Glossary / Pay-per-click (PPC)
What is Pay-per-click (PPC)?
Pay-per-click is advertising where you pay only when someone clicks your ad, not when it is shown. Search ads are the best-known example.
You bid on a keyword. When someone searches it, your ad may appear above the regular results. You are charged only if they click. That is the pay-per-click model, and it powers most search advertising.
Position is not simply bought. Search engines rank ads on a mix of bid and expected quality, so a relevant ad with a matching landing page can outrank a bigger bid. Relevance is the lever you control.
The appeal is speed. Traffic starts the day the campaign starts, and it stops the day the budget stops. That is the opposite of SEO, which is slow to build and keeps working after you stop paying.
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