Introduction to PPC networks

PPC stands for Pay-per- Click; it is a marketing model where you advertise on a site that only charges you when a customer clicks on your ad, not when a customer visits the page where the ad is located on. Using PPC networks is a great way to know exactly how much traffic you get from a particular ad, and save money doing it.

PPC networks will help you make money.

What you pay for each click is called CPC or Cost per Click and different PPC networks determine this based on two models.
-    Flat rate model
Here the publisher and the advertiser agree on a fixed price to be paid for each click, prices differ according to the page where the ad is going to be placed, with higher costs for high visibility pages.
-    Bid based model
In this model, a group of advertisers bid on a high value ad spot, and the publisher selects the highest bid, this is the CPC the winning advertiser will pay PPC networks.

There are a lot of PPC networks around, but the largest are Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing, and Microsoft adCenter. Those three PPC networks operate under the bid-based model mentioned earlier.
The PPC networks system is not perfect though. It can be abused either by competitors who click your ads just to cost you money, or by unethical web developers who click to increase their ad profits. However the largest PPC networks have implemented automated systems to guard against abusive clicks.

In next series of articles we will take a close look at PPC networks, their uses, which ones are the best for you and what to look for before you join a PPC network. Please visit www.doubleurincom.com to stay updated on the subject.