Pay Per Click Advertising

Pay Per Click advertising (or PPC) is a quick and effective means of getting your website and products listed at or near the top of search engine listings. All major search engines list pay-per-click advertising. This guide explains what pay per click advertising is and how pay per click advertising works.

We have also negotiated a special £50.00 discount / credit for Yahoo Search Marketing. Yahoo Search Marketing pay-per-click listings appear on Yahoo, Lycos, Wanadoo and other search engines. More information about our special Yahoo Search Marketing discount can be found further down this page.

What Is Pay Per Click Advertising?

Pay per click advertising is an online form of advertising where adverts or links to your site are displayed on search engines (and other sites) and you pay a small fee each time someone clicks through to your web site. Pay per click adverts are normally displayed in primary positions on search engines and other websites and are often labelled as "Sponsored Results". As an example:


Popular pay per click advertising systems include:

• Yahoo Search Marketing (Overture) - displays ads on Yahoo, AltaVista, Wanadoo and others
• Google Adwords - displays ads on Google and other web sites and search engines
• Mirago - displays adverts on hundreds of smaller portals / web sites
• Miva (formerly Espotting / FindWhat) - displays adverts on thousand of smaller portals / web sites

You only pay when people click on your adverts to visit your site, regardless of how often your adverts are displayed. The amount you pay per click will depend on the maximum amount you bid for each click on your advert and on the amounts that other advertisers have bid. This allows you to control the amount you spend on your pay per click advertising.

How Pay Per Click Advertising Works

For the purposes of this guide, we will give a basic example of how to use Yahoo Search Marketing (formerly Overture). Yahoo Search Marketing is very straightforward to use with a very good management system. Other pay per click advertising systems work in similar ways to Yahoo Search Marketing.

Firstly, you need to join Yahoo Search Marketing (see the link at the bottom of this page). There are two options:

• Self Service - You choose your own keywords, create your own adverts and set your own bids
• Fast Track - Yahoo Search Marketing choose suitable keywords and create up to 100 adverts for you (after which you take over management of adverts and bids)

Assuming you choose Self Service, you now need to choose the keywords you wish to create adverts for. These keywords are the search terms that people enter into search engines when they are searching for something - if they want to buy a pushchair, they may type "pushchair" into the search engine.

However, people may be looking for more specific products, ie, "twin pushchair" or "double pushchair" - that gives you 3 keywords, and therefore you can have 3 adverts. Some keywords can be one word or two - "pushchair" is different to "push chair" - this allows you to have even more adverts. Yahoo Search Marketing's Keyword Assistant will help you find the keywords that people are actually using on search engines.

After choosing your keywords, you need to create your adverts. You need to write short, descriptive and accurate titles and descriptions for each keyword. For example, for the keyword "pushchair", you might have:

Discount Pushchair Showrooms All makes of single and double pushchairs at discount prices. Free UK delivery. www.yoursite.com

You could use the one title and description for multiple keywords, but it often makes sense to write specific titles and descriptions for each keyword. For example, for the keyword "twin pushchair", you might have:

Discounted Twin Pushchairs All makes of twin pushchairs at discount prices. Free UK delivery. www.yoursite.com

You also need to choose your maximum bids for each keyword / advert. The amount you bid will determine the position your adverts are displayed in the search engines - the advert with the highest bid is normally shown at the top.

Let's assume there are 2 other companies already advertising for "pushchair" and their bids are as follows:

Company 1	20p
Company 2	10p

Company 1 has bid a maximum of 20p per click, but will pay 1p above the next bid below theirs, ie, 11p. Company 2 has set a maximum bid of 10p per click (which is also the minimum cost per click). Company 1's advert will appear above Company 2's advert.

If you now set a maximum bid of 15p per click, your advert will be shown in second place, and Company 2's advert will drop to 3rd place:

Company 1	20p
Your Advert	15p
Company 2	10p

Company 1 will now pay 16p per click (1p above your maximum bid), you will pay 11p per click (1p above the next maximum bid), and Company 2 will still pay 10p per click.

Once your adverts are approved, they will start appearing in Yahoo, AltaVista, Wanadoo and other search engines and portals. You can adjust your maximum bids at any time and you can also add, edit or remove your adverts at any time. With experience, you can fine tune your pay per click listings and your bids to maximise sales.

Yahoo Search Marketing £50 Discount / Credit

We have negotiated a special discount with Yahoo Search Marketing for all UK businesses. You don't need to be a FastCart user to take advantage of this discount. You can choose either:

• Save £50 on Yahoo Search Marketing Fast Track - the standard service fee of £79 is reduced to just £29
• £50 credit for Yahoo Search Marketing Self Service - no service fee and £50 worth of advertising credit

To sign up for either option, click here and follow the on screen instructions.

Please note that to receive the £60 credit on the Self Service accounts, you will need to make an initial deposit of £60. The £60 credit will be added to your account. This advertising credit is non-refundable and is only available to new users.

Mirago £25 Credit

We have negotiated a special £25 pay per click advertising credit with Mirago for all UK businesses. You don't need to be a FastCart user to take advantage of this special offer. Mirago pay per click adverts appear on over 300 partner sites including Mamma, WebFetch, Lycos, Infospace and Find UK.

To find out more about this special offer and to sign up online with Mirago, please see our Mirago Offer page.

Other Pay Per Click Advertising

Google Adwords - adverts shown on Google, Ask Jeeves, and thousands of smaller web sites
Miva (Espotting / Findwhat) - adverts appear on Shopping.net, LastMinute.com, Breathe and others
Kanoodle - listings appear on Search.com, Dogpile, USA Today, MSNBC and others
LookSmart - listings appear on Mamma.com, Lycos, CNET search and others

There are some other pay per click advertising systems. Ask Jeeves is expected to launch their own system sometime in the future - if this happens, we'll post information here.

Which Pay Per Click System Should I Use?

It often makes sense to use more than one pay per click advertising system. Yahoo Search Marketing pay per click adverts are shown on Yahoo. Google Adwords are shown on Google. Using multiple systems will maximise your chances of being found by shoppers.

Also consider where your target customers are. Do you need to advertise globally or just within your own country? Check which search engines use which pay per click advertising systems and where your adverts will be displayed - there is no point advertising globally if you only want to sell within your own country. Some pay per click advertising systems like Kanoodle display adverts to a mainly US based audience, others are mainly for UK searchers.

We recommend that you try Yahoo Search Marketing to begin with as this is a fairly straightforward system to use. When you are comfortable with pay per click advertising and managing your bids, try Google Adwords and others and see what happens.