Have you ever had that experience, where you have been thinking of getting something, and all of a sudden, there are advertisements of it all over your news feed and social media? It often feels like our purchases and search history is stalking us through the internet. A purchase for a table on Amazon I just made shows up as an ad even a week later. There are ads for items related to tables that I can buy, such as lampshades or makeup racks. It is of course, quite disconcerting.
But don’t worry, this is their job. You see, this cluttering of websites with advertisements is part of a practice called pay-per-click ads. Pay per click advertisements is exactly what you are supposing they are. They are advertisements websites allow other websites or brands to keep in exchange for revenue. This revenue is charged based upon the number of successful ‘clicks’ are generated by a brand on that particular website.
Pay Per Click Explained
What exactly is a pay per click program? A pay per click advertisement is a set of advertisements displayed across different webpages with the express intention of making you click and explore them. You have websites such as google, Instagram(as both an app and website) or even the site you are on right now i.e Buddymantra. You will notice, that upon scrolling down a little, the sides of the webpage, or your newsfeed gets regularly interrupted by ‘targeted ads.’
These ads follow your preferences using cookies and search history data to prepare a catalogue of what exactly you will buy in the future. And they will keep regularly keep shuffling and updating their catalogue based on your movements. Someday, when you see an ad that shows you something you really like, you will inevitably click on it. While you are automatically transported to the site, the advertiser who showed you the ad, shall have to pay the host website a fee.
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Forms of PPC
The most widely known form of PPC is called search engine advertising. It is basically a bidding war, where different advertisers bid for a place on a search engine to place their ad. Their ad is placed based on the keywords typed into the search engine. This loosely translates to mean the following. If I wish to buy a spot on a search engine, I shall have to specify my keyword and place my ad only on pages where my keyword occurs.
I know a lot of you might be wondering whether it really helps, and well yes it does. That is considering your product is good. For example, Amazon has the maximum pay per click advertisements. It should be draining but a lot of the clicks on the ads actually convert to successful purchases. Hence there is a minimal to zero loss made. If you manage to make a 1000 dollar sale through a 10 dollar click, there is literally a 990 dollar profit.
How Are PPCs Advancing?
As search engines are becoming more and more specific, it is important that companies buying pay per click slots convert each click to a successful purchase. If the turnover is not good enough, there is no point in bidding. You might have noticed how Amazon is developing its search algorithm to fit your preferences more. With artificial intelligence algorithms, amazon tracks your purchase patterns and shows you ads specific to you. How is this different from convention PPCs you ask?
The point of PPC bidding is to gain a slot for an ad most similar to your search. That is, the ad you will see will be based on the keywords you typed in. But with advancing technology and internet abilities, PPCs are expanding beyond this conventional framework and are delving into more AI based algorithms.
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Google Ads – The Father of PPCs
The largest domain right now for pay per click advertisements is Google, as you might have suspected. With their massive and higly sought after search engine, Google is extremely lucrative in terms of creating successful ad spaces for products. Google receives massive amounts of traffic every second. The only thing you need to ensure is the frequency of your ads appearing and the turnover percentage. If you use a keyword that is specific and not searched for by users, your ad will never see the light of day. Use more common keywords that get more traffic.
The Four Cardinal Rules of PPCs
Here are some aspects of creating pay per click ads that you need to take care of for a successful ad campaign. The first, keyword relevance. Your keywords, as I have mentioned before, need to be relevant and searchable. The second, your landing page’s quality. When a user clicks on your ad, your next job is to convert their interest into a purchase. That can only be done by having a landing page which is just as interesting and catchy as the product or the ad you have used. Keep your information short and concise, but also interesting. Use language that the masses shall relate to.
The third is the quality score. Google does this thing where it gives a rating to the quality and relevance of your landing page and ad content. Yes, you can’t just put up anything on your slot. The better rating you have, the lower your cost per click. An increased quality score also ensures more clicks per time period. The last rule goes for all the content you produce, creativity. Being creative is essential. Your advertisement needs to look creative and different. However it should still have a sophistication to it so that people are actually interested in looking at your product.
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A Never-Ending Journey
PPCs are a world unto their own. There is a lot to know about pay per click programs, how they work, what they do, how we can use them to our advantage. And though you know some of it now, it’s simply the basics. Learning about pay per click advertisements is a never ending journey. But we hope that armed with this new information you have a successful venture into the world of pay per click advertisements.