As the name implies, pay-per-click (PPC) means you pay when someone clicks on your
advertisement. It is just that simple.
This is a remarkable revolution in
advertising. If you put an
advertisement on TV or the newspaper, you will have to pay upfront regardless of how many people see or read it. If nobody see or read it, you still need to pay. So as you can see, PPC is remarkable. Below are three points worth mentioning regarding PPC.
Firstly, you only advertise to people who are looking for what they want. Take for example, if you are selling a book on acne, you will run an advertisement on acne with the advertising company. When the prospect search for information on acne in the internet, you advertisement will appear and presented to them. This will then give the prospect an opportunity to visit your site if they click on your advertisement. Another point to take note is that, your advertisement is targeted. If someone search for other things in the internet, you advertisement will not appear.
Secondly, you will only pay when they click on your advertisement. Even if your advertisement appears thousands of time, if nobody clicks it, you do not need to pay.
Thirdly, the price you need to pay is determined by supply and demand. If you are selling a very hot product where there are a lot of competitors, you will need to pay for a higher price for your advertisement. However, if what you are selling does not have many competitors, you will be paying less for the advertisement.
The are major PPC and some minor PPC companies in the market. The major ones are Google (AdWords Program), Yahoo and MSN. Some minors ones are Enhance Intereactive, goClick, 7Seach, SearchFeed, Miva etc.. Each company has their own policy. Some requires start-up fees while other does not. Visit their website and find out more about their services.
Some of the smaller companies provide start up bonus of between $25 to $50 for you to try them out. You can take advantage of these bonuses to test out the quality of the traffic. After testing, you can determine which company can send you quality traffic that usually convert to paying customer. Some of the companies provide geo-targeting while other do not. Geo targeting is important as you product may only be applicable in certain country or city. If that is the case, you may not want to advertise to the whole world.
I have used both the major and minor PPC companies for my internet business. So far, the quality of the traffic is acceptable. However, it also depends on what you sell and how good is your sales process. The PPC advertisement can bring you quality traffic but if your product is of no standard, you will not make any sale. You cannot fault the PPC advertisement in this case.
Another advantage of PPC is that, it is instant. That is, once you set up your advertisement, it is live in the internet. When someone searched for what you are advertising, it will appear in the search listing. You do not need to wait for months to be indexed by the search engine. You can usually see results in a couple of hours.
PPC advertising is still relevant and important to any online business. It allows you to quickly test your concept and product in a matter of hours of days. You can then use the result to refine your product.