Is Google AdWords the same as Pay Per Click?
Is Google AdWords the same as Pay Per Click? Find out about pay per click and what Google Adwords is all about in this article.
Of 7.7 billion of the world’s population, 4.33 billion have access to the internet which represents 56%. The advertising landscape has experienced the most dramatic shift as things go digital. It is not surprising that today, advertisers spend more on digital advertising than on any other form of advertising, with a keen focus on customer experience.
Digital marketing is broad in itself. It rounds up social media, SEO, Pay-Per-Click (PPC), and content marketing among other marketing channels. Digital marketing is today synonymous with marketing, with more than $560 billion in global spend as projected for the year 2019 alone.
Businesses are warming up to the immense benefits that this form of advertising has to offer and are now, more than ever, dedicating more effort to it. Marketing professionals can gear up to launch successful campaigns for such businesses, often by taking up a PPC training course.
An increasing focus on Facebook and Google
Digital marketing cannot be discussed without mentioning Google and Facebook as these are the two largest digital advertising platforms. Google, in 2019, takes up $103.73 billion of the global digital ad spend which represents 31.1%, followed by Facebook which takes up a fair $67.37 billion.
With more than 2 trillion searches per year on Google and more than 2.41 billion active users every month on Facebook, businesses are leveraging these two powerful marketing tools effectively to get more leads, grow their brands, and increase their sales.
Secondly, with Google and Facebook, businesses are now optimizing their ads to accommodate two growing trends, mobile advertising, and localization of content. In May 2015, a report from Google revealed that more searches were being performed on mobile devices than on personal computers in the United States.
An advantage that these two advertising channels offer is that they accommodate different budgets and different advertising objectives that various businesses have.
What is pay-per-click?
Pay-per-click is a paid advertising model that uses search engine platforms like Google, Yahoo, and Bing to drive traffic to a website. In PPC, an advertiser runs an ad on search engine result pages (SERPs) based on a specific keyword related to a website. When a user clicks on the ad and is directed to the site, the advertiser is charged.
Essentially, PPC drives traffic to a website faster compared to earning traffic organically through SEO plus PPC visitors are 50% more likely to purchase something compared to organic visitors, according to research by Bounce. To use PPC effectively, some businesses combine both PPC and SEO in their advertising strategies to achieve their objectives.
What is Google Adwords?
While PPC is a broader paid digital advertising term, Google Adwords is a PPC advertising platform-specific to Google. Google Ads is the most popular PPC advertising model earning a larger 74.5% share of searches done on PC.
Just like in other PPC systems, advertisers using Google Ads bid for keywords or phrases that relate to their websites or content and create an ad. When a Google user performs a search using the same keywords, the ads get displayed on Google’s SERPs which increases the likelihood of users clicking on these ads and being directed to the website.
Ads are ranked by Google based on CPC (cost per click) and quality factors like relevance, landing page quality, and click-through rate among other factors. Just as in other PPC platforms, when users click on advertisers’ ads and are directed to their website, advertisers pay Google for these clicks.
How is Pay-per-Click different from Google Adwords?
PPC is broad in itself. It encompasses different channels including search engines and social media platforms. Considering PPC solutions in general opens a business to a world of advertising options.
The Market Size
As we have already seen, Google Adwords is just another form of PPC advertising. However, opting for Google Adwords means that one is only limited to the Google and Google Display Network. Still, Google Adwords is a reliable PPC solution thanks to Google commanding almost 90% of the search engine market hence being able to deliver more clicks and impressions.
Because not all searches are conducted on Google and not all market segments are search engine markets, it is good for businesses to consider other PPC solutions apart from or in addition to Google Ads.
Such solutions include search engine PPC solutions like Bing and Yahoo which are picking up steadily and social media PPC solutions like Facebook which is the biggest, and others like Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Pinterest. Something to note is that all these PPC solutions present unique market segments that businesses need to study keenly before crafting their paid digital advertising strategy.
Cost Per Click
The price advertisers pay for clicks varies from platform to platform. As big as Google is, competition for AdWords is also stiff and the price for AdWords increasing by the day. Again, the cost per click depends on the keyword. A business that uses a keyword with high demand is bound to pay more for it particularly if using Google Ads. Even so, a good GoogleAd strategy will yield its results. According to a report by Google, the average business makes averagely $2 in revenue for every $1 spent in Google advertising.
On the other hand, other PPC platforms, in a bid to match up to Google, work round the clock to offer attractive packages to advertisers and their efforts are slowly bearing fruit.
Just like in search engines, social media platforms also have different Cost Per Click systems. Understanding the different billing options and aligning them with your goals helps you create a winning advertising strategy.
Conclusion
A Lot more goes into paid digital advertising than what we can imagine. There are many alternatives to Google Ads and knowing these alternatives will help you diversify your advertising strategy to target a bigger audience and get more leads or traffic.
Launching a PPC Ad is not a one time task. For it to be successful, it needs regular monitoring and evaluation. Have you considered gaining valuable knowledge in PPC? Here is an opportunity to do so. An Advanced Pay Per Click (PPC) Certification Training will equip you with the knowledge needed to launch PPC Ads that bring worthwhile results.
