PPC is an acronym for Pay Per Click. PPC advertisement is a form of advertising where advertisers pay for visitors on cost per click basis.

Advertisers can also place PPC ads on search engines. PPC ads are also popularly known as sponsored listing. Note that the payment plan for sponsored listing may or may not be based on cost per click while PPC ads only follow cost per click payment model.

PPC ads appear at the top, right or bottom of SERPs of search engines that display organic rankings also.

PPC ads can immediately generate visibility for your website by getting you placed on SERPs of the desired keywords. Distinctively, PPC advertising is:

• Definite
• Flexible
• Low Risk

Because of these features PPC enjoys certain advantages over the other forms of online advertising. Some of these features are listed and discussed below.

Instant Results

The results of PPC campaigns are instant. The ads go live immediately and can be modified, added or deleted at any time.

Easy implementation

PPC advertisement is an effective model and is easily implemented. PPC ads don’t require any modifications on the website and hence are an effective search engine marketing model for sites which are architecturally difficult to modify for SEO. For example even if you are site is in Frames, you can run a PPC campaign for the site and the ads would appear.

Pay per click

You only pay when some one clicks on the ad.

Keyword selection

PPC advertisers can decide what keywords they want to bid on.

Language Specification

PPC advertisers can choose the language in which they want the ads to appear. The following options are given to the advertiser: Take options from Google.

Location Specification

PPC advertisers can choose the exact geographic location for the display of their PPC ads.

PPC advertisers can adjust the maximum bid limit based on the profitability of the campaign. The position of the PPC ad in SERPs is decided accordingly. So if you feel that beyond 15¢ a click your profitability goes down, then you need not bid any more on the same.

Accurate Stats can be obtained and the effectiveness of the campaign can be measured. For example you can get details like:
The maximum bid rate, the number of clicks and impressions, average cost per click, cost incurred and the conversion rate for each keyword.

Please see below a screenshot from Google Adwords showing all the stats for an adwords campaign.



Advertisers can calculate the acquisition cost and ROI using these statistics. Based on the results of the calculation of the effectiveness of the PPC campaigns, the campaigns can be modified instantly.

Sarthak Aggarwal is the co-founder and Director of CueBlocks.com an Internet Marketing firm that helps companies develop and implement successful online marketing strategies.

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