What is PPC advertising?

What is PPC advertising?

In the last few weeks, we've been going through a lot of the mechanics behind pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. Today we're going to step back and talk about PPC advertising in general and where the LookSmart AdCenter fits into the landscape of PPC providers.

PPC Advertising 101

First of all, what is "PPC" advertising? The PPC stands for "pay-per-click". You pay LookSmart a certain amount every time a user clicks on an advertisement that we display on one of our partners' web sites. You tell LookSmart the maximum amount you're willing to pay for each of these clicks, and LookSmart compares your bids to other advertisers' bids to determine which ads to show and in what order.

PPC advertising is very different from other forms of online advertising. For example, some web sites will let you place an advertisement by paying a published CPM (cost-per-thousand) rate. This means that you'll pay a certain fee every time your ad is shown, regardless of whether it is clicked on.

Still other sites may charge you a fixed monthly or quarterly subscription fee. This is especially popular with online directories. Your costs are the same every month but the price is set by the service provider.

PPC Advantages

PPC advertising has several advantages over other forms of online advertising, including:
You choose your price. You decide what your maximum PPC price is for your ads. For search advertising, you can choose a different price for every keyword you bid on. Clever advertisers find ways to optimize their bids to keep their costs low.
You choose your keywords. With PPC advertising, you can be very specific about where you want your ads to show. You have total control over your keywords at all times and can make changes on a daily basis. This can be very flexible and responsive to your needs.
You pay only for success. You pay only when one of your future visitors clicks on your ads. This means that you have the opportunity to convert your visitors to paying customers with each click. Other forms of advertising make you pay even if the visitor never actually makes it to your site.