Pay Per Click advertising is a cornerstone of online advertising and although the result seems simple at first, it’s a deceptively involved process. It’s part science and part art. Understanding how both work is essential. Fortunately we do and we are happy to walk you through PPC setup and optimization.
What I think I do in Online Advertising.
In social situations the topic of what people do for a living always comes up, whether at a party, sitting in a bar or randomly stopping whoever will listen in the street. Whenever I tell people I work in Online Advertising with DigiMar Digital Marketing, a common response is “Oh so you are the one responsible for those annoying ads that follow me around everywhere!”.
The other response being “So like Mad Men but not as cool.”
What people think I do in Online Advertising.
“Yep, you caught me, I confess…” I say. “But must I swear you to secrecy lest I reveal your online browsing habits.” In attempt to recover from the awkward joke I just made I try explain how Pay Per Click works in the most basic way I can (because it’s the most basic way I understand it myself).
“When ever you search for something using a search engine you get the organic results that are there based on the relevance of their content from Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and you get the Pay Per Click results that will appear ahead of those for a price.”
“So I can just put my page up and people will find it anyway, why would I pay for people to find my page?”
“Fair question, the difference is SEO takes 6+ months to reach its ranking position within the search engine and isn’t guaranteed to be there, with Pay Per Click it can be ranking within 15 minutes!”
“Okay, so a company should use both Pay Per Click and Organic traffic but why should anyone trust the results if they have been paid for?”
What I actually do in Online Advertising.
“The advertiser wants to supply their audience with the most relevant advertisement possible. Google’s Pay Per Click Advertising network puts those adverts in touch with the most relevant audience based on their search queries. The advertiser Pays Per advert clicked on to improve its visibility against other competing ads.”
“Look at this flowchart I prepared earlier for no particular reason!”
“Uhh cool flowchart bro, but why can’t they just pay for the premium position for a spammy advert and throw money at it to send people to a misleading website.” They say, trying to poke holes in my flawless presentation.
“They absolutely can, however it will cost them a lot of money. They will always lose out to an advertisement that has better quality content and a relevant landing page every time.” I retort smugly.
“But I’m sure Google doesn’t care where it gets its money from.”
“Well, if they cared only about the money and not the content, Googles advertising network would lose credibility and people wouldn’t trust the content. So it’s in their best interests to police the advertisers’ content and check it’s relevant to what customers want to rank it accordingly.”
Advertiser 4 was disqualified for using performance enhancing code.
“There are still a lot of lousy adverts out there.”
“I can’t argue with that but it’s calculated on a quality score. The better your landing pages content and description the stronger it will compete against a rival’s ad. The ones that don’t will cost their advertiser more and get a lesser position. It’s a bit like financial natural selection.”
“Hmm well I’m more of a financial creationist mister, good luck with all that.”
“Hey, wait aren’t you going to finish your drink? I have cat pictures, come back! Sigh…”
Not a Pay Per Click seminar apparently.
