If you work in business or marketing nowadays, you’re sure to have heard of PPC or pay per click ads. Their popularity is hardly surprising. As they’re a form of targeted advertising wherein the advertiser only pays the host website when someone clicks through to their site, it’s easy for any business owner to see the appeal.
PPC Management – Google’s Way
Search engines are among the biggest hosts for PPC advertising, not just because of the amount of traffic they handle, but also because they can show adverts in response to specific searches for keywords. The sponsored links you see on search engines like Google are the most common form of pay per click advertising there is. In fact, Google Adwords (the most successful PPC platform on the web) recently surpassed 50bn USD in advertising revenue (Tech Cocktail, 2014). If your business uses PPC, there’s a very good chance you’re using Google Adwords, but now might be the best time to think of branching out.
According to Chad Hill at Tech Cocktail, it’s becoming increasingly apparent that sites such as Amazon and Facebook are serious contenders in the world of PPC. Both have their own internal search systems, which puts them on a par with search engines insofar as that they can also respond to searches for keywords or phrases. What’s more, they offer key advantages that even Google can’t match.
Why Amazon should look into PPC?
Amazon is a site specifically tailored for buying and selling products. With customers already looking to purchase products when they enter the site, a relevant PPC could prove far more effective on Amazon than it might be if presented on (for example) Google. After all, a viewer using a search engine could be looking for more general information without seeking to buy anything.
How does Facebook use their own PPC?
Meanwhile, Facebook is currently using a clever piece of software called Atlas, which allows it to seamlessly track users as they move from laptop to tablet to mobile. This makes it far easier for the site to measure the effectiveness of adverts on a potential customer from start to finish and respond accordingly.
However, it’s worth realising that while Amazon and Facebook are large sites with distinct advantages for PPC advertising, they still don’t have the sheer clout of search engines, or more specifically, Google, in terms of the amount of traffic they handle. At present, in fact, Google is single-handedly responsible for 67% of the search traffic on the Internet.
In conclusion
In other words, while sites like Amazon and Facebook present a new and interesting opportunity for PPC advertising, it’s likely that they’re not yet ready to take on the full weight of your business’s pay per click ambitions. Rather, what seems to be needed is a balanced approach using search engine-based PPC as its backbone and other sites as a supplementary platform for advertising.
