Pay Per Click has relatively emerged as a popular marketing tool over the years in the internet marketing industry. It involves paying each time a user clicks on your link.
It is an internet advertising method where advertisers bid on specific keywords relevant to particular product or service. Subsequently, advertiser has to make payments for visits based on keywords chosen by them. Higher bids usually get the top listing. Let's say that in a search engine three advertisers bid on that same keyword "website". Consequently, advertisers submit their bids on the same keyword like $1, $2 and $3 respectively. So, whenever a visitor clicks on advertisers listing, advertisers will be charged as per their bid amount.
Bid price is not only the factor to ensure top rankings of ads. There are several other factors which determine the top rankings in search engines like Click through rate, Competition, Historical data etc. Besides this PPC has certain benefits and downsides which cannot be missed out.
Pros
PPC campaigns give you an opportunity to widen your online customers' horizon and effective way to attract potential customers.
PPC campaigns are considered to be the most cost effective method to increase sales and higher ROI.
With the help of PPC campaigns, you can easily control per visitors costs since you only pay for the visitors that actually click on your advertisement.
PPC programs gives you chance to opt for the correct and suitable words to promote your products and services. Although, the more you pay, the higher you will appear on search engines.
With Pay per click you can easily track response rate of your ads which was almost completely lacking in traditional offline advertising. Moreover, a PPC campaign enables you to get feedback instantly on who is responding to your ads
Cons
Pay per click cannot be completely called as a failsafe method. Hence, it also some disadvantages attached to it.
The following are the cons
PPC cannot always guarantee high traffic. Although it's a popular method but still it mostly receives less traffic coupled with low conversion rate.
PPC campaign involves extensive keyword research. So, a selection of wrong keyword might generate very little or no traffic.
PPC campaigns can turn into futile campaigns if the caption and content is not effectively.
Often people are apprehensive and fear of being misled or deceived by PPC ad campaigns. That's why people believe only organic listings which are regular on search engines instead of sponsored listings.
PPC campaigns can be very expensive and yet ineffectual if not executed cautiously. It should be carefully done as it involves paying for each and every visitor also including those who don't buy.