What is PPC (Pay-Per-Click) Advertising?

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) is a form of online advertising where advertisers pay only when someone clicks on their ad. This is one of the fastest and most effective ways to direct traffic to a website, as ads are shown to people who are actively searching for products, services or information related to your offering.

The most popular and widely used PPC platform is Google Ads, where ads appear in Google search results (usually marked as "Ad" at the beginning of the page). Other popular PPC platforms include:

• Microsoft Advertising (for Bing search engine)
• Meta Ads (ads on Facebook and Instagram)
• LinkedIn Ads
• TikTok Ads

How does PPC work?

The process can be summarized in several key steps:

• Creating an ad campaign: The advertiser chooses a platform, goal (sales, leads, website visits, etc.), target audience and budget.
• Keyword selection: The advertiser selects a list of keywords related to their business. For example, a bakery would choose words like "buy bread online", "homemade desserts", etc. Their ads will appear when someone searches for these words in Google.
• Bidding for position: Advertisers participate in so-called auctions for ad positions. This auction doesn't determine the winner by price alone, but by Ad Relevance.
• Ad display: When a user makes a search, the platform conducts a quick auction to decide which ads to show and in what order.
• Payment: The advertiser pays only when a user clicks on their ad.

Key concepts in PPC

• Keywords: Words or phrases that trigger the display of your ads.
• Bid: The maximum amount you're willing to pay for a click on your ad. This is one of the components of the auction.
• Quality Score: Very important factor! Google evaluates the quality and relevance of your ads and landing pages. The higher your quality score, the lower price you'll pay per click and the better position you'll have.
• CTR (Click-Through Rate): The percentage of people who saw your ad and clicked on it. High CTR shows that your ad is relevant to users.
• CPC (Cost-Per-Click): The actual price you pay for each click.
• Conversion: The desired action the user takes after clicking (e.g., purchase, form completion, call). The goal of PPC is not just clicks, but conversions.
• ROI (Return On Investment): Return on investment. Shows whether the profit from the campaign is greater than the costs for it.

Advantages and disadvantages of PPC

Advantages:

• Quick results: Ads appear immediately after starting the campaign.
• Targeted traffic: You can reach people at the exact moment they're searching for your products.
• Budget control: You have full control over daily and total budget.
• Measurability: Everything is measurable – clicks, costs, conversions, ROI, allowing for precise optimization.
• Targeting: You can target by geography, language, device type, even time of day or day of week.

Disadvantages/Challenges:

• Cost: In competitive niches (e.g., loans, insurance), click prices can be very high.
• Complexity: Effective campaign management requires some expertise or time for training.
• Traffic cessation: When you stop paying, traffic from ads stops immediately, unlike organic traffic from SEO.

Conclusion

PPC is a powerful digital marketing tool that allows you to buy visits to your site instead of trying to earn them "organically". It's ideal for quickly launching a new business, promoting special offers or testing the market for a new product. Successful PPC campaigns require constant monitoring, testing and optimization to achieve maximum return on investment.