Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertisements

What is PPC?

PPC stands for Pay Per Click, a service provided by Chatter Buzz Media, and a type of advertisement that customers pay for by the click or impression. PPC ads, sometimes referred to as Google click ads, can be used in conjunction with an overall Internet Marketing strategy, or they can run in their own as a stand-alone PPC program. The best PPC strategy for your product is determined by what your company or business entity does, what their philosophies are, how it relates to the brand, and so on.

There are different ways to build a PPC program, they can be created on several websites, they can be tracked and analyzed, and they can be very effective if done properly. If you are interested in PPC ads, but don’t know where to start, contact a professional Internet Marketing company like Chatter Buzz Media sets up and maintains several effective PPC ad programs.

How To Create a PPC Ad

To begin a PPC ad, one must first create a landing page that the ad will lead to if one does not exist already.  Since you will be sending traffic to that page, it’s best to optimize it using SEO strategies and tools such as keyword research, content editing, meta data editing, and so on.

Once the landing page is fully optimized, bid an amount, and create the PPC ad using the same keywords that have been researched to suit the needs of the business. Create an ad that includes a campaign specific call-to-action like “limited time offer”, make sure the ad is light on filler text, and that is full of optimized keywords. Different “ad groups” can run at the same time for testing purposes, so there is no reason to go crazy trying to make the perfect ad, you won’t know how perfect they are until they are live and tested.

Several parameters exist as well to help tailor a PPC ad to the user based on geography, age, interests, or even prior visits to your site. Do you only want to target people who left items in their shopping cart, but did not go through with a sale? Hit them with an ad and remind them how awesome your widgets are!

PPC Ad structure (for Google) is as follows:
Title – 25 Characters
Descriptive URL – 35 Characters
Ad Text – 35 Characters per line

(From Google Adwords. Click to enlarge)

PPC Ad Payments

Finally, a payment decision needs to be made. Will the campaign be charged by the click or by the impression? Per-click payments are charged exactly how they sound’ by the click. If someone clicks the ad, an amount close to the bid will be charged, they do fluctuate, that’s why it is a bod rather than a precise cost. Ads charged by the impression will be charged every time the ad appears on a users screen.

Since it’s impossible to see where on their computer screen a person is looking… for now anyway… charges based on impression may not even be seen, so there is a downside to them.

As stated before, PPC ads can run in places besides Google. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Yahoo and other sites all have their own PPC ad formats, and of course, image based banner ads can run on any site, with terms negotiated beforehand. Usually though, when people say PPC, they are referring to the Google ads in the image above, the ones that run above and to the right of organic links, the ones you don’t have to pay for.
If you are interested in starting a PPC campaign, fill out our quote form or contact Chatter Buzz Media at 321-236-BUZZ.