What is PPC marketing

The world functions on the simple premise of supply and demand. For centuries now the principle has been the cornerstone of society and on the back of that there have always been people eager to convince you that what they supply is what you must have; the ad men!
There have always been famous instances of how we have been convinced to buy a product, there the famous Ford slogan, 'Any colour as long as it's black' or the Guinness tag line, 'Guinness is good for you'. The more creative efforts, like these two, get people talking and put a product or service into the public domain and consciousness. Less successful campaigns do not have this impact and the trick for the advertising business has always been to come up with something recognizable, something that has staying power.

As the recent hit TV series, Mad Men, has shown the effort employed and the tricks used to get our attention and to get us to part with out money get increasingly complicated and even downright bizarre over time. From simple black and white newspaper ads or flyers to the most lavishly produced TV commercials a lot of effort and money is put behind campaigns to sell us things. But what happens when that is no longer effective?

With the advent of the internet everything to do with advertising changed. Terms like 'full page ad' and 'radio commercial' have been superseded in terms of importance by 'Pay Per Click' and 'Search Engine Optimisation'. Advertising has had to adapt to these conditions and the new platform for reaching people. Some companies have been slow to deal with it but some haven't and they are the companies already seeing the benefits of pay per click campaigns and online marketing.

In the news recently many companies have said they are reducing the size of their marketing budgets to take into account the current economic crisis. That seems like a wise move. It has always been a fact that in tough times the first thing to get cut is advertising. But is that the right thing to do today? Only a few have followed up the budget cut news with a further announcement of redirecting funds to online marketing, these are the people who clearly have more of an understanding of the current marketplace.

One of the other big stories to emerge recently is that online purchases have never been so healthy. Some specialist online retailers have reported record sales and have not seen any adverse effect from the economic downturn, completely flying in the face of current trends. Even high street stores who have suffered from sales in their stores have said that online sales are up. So is it wise to completely stop advertising and ignore the potential of pay per click and search engine optimisation?

The answer has to be no. The people who invest in marketing on the internet are clearly going to be in a better position than those that do nothing. Pay per click, or PPC, is one area that those in the know with the confidence to invest are see the benefits of.

It's an attractive proposition to businesses as the amount you pay for it is directly linked to how well it works for you. In that respect it's very good value and is easy to measure. An advertiser is only charged whenever a pay per click link on a page is used to direct someone to their particular product.