What is PPC? | Smart PPC

PPC stands for “pay per click” a form of online marketing in which advertisers can pay a fee each time one of their ads is clicked.

Put simply, it’s a way of buying visits to your website, rather than “earning” those visits organically (through SEO for example).

Search engine marketing in particular on Google, is the most popular form of PPC. Google PPC allows you bid for placement on Google’s 1st page of results for any search term you like. For example, if we bid for the search term “dentist in chester” our ads can show up at the very top of the search results (above organic results)

Being in the top positions on Google means you are more likely than your competitors to receive clicks from potential customers

Every time your ad is clicked, and a user visits your website, you pay Google a small fee. When PPC is working correctly (usually when managed by expert), the fee reduces over time.

Search engines reward advertisers who can create relevant, compelling and unique advertising campaigns by charging them less for ad clicks.

If your ads and website pages they land on are relevant to users, Google charges you less per click, leading to higher profits for your business. So if you want to start using PPC, it’s important to learn how to do it right, the best way to achieve this is usually by having a dedicated in house team of experts or using a Google Partner agency, the latter is significantly cheaper.

What is Google Ads?

Google Ads (formerly known as Google AdWords) is the most popular PPC advertising system in the world. Why? Because 80% of internet searches are done on Google and its ad management system is far superior to any other.

Google Ads operates a pay-per-click model, in which advertisers bid on keywords and only pay for each click on their ads. Every time a search is carried out, Google chooses advertisers that have the most relevant offering to its users. The advertiser with the “best” offering is rewarded with the best ad positions and the lowest click costs.

If you would like to have a chat about anything related to PPC marketing, call us today on

01244 955488 or email info@smartppc.co.uk

How Does Google Ads Work?

It all starts with a search.

Every time a search is carried out on Google, it chooses which “keyword” from your account it deems the most relevant and enters it into an auction with the maximum bid (the maximum amount you are willing to pay for a click) with all the other advertisers who also use this keyword.

How does Google determine which ad is “best” and which ad is shown where?

Once you are entered into the auction, Google looks at two key factors to determine where your ad ranks

Your Maximum Bid (£)
Your Quality Score

Quality score is a metric (from 1 to 10) that is given to each keyword in your account based on how relevant your advertising is. The main components of Quality Score are Ad Relevance, Click Through Rate, and the relevance of the website page the ad lands on.

Notice how Advertiser I, bids the smallest amount, but “wins” because of their high quality score.

How does Google determine what what you pay?

In a nutshell, you pay the minimum amount possible for the position you “win” if your ad is clicked. If you feature on the results, but don’t receive a click, you pay nothing.

Notice in the graphic opposite how the “winner” pays much less than the rest because of their high quality score, also notice how they pay far less than what they actually bid.