You set the budget for immediate traffic.
In the modern age of advertising, the Mad Men style of mass media advertising is no longer an effective solution for most businesses. Contemporary advertising requires timely, direct and targeted messages. You want to pay for the right message to the right people at the right time. Enter Pay-Per-Click marketing, or PPC. With PPC you are able to tightly control your budget and deliver targeted messages matched perfectly to your desired demographic. No guesswork or assumptions are made. Messages are carefully crafted based on analysis of thoroughly researched search data of your specific industry. PPC really makes digital marketing a science! Google, Facebook, Yahoo!, Bing, and LinkedIn are at your fingertips for advertising space.
Advantages of Pay-Per-Click:
- Target specific search traffic, at specific times, and even specific geographies (learn more about local search).
- It’s highly measurable. You track exactly where your dollars are spent to determine your Return on Investment (ROI).
- It’s flexible. We can make instant refinements to your campaign based on actual response data.
- You determine exactly how much you want to spend, and when.
- You only pay for relevant traffic.
- Free impression if your ad isn’t clicked.
How PPC Works:
Search engines and social media networks display ads based on the searcher’s demographics and/or search terms. Using Google as an example, when you search a particular word/phrase you get a list of results.
These results are divided into “organic” and “paid” searches. Organic results come up naturally based on the relevancy of that website (learn how to improve organic results in our Rank (SEO) section ).
Paid results appear at the top and side of the organic search results. As the name implies these are paid advertisements which are placed based on a bidding process for that selected keyword. For instance, if you have a drapery business you could bid on the keywords “custom curtains”. When an individual searches that term it triggers your ad to come up. If the user clicks the ad, they are directed to your site, and you pay a portion of your budget for that click.
It’s a simple concept, but effective Pay-Per-Click is in fact a complex and methodical process to ensure you attract targeted traffic to your websites. The real science in the process rests in the extensive analytical tools and strategic planning involved in creating, maintaining, adapting your campaign.