What is PPC in Digital Marketing? | PPC Basics That You Should Know in 2025
Team Batterseawebexpert In PPC marketing, every click is a potential sale waiting to happen, as it drives growth, clicks, and conversions by maximizing impact and minimizing waste. It is a cost-effective method to reach potential customers and enables businesses to have a targeted approach to drive organic traffic.
However, due to overreliance on traditional marketing methods and limited exposure to digital advertising knowledge, businesses today are not able to fully leverage the power of PPC marketing.
So to help you unlock the full potential of PPC, we bring to you this comprehensive guide exploring what is PPC in digital marketing and its impact on your sales and traffic.
What is PPC in Digital Marketing?
Pay-Per-Click (PPC) marketing is an effective digital marketing tool that enables businesses to pay only for targeted visits. Basically, you’ll pay every time someone clicks on your ads. It is one of the most cost-effective methods as compared to traditional advertising models that involve paying according to views and impressions.
PPC as a part of digital marketing is available on the following platforms:
- Search Engines
- YouTube
- Social Media Platforms
- Website Banners
- Marketplaces such as Etsy or Amazon
Remember that, in PPC the fee is on the affordable side, as the click’s worth is comparatively more than the amount you pay. For instance, you pay $5 for a jewelry ad click, the click result will help you make a $500 sale which means you earned a huge profit as compared to what you invested.
After understanding what is PPC in digital marketing, let’s quickly take a look at the different types of PPC ads available in the subsequent section. Well, if you do not have enough knowledge and experience to run a PPC ad, then you can also check out for PPC agencies, just make sure to not make mistakes while hiring a PPC agency.
Different Types of PPC Ads
The PPC ad formats come in a wide variety, that includes,
Search Ads
These are text-based ads and are the most popular ad types in PPC that appear at the top or bottom of Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs). They are usually labelled as sponsored or Ad and provide immediate visibility among users actively seeking services or products.
Video Ads
In this ad type, video content is used to promote the brand, product, or service. They mainly appear on online platforms like YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, etc. and work effectively while explaining a complex message in an engaging and clickable format with a call to action. These video ads are available on Cost-Per-View (CPV) or Cost-Per-Click (CPC) basis.
Display Ads
These ads are visually appealing with a variety of media and are mostly seen on digital platforms like websites, apps, etc., in a graphical or banner format. Display ads are quite effective in raising brand awareness, driving traffic, or promoting products and services.
They are available on the Cost-Per-Impressions (CPI) and Cost-Per-Thousand-Impressions (CPM) basis, you need to pay when an ad is displayed on certain number of times.
Shopping Ads
They are rich product ads appearing at the top of search results related to shopping. Shopping ads are particularly useful for ecommerce businesses, as they usually target people who want to buy a specific product. So, build a scalable e-commerce site and run shopping ads to get more sales!
Retargeting Ads
Retargeting or remarketing ads target the users who have previously shown interest in your website and have visited it multiple times. These ads aim to turn a potential lead into a purchase, focusing on people who have previously interacted with your site.
They are available in diverse formats like video ads, search ads, display ads, or social media ads and are purchased on a Cost-Per-Click (CPC) or Cost-Per-Thousand-Impressions (CPM) basis.
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How does PPC Ads Function?
To get a comprehensive understanding of what is PPC in digital marketing, you also need to understand how PPC ads function. So here’s a quick overview of how PPC advertising works in general!
- Firstly, set goals and choose your PPC objectives, which will guide your keyword selection, ad copy, etc.
- Now, select between click-through rate (CTR), conversion rate, impressions, and engagement rate to decide what metrics you want to track.
- Next, refine your settings and define your targets like audience, device, location, schedule, etc.
- Enter your budget along with the bidding strategy.
- Insert your destination URL, which is the landing page.
- Lastly, create your Ad.
Once everything is finalized, wait for the ad to go live. Track your ad by tracking when and where your ad pops up and the price of every click, along with the quality and relevance of your ad.
Benefits of Employing PPC Ads
Cost-Per-Click or PPC ads serve a multitude of benefits; some of them are as follows:
- Ads are displayed on the first page of the search results of a relevant search.
- Enables you to run multiple ad campaigns for every keyword.
- Shows instant results by boosting traffic.
- Improves brand visibility and gives more exposure to your site.
- Delivers higher click-through rates, conversion rates, and an increase in sale.
- One of the most cost-effective options in digital marketing.
- If implemented properly, PPC can yield you a high Return on Ad Spend (ROAS).
Now that you are familiar with what is PPC in digital marketing and its benefits, it’s finally the time to explore how to do PPC campaigns in Google Ads in the subsequent section.
Method to Set Up PPC Campaigns in Google Ads
Google, being the most popular search engine, delivers the most number of impressions and clicks on your ads, that’s why employing PPC campaigns on Google is specifically very beneficial. You can apply PPC in Google Ads by:
- Creating a relevant PPC keyword list with proper ad text and precise keyword groups.
- Particularly focus on landing page quality by optimizing landing pages with relevant content and clear call-to-action search queries.
- Work on improving your quality score, as advertisers with a higher quality score tend to get more ad clicks at lower costs.
- Capture attention by creating an enticing ad copy with impressive visuals.
Tips for Effective PPC Campaign Management
Creating a new campaign and understanding what is PPC in digital marketing is the first step to getting acquainted with the basics of PPC. If you want to avail yourself of the full potential of PPC marketing, you need to make some adjustments.
The following tips will help you optimize and track your PPC ad campaign, so give it a good read!
- Create an impressive keyword list with relevant, long-tail, and high-volume keywords.
- Constantly expand your PPC campaigns by adding useful keywords.
- Also add negative and non-convertible keywords. This will improve the relevancy of your campaign and minimize the wasted spend.
- Redefine your landing pages by modifying the content and CTA to align with the individual search queries. This will boost your search queries.
- Split your ad groups by improving click-through rates (CTR) and quality score to create more targeted ad text.
- Review costly PPC keywords by eliminating the underperforming keywords.
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Top PPC Platforms That You Can Opt For
There are multiple PPC platforms; some of the prominent ones are as follows:
Meta Ads
By utilizing Meta Ads, you’ll be able to run PPC campaigns on both Facebook and Instagram. It has a variety of formats that includes carousels, videos, and images. Meta ads offers specific targeting according to the demographics and user interests.
Google Ads
It is the largest platform for PPC advertising and enables you to run ads across the entire Google LLC network. Google mainly offers six different types of Ad campaigns and depending on your display, shopping, and video, you can choose any of them.
Microsoft
Formerly known as Bing ads, Microsoft also has advertising that allows businesses to draft and run ads on Microsoft Bing’s search engine and Microsoft advertising network.
YouTube Ads
YouTube offers diverse ad categories that include skippable video ads, non-skippable video ads, bumper ads, sponsored ads, and overlay ads. These advertisements target specific users based on their demographics, user behaviors, and interests.
LinkedIn Ads
Similar to Youtube ads, LinkedIn ads also offer different types of ads. Sponsored Content, Sponsored Jobs, Sponsored InMail, Display Ads, and Dynamic Ads. LinkedIn ads are specifically for a professional audience, and they are employed to generate brand awareness or promote job openings.
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Wrapping UP!
PPC in digital marketing is all about greater visibility, better engagement, and measurable results in a cost-effective way. After getting acquainted with what is PPC in digital marketing, you’ll be able to drive more traffic and increase brand awareness.
Mastering PPC ad campaigns is a necessity for businesses to grow and deliver real impact. That’s why you should opt for a reputed digital marketing agency like Battersea Web Expert. It will give you effective PPC strategies to get the best return on investment (ROI).
Now that you know the power of PPC, it’s time to leverage PPC and reach the right customers!!!
