PPC : The power of search advertising

PPC ads on search engines are likely to be much more effective than banner
ads. Why?


- People are searching for something when they see your ad. Banner
  ads are often placed onto what may be termed content sites, as opposed
  to search sites. On content sites, people are looking at information,
  rather than for information. In most cases, banner ads lead people away
  from the task at hand; PPC ads are designed to help people with the task
  at hand — looking for information.

- Ads are delivered based on what people search for, so there’s a very
  good chance that if someone clicks your ad, he or she is interested in
  what you’re selling or promoting.
- The ads are unobtrusive and not gimmicky. The major PPC systems
  have guidelines to stop the use of tricks and gimmicks. Again, if someone
  clicks, he or she is probably interested.


All in all, PPC ads on search sites are generally more effective than banner
ads on non-search sites, in the same way that Yellow Pages ads are often
more effective than newspaper ads. When people see your ad for, say, a shoe
store in the Yellow Pages, chances are they’re looking for a shoe store. When
they see your shoe-store ad in a newspaper, they may just be reading the news.
Having said all that, it’s important to understand that sometimes PPC ads are
not placed in search results — they are sometimes placed on content sites
(that’s a choice made by the advertiser). You can see an example of a PPC ad
on a content site. (I’m going to use the term content match forthis type of ad,
which is actually the term used by Yahoo! — other PPC systems
use different terms. One common term you’ll hear is contextual advertising,
though that term is a little ambiguous in some ways.) Right now, Google
is the big player in the content-match game, but other PPC systems also do it.
Google’s big in the content-match business because, through its AdSense program,
it makes it very easy for almost any site owner to run PPC ads on his or
her Web sites.