Your ad will appear in search results based not just on your bid, but a number of other factors including the quality and relevance of the web page it’s linking to. This means that if your page is of a good quality and the search engine thinks it’s the best result, you could still appear above a competitor even if they bid more than you. You only pay when someone clicks on the ad to come to your website, hence “pay per click”.

Factors to consider when running a PPC campaign include:

1. Which keywords you’d like your ad to appear for – these can range from your brand name, to different products you sell or services you provide. More popular search terms are likely to cost more
2. How much you’re willing to spend for each customer to click through to your site – this is called the cost-per-click (CPC) and you set ‘bids’ to show the maximum amount you want to spend
3. What your ad or campaign will say – many search engines will analyse the quality of your advert text and use this to prioritise how often it’s shown

There are many great benefits to using Pay-Per-Click advertising to drive more traffic to your site, including:

1. Visibility – your ad is likely to feature in some of the more ‘visible’ areas of search engine results pages, so potential customers are more likely to click through to visit your website
2. Immediate results: from the moment you set your ads live, you could start seeing results; unlike organic listings which can take months to appear
3. Easy to change: adjusts to your budget, however large or small
4. Cost-effective: you only pay when someone visits your website
   Targeted: to specific locations, demographics and times of the day
5. Measurable: results are completely trackable so you can easily streamline and improve your advertising

Pay-Per-Click advertising includes a lot of jargon and many terms you may not recognise – here are some of the important ones you may come across:

1. Ad Copy – the text within your ad
2. Ad Extensions – additional pieces of information you can include in your PPC ads, such as a phone number, or additional links to different pages on your website
3. Ad Group – a grouping of keywords which all fit into similar topics or target similar types of audience
4. Automated (Auto) Bidding – a feature that automatically adjusts bids to deliver a goal that you set. This may be a cost per acquisition or cost per view amongst other things.
5. Bid – the amount of money you’re willing to spend on each of your ads. Also known as a keyword bid.
6. Bid Modifiers – adjust a bid based on device, location or time
7. Call Tracking – tracking the number of people that call your business as a result of having seen your ad
8. Click-Through Rate – a percentage measure of how many users that have seen your ad, ultimately choose to click on it
9. Conversion – the action you want your customer or visitor to make once they’ve come through to your site. Examples include purchasing a product, booking an appointment or leaving their contact details
10. Conversion Rate – a percentage measure of how many users completed a conversion action (e.g. a call) after clicking through to your website
11. Conversion Tracking – a tool to help you see what actions a visitor takes on your site after interacting with your ad
12. Cost Per Conversion– the average amount you as an advertiser have paid for each conversion generated by an ad
13. Cost Per Click – the amount you as an advertiser will pay for each click on your ad
14. Display Network – known in Google as Google Display Ads, these are paid ads which use images or video in the creative rather than the simple text ads usually seen on search results pages
15. Geotargeting – a feature or tool that allows you to target your ads so they’re only seen by people within a certain location
16. Impressions – a count of each time your ad is shown on a search result page
17. Keyword – the specific phrase or search term you would like your ad to show for
18. Landing Page – the specific page you’d like your ad to take your visitors to
19. Match Type – rather than working out every word your customers might search for, match types allow your keywords to show for closely related similar searches
20. Quality Score – the rating used by search engines to determine the credibility, relevance and strength of your ad, which is used when prioritising which ads are shown
21. Remarketing List (RLSA) – a function that allows you to re-target people who have already visited your site. You can shape your ads and bids to appeal to them in a different way