PPC - Pay Per Click Management

Whenever you search online for the best online form of advertising, 9 times out of 10 the top answer will be Pay Per Click. If you go up to an advertiser and ask what form of advertising they use, 9 times out of 10 they will say PPC. Pay per click programs have grown to be the biggest earner in online advertising and consequently the most famous too. Only starting out in 2000 with Google Adwords, PPC has only been around for 12 years. This might seem long but compared to the original forms of advertising such as TV and radio advertising, PPC is still extremely young. But, somehow, it has grown to be the most used form of advertising globally. It is the most famous form of online advertising and could potentially be the most famous form of advertising too. But how? How has something that is only 12 years old become as famous as it has done?

A reason many advertisers believe PPC has become so famous is with the programs that use it mainly being Google. From reading The History of Advertising, Google initially created the whole PPC concept with Adwords which lead the program to produce 95% of all of Google’s revenue. With this giant search engine company exploring unexplored territories in online advertising,  there must have been potential which there was. Billions of people use Google. Therefore, PPC seemed the perfect match for them to diversify into. It’s like saying that the tablet computer (such as the iPad) became famous because the biggest technological company (being Apple) explored the unexplored niche market first. Google in theory have done exactly the same thing with PPC.

As well as the companies that created PPC programs, the concept of PPC is simple yet effective too. PPC revolutionised traditional forms of advertising by introducing ‘pay per click’ where the advertiser only pays for the traffic the advert gains. Although PPC campaigns are still difficult to make efficient, the potential efficiency of spending, traffic, budgeting and time PPC has to offer to advertisers beats every other type of advertisement. Never before had advertisers been given the opportunity to geo-target their audience and through keywords, produce contextual traffic at extremely low prices in little to no time at all. It sounds too good to be true. That must have been the feeling of many advertisers when Adwords was first launched. It’s a revolution.

I believe that one of the biggest reasons PPC is famous is solely because of the expansion of the internet. PPC and the internet are directly linked to one another: if there is more internet traffic, PPC will have more traffic to target. I read an interesting article the other day about the future of the human race from next year right up to 10 million AD. It stated that in around 3 years time, the internet usage will have gone from 1.5 billion users up to a staggering 5 billion. This is staggering. This puts into perspective why PPC has become so famous. The internet, potentially in 3 years time, will have an audience of 5 billion people worldwide. PPC adverts will be seen by everyone. This is why PPC is famous. The internet made it famous.