When ads are placed on the internet by businesses, the real cost of every internet click can be obscured.
Basically, “Pay per Click” (PPC) is the business model where companies place ads on websites. The placement of ads on websites is paid by businesses to a hosting website each time an internet user clicks on their business advertisement. For business owners, it is important to become more knowledgeable in practices used by hosting websites in order to determine the real cost of every internet click.
Internet Traffic and Business Advertising
In many ways, internet traffic is similar to an electric utility’s metering system that provides a measure of watt hours. Browsers “meter” user traffic for each website and also control business page ranking.
There are also numerous digital marketing groups who provide management of online ads through the use of SEO (Search Engine Optimization), SEM (Search Engine Marketing) and SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).
With the advent of social media marketing, paying independent vendors to manage business advertising online has expanded the reach and potential of business ranking, visibility and branding.
It is easy to see why independent vendors of SEM, SEO and PPC should be scrutinized before business owners make marketing and sales or PPC investments. The dollar value attributable to PPC advertising should be in balance with increases in business website traffic. When it isn’t, the problem may originate with automated ads that are not directed to the best target markets.
Achieving Pay per Click Advertising Goals
When engaging a SEM digital marketing group, it is important to know specific marketing strategies in use. For example, automated ads placed indiscriminately may collect user information. If the users do not fit the required target market, buyer or customer model, the real cost of every internet click may be hidden in automated ads targeted to the wrong market.
A business owner could conceivably pay for thousands of automated ads at a per click cost of more than $1.50 cents per click. Study increases in average per click costs. Try to match per click costs to allowable advertising expenditures in business budgets. This is a good method of determining balance between per click cost and advertising budgets.
Beware of “Fake Traffic” that Increases Per Click Costs
Be aware that it is highly possible to use “Bots” rather than human reviewers of ads. When Bots are used, they increase the real cost of every internet click by creating false
traffic. According to a ANA (Association of National Advertisers) article in a recent Bloomberg Report entitled, “How Much of Your Audience is Fake” by Ben Elgin, Michael Riley, David Kocieniewski, and Joshua Brustein (Ref. http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2015-click-fraud/), “Digital’s return on investment was around 2 to 1, a $2 increase in revenue for every $1 of ad spending, compared with at least 6 to 1 for TV. The most startling finding: Only 20 percent of the campaign’s “ad impressions”—ads that appear on a computer or Smartphone screen—were even seen by actual people.”
Clearly, this should be a strong premise for business owners to inquire about the use of Bots before purchasing PPC advertising packages.
How to Know the Actual Value of Internet Clicks
In order to know the real cost of every internet click, it is imperative business owners study their target markets, responses to PPC ads and relate these to the costs involved in the purchase of internet advertising.
Be aware that as an advertiser and business owner, you have the option of choosing a cost-effective internet advertising strategy and factors that influence increases in the real cost of every internet “click” such as trends toward remarketing and heavier reliance on search networks.
The actual dollar value of every internet click depends entirely on the actual cost of PPC packages. The national average in the US per click ranges from 50 cents per click up to $1.58 per click.