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Pay-Per-Click (PPC)

Definition

What is pay-per-click (PPC)?

Pay-per-click (PPC) is a digital advertising model where, as the name suggests, you only pay whenever someone clicks on your ad.

If you want a more in-depth understanding of this topic, check out the FAQ section below:

Question #1: What are the benefits of pay-per-click (PPC) advertising?

The biggest benefits of pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is as follows:

  1. It is cost-effective. Again, with pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, you only pay when someone actually clicks on your ad. It does not matter if 1,000 or 100,000 people see it, for example, if only 100 of them click on it, you only pay for 100 clicks.
  2. It is easier to target. Of course, you actually want to get more of the people who see your ad to click on it because that would mean you have successfully targeted the right audience—which is super easy to do, thanks to the powerful targeting tools most modern digital advertising platforms, such as Google Ads, have.
  3. It provides you with valuable analytics data. Do you want to optimise your digital advertising campaign for even better results? Most modern digital advertising platforms also give you access to powerful analytics tools that give you the information you need to do just that.
  4. It allows you to see results quickly. The fact that pay-per-click (PPC) advertising allows you to not only instantly get in front of your target customers, but also more easily optimise your digital advertising campaigns for maximum ROI means it allows you to see the results you are looking for fast.

Question #2: What is the best platform to use?

The best pay-per-click (PPC) advertising platform to use would ultimately depend on where your target audience is. After all, the goal is to get your products, services, and content in front of people who might find it valuable, relevant, and interesting, and the only way to do that is to go where they are.

But below are three great options to help you get started:

  1. Google Ads – This is a great option if you want to capture not only prospects searching for products, services, and content that are related to yours but also those consuming YouTube content related to whatever it is you are selling.
  2. Facebook Ads – Do your target customers spend a lot of time on Facebook and Instagram? Then this might be a better option for you.
  3. LinkedIn Ads – If your target customers consist mainly of professionals or other businesses, however, then LinkedIn Ads may be your best bet.

Question #3: Is pay-per-click (PPC) advertising better than SEO?

No, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is not necessarily better than SEO—but the opposite is also true. The goal is to use both if you can.

But if you could only pick one, it would be a good idea to go with pay-per-click (PPC) advertising because of the benefits we talked about earlier. SEO just takes too much time and effort, especially considering how much new content is being published every single day to compete for your target audience’s attention.

Question #4: What are its disadvantages?

The biggest disadvantage of pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is that it is easy to get wrong if you do not know what you are doing, resulting in wasted time and money. For it to work, you need to know exactly who your target customers are, what they want, and how you can set your digital advertising campaigns to reach and convert them.

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising cannot magically fix terrible content, products, services, and offers. All it is designed to do is direct people to where you want them to go. If you have nothing of value to offer your target customers, then no amount of digital advertising would help your business grow.