

What is Pay Per Click {PPC}
PPC is an online advertising model in which advertisers pay each time a user clicks on one of their online ads. There are different types of PPC ads, but one of the most common types is the paid search ad. These ads appear when people search for things online using a search engine like Google – especially when they are performing commercial searches, meaning that they’re looking for something to buy.
How PPC Works
In order for ads to appear alongside the results on a search engine (commonly referred to as a Search Engine Results Page, or SERP), advertisers cannot simply pay more to ensure that their ads appear more prominently than their competitor’s ads. Instead, ads are subject to what is known as the Ad Auction, an entirely automated process that Google and other major search engines use to determine the relevance and validity of advertisements that appear on their SERPs.
Keywords
As its name implies, the Ad Auction is a bidding system. This means that advertisers must bid on the terms they want to “trigger,” or display, their ads. These terms are known as keywords. The moment the user submits their search query, the search engine performs the complex algorithmic calculations that the Ad Auction is based upon. This determines which ads are displayed, in which order, and by which advertiser.
