurately predict which users would be interested in a particular product or service and are more likely to click and complete a purchase on the client’s website.

Display advertising was once the most popular form of PPC and still exists today but have largely fallen out of favour compared to social media and search engine PPC. There is also a growing sentiment against internet advertising of which display advertising holds a prominent position. Nonetheless, display advertising relies on websites using an advertising provider to serve advertisements who are able to display advertisements relevant to the website content.