Pay per click advertising has become one of the most popular ways for websites to advertise on search engines. This is thanks in large part to the rise of Google, which popularized such advertising through its innovative auction process where competing websites bid against one another for the right to pay a certain price for a clicked link on a search engine results page.
Not only did this become the source of Google’s massive profits, adding up to more than $8 billion in 2010, it also revolutionized the advertising business on the internet by making pay per click promotional links far more effective than pay-per-impression advertising.
With pay-per-impression advertising, websites pay the search engine money for every person who views the ad; this price is paid regardless of whether the viewer clicks on the advertisement or not. As such, these advertising campaigns could be very ineffective since the advertiser would have to pay money for search engine visitors who were not interested in the product or service being advertised.
However, with pay-per-click advertising, advertisers can be assured that they will only pay money to search engines when they get a legitimate lead. Although this cost will be much higher per person when compared to the cost of pay-per-impression advertising, the advertiser can be far more confident that those who do click will ultimately lead to revenue of some kind for the business.
Of course, some advertisers still prefer pay-per-impression advertising, especially companies that are interested in spreading their brand to a large number of viewers. For these companies, the simple ability to get their advertisements in front of search engine viewers is worth the price of the impression. Often times, these advertisers hope to get their ads in front of the same viewers on numerous occasions in the hopes that they will get stuck in the minds of consumers, who may then go out and purchase the good or service in question.
Although these are the two most popular ways to advertise in search engines today, there are other ways to get exposure through advertising on the websites of the most popular search engines. Some sites that offer search engines, such as Yahoo! and AOL, are also portals that give viewers access to news, sports scores, weather and email. These companies also offer advertisers the ability to advertise on these pages as well.
Although advertisers can not target a particular demographic as well on these pages as they can with search engine queries, they do offer the ability to be more creative with such advertising. Whereas search engine ads typically are just simple text links, these other ads can utilize a full panoply of graphics, music and video. This can make website visitors far more engaged with the ad if it is designed properly.
In today’s marketplace, pay per click ads are definitely the most popular way to advertise to new customers. However, for advertisers needing a more personalized media campaign, a variety of advertising strategies can be developed and deployed successfully. Call SEMGeeks today to get started with all your online marketing needs!
