PPC (Pay-Per-Click) is an advertising model in which the advertiser pays only when someone clicks an ad, rather than paying for the number of times it is displayed. Search ads on Google and Microsoft Advertising are the best-known form, but the same billing model is also used for social, display and shopping ads.
How the Auction Works
Each time a search triggers ads, an automatic auction runs in a fraction of a second. Advertisers have chosen keywords and a maximum bid, but the highest bid does not simply win. The platform estimates how relevant and useful each ad and landing page will be, and combines that with the bid and the expected effect of extra ad features to produce an ad rank. This is why a well-matched ad can win a higher position while paying less per click than a weaker competitor.
Structure of a Campaign
- Campaigns set the budget, locations, languages and goal
- Ad groups hold closely related keywords and the ads written for them
- Keywords and match types control how closely a search must match: broad, phrase or exact
- Negative keywords block irrelevant searches, such as "free" or "jobs", that would waste budget
- Ads and assets include headlines, descriptions, sitelinks and call buttons
Tracking Is Not Optional
Clicks alone say little. Conversion tracking records valuable actions such as form submissions, calls and purchases, so spend can be linked to results. Without it, both automated bidding and human managers are guessing. Set up the tracking, and test it, before the first rupee is spent.
The Landing Page Is Half the Campaign
A click is only a cost until the visitor takes action. An ad promising a specific service should lead to a page that continues that promise, loads quickly on mobile and makes the next step obvious. Poor landing pages raise the cost of every lead.
PPC and SEO Compared
PPC delivers visibility as soon as a campaign goes live and can be adjusted or paused instantly, but traffic stops when payment stops. SEO takes longer to build, yet its results continue without a per-click charge. Many businesses use PPC to gain early traffic and learn which phrases convert, then invest in SEO for those same topics.
Budget and Bidding Basics
Daily budgets cap spending per campaign, while a bidding strategy decides how the system sets individual bids. Manual bidding gives control but needs regular attention. Automated strategies, such as maximising conversions, rely on enough recorded results to learn from, so they work best once tracking has captured a reasonable number of conversions. Start with a budget you can sustain for several weeks, because judging a campaign after two days rarely tells you anything useful.
Mistakes That Waste Budget
Frequent problems include sending traffic to the homepage instead of a relevant page, running broad keywords without negative lists, putting everything into one ad group, ignoring the location and device reports, and changing settings so often that the system cannot learn. Setting a budget without knowing an acceptable cost per lead is another common issue.
Our Google Ads management service covers campaign setup and optimisation, alongside broader digital marketing. Related entries include CTR, conversion rate, ROI and landing pages.