Pay Per Click Management
There are hundreds of Pay Per Click Search Engines you can buy traffic from. As this number increases, it becomes more difficult to determine which ones are worth your time using. That's where our Top 8 Search Engine list comes in handy.
What is Pay Per Click Advertising?
Pay Per Click (also known as Pay Per Ranking, Pay Per Placement, Pay Per Position or Cost Per Click) enables you to list your site at the top of search engine results by advertising on keywords that best describe your product or service. It's a dynamic marketplace - the higher you bid, the higher your advertisement will be displayed in the list.
You pay only when a searcher clicks on your listing and connects to your site. You don't pay to list, you only pay for clicks or click throughs. This way you only pay for the traffic to your site, there are no other hidden costs.
Pay Per Click is not only available on search engines. Publishers can also include PPC advertisements on their sites. For example, we use Google's PPC Adsense product as you can see in the left-hand column.
It's a smart idea...
An account with a PPC search engine is a great way to drive targeted traffic to your site because you only pay for actual clicks to your site. It allows you to get maximum exposure, while you control the amount you want to spend on your marketing campaign. You can clearly track the effectiveness of your ad campaign.
If you have a PPC account, as you read this you are paying for wasted clicks. Visitors that aren't really interested in what you offer are coming to your website and you're paying for them. Isn't that frustrating to know? The bad news is that the nature of PPC won't enable you to ever totally eliminate this from happening.
Why? One reason is because you can't control searcher behavior. You could write the perfect ad for your most targeted keyword on exact match so that it cannot be mistaken what it is you're offering. But, searchers that are not at all candidates for purchasing will still click through for many reasons. Maybe they thought you were in their price range, but aren't. Or maybe their query failed to return the kind of results they were looking for but your ad piqued their curiosity so they clicked through in exploration mode just to make sure.
Advertisers need to be wary of PPC search engines that offer clickers money or incentives to click through their results. Our advice is to steer clear of these search engines or programs as the clicks you pay for may not be the best quality.
The world of Pay Per Click advertising has grown into a multi-billion dollar industry. PPC providers have become more sophisticated, providing enhanced account features. Such features enable you to select which countries you want your ads displayed in and in what language. There are also more companies providing bid management services such as Atlas One Point, to help you manage your PPC campaigns across multiple engines.
This Pay Per Click Guide provides an overview of several pay per click programs on offer. Each program is reviewed using the following four criteria:
Price: How much do you need to spend to open an account?
What is the minimum bid amount?
Traffic: You want visitors to your website. Find out what traffic volumes you can expect.
Interface: Find out where your listings will be published.
Extras: Allows us to share any extra tidbits about the service with you.
We've narrowed down this huge list down to our favorites based on our own experience and user feedback. Let us know your experiences!
1. Google AdWords - The biggest and best for volume, traffic quality and user interface. However the most expensive. Get started for only $5.
2. Yahoo! Search Marketing - First GoTo.com, then Overture, now Yahoo! Search Marketing. Both high volume and quality with a few bargains still around.
3. MSN AdCenter - A newly emerging big player with lots of leverage, and arguably the best quality traffic. Look out for an amazing keyword research tool as part of the package.