PPC

Pay-per-Click advertising or PPC allows advertisers to place targeted ads in front of users searching for products or services through search engines such as Google, Lycos et al. It's called Pay-per-Click because that's exactly what it is.

Because the ads are targeted, and assuming you’ve targeted them well, you can begin pulling valuable punters directly to your website at which point you could convert them into a sale. Many businesses successfully use this form of adverting whilst others are confused as to the benefits and the economics of it.

If you are unsure then as a business consider these four questions.

1. Do you have a service or product that can be sold online or sold as a direct result of online activity and a customer base that regularly researches the web for those products?
2. Are you also able to accurately assess the number of people who visit your website and the proportion of visits that lead to a transaction or successful sales lead?
3. What is the value of an average sale?

If you can answer the first three questions then you should be able to quantify the average value of each visitor to your site. If you can, then you should ask yourself the fourth question.

4. How much on average is each visitor to your site worth and can you afford to spend a fraction of that value to attract potential customers online?

If you can answer this last question positively then you could be considering Pay-per-click advertising as a way of driving sales. Look into it further but first read the next part of this piece to see how it works.

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