To be replaced

Thinktank

Latest: Beyond SEO: Online Advertising and Google in 2009

How Google's total ownership of the search market and increasing self-promotion at the expense of the rest of the web is making savvy online operators look at other promotional options.
Read More »

9xb feed Subscribe to the 9xb feed

PAY PER CLICK ADVERTISING (PPC)

A method of delivering advertisements to website users in which advertisers are only charged when the advert is actually clicked.

Pay per click has become the dominant model for online advertising, following the success of programs such as Google's AdWords and Overture (now part of Yahoo! Search Marketing).

Payment Methodologies

Broadly speaking, there are two kinds of payment options: flat fee and auction-based.

Flat Fee

Under a flat fee model, advertisers agree to pay a set sum to a website whenever their advert is clicked. This is especially common for banner advertisements. A site will agree to show a banner on behalf of an advertiser, and the advertiser will agree to pay an agreed amount every time that banner ad is clicked.

Auction Based

Under other models, advertisers can set an amount they are prepared to pay per click, but the amount they actually pay is determined through an auction system.

This is particularly common amongst ppc systems that run on search engines.

Under Google AdWords, for example, advertisers place bids to appear whenever a certain keyword is entered into Google. If person A is prepared to pay £1 for every click and is the highest bidder for that keyword his ad will appear at the top of the sponsored results.

The price he actually pays is determined by the next highest bidder. If person B has the second highest bid - say just 75p - then person A's ads will be displayed at the top of the listings, and he wil pay 76p for each click.

Tracking and Reporting

Because the PPC model relies on the ability to accurately record clicks, good PPC programs provide statistical packages that allow advertisers to see how many times their advert or banner was shown and clicked. In addition, many people who are using PPC to advertise will also install tracking software of their own to check the validity of the reports they get from their providers.

Further Reading

< back to glossary page
THINK TANK
  • Google comes good
    "Jamie - brilliantly diabolical for making me feel like Homer Simpson."
    BigEars
    HTML Emails & Outlook 2007
    "Your robot protection does nothing!"
    Commenteer
    Why invest in online marketing?
    "ha ha that sounds like my company. I'll leave a copy of your article on the bosses desk!"
    Gaynor
    How to Reindex Your Website Quickly in a Search Engine
    "Hi Cyndi You're going to find the same thing that a lot of people find when chasing rankings. Firstly, the hand-crafted jewellery market is very competitive because a lot of people are using the internet as their primary route to market - compared to selling at markets and craft fairs there's a potentially massive audience. That gives Google a big headache, because there are a million sites out there competing for its attention. Secondly, much of what determines their rankings comes from the history of the domain. If you've been going a long time, it says to Google that the business is well-established and therefore probably has a decent offering. Any brand new domain is going to struggle to get anywhere near the top of the rankings in the short term unfortunately. It's encouraging that Google is at least spidering and indexing your site, but you will have to do a *lot* of work in terms of content and link building to see returns in terms of rankings."
    Paul Carpenter
    How to Reindex Your Website Quickly in a Search Engine
    "I love reading al the information you have published for SEO. but....I have a question. I just started a handcrafted jewelry site www.cynfullyunique.com How do I know if it's being indexed. It appears, when I check my pages visited and people visisted that google bot has a lot of viists. I try to up-date it with new jewelry every two days. And is it good and what does it mean that google is visiting my pages often. My site is relatively new....2 months and I really need to get it ranked so I can sell some of my jewelry, etc."
    Cyndi
    HTML Emails & Outlook 2007
    "I simply don't understand why MS always tries to make everything so hard... Thanks for the workarounds, I actually thought no CSS worked at all."
    Esteban
    The Future of Google?
    "well, there is lot going on Google, its constantly changing itself like there is no other day.. http://www.linkbuilderz.com/linkbuilding"
    julie
    Beyond SEO: Online Advertising and Google in 2009
    "Cheers Richie! If there's any questions you've got about anything, feel free to drop us a line. I'm a bit hapless about replying to emails sometime but we're always happy to give pointers Oh - and merry christmas!"
    Paul Carpenter
    Beyond SEO: Online Advertising and Google in 2009
    "Great Read, Been looking into learning SEO lately. I’m a local sixth form student living locally and find your work inspiring. "
    Richie Jenkins
    Google's 10th Anniversary: A Decade of Change
    "Hi I received a email today from googles stating that I won three million dollars for your ten year birthday. This is a God send. I am a senior citizen trying to survive on eleven hundred and fifty dollars a month. I cannot pay all my bills and the saddest thing of all is I am about to lose my home of twenty eight years. Thank you so much. I am one happy lasy today,. Grace"
    Grace Cruz

Get in touch

View our portfolio