ITM Marketing Blog

Are Pay Per Impression Ads Worth it for Internet Marketing Campaigns?

pay per impressionIf you’re looking for an inexpensive way to get your website noticed, than you may have realized that pay per impression advertising rates are typically cheaper than pay per click rates. This isn’t always the case but it’s quite common. Due to that, you may be thinking that you should try out pay per impression advertising to see if it helps your Internet marketing campaign. Before we get into whether or not pay per impression ads are worth it for Internet marketing campaigns, let’s take a quick look at exactly what it is.

With pay per click advertising, when an Internet user clicks on the ad, the advertiser (you) has to pay a fee for that click. The fee is going to vary depending on where your placing your PPC ads (search engines, other websites etc.) and the cost also depends on the niche that you’re marketing in. Competitive niches tend to cost more per click than ones that aren’t quite as competitive. Pay per impression works similarly but the difference is that the advertiser pays every time an Internet user views the ad (this is the impression). The Internet user doesn’t have to click on the ad in order to get charged, all they need to do is view the page that it’s on.

The thought behind this Internet marketing method is that even if the user doesn’t click on the ad, they still saw it and therefore might remember it later down the road. They of course could opt to click on it as well but there are positives to someone just seeing an ad as it familiarizes them with the brand.

As noted above, on the surface, pay per impression ads might seem cheaper. For example, a pay per impression ad on a website may cost 1 cent per impression but if you signed up for the pay per click program with the same website, it’d cost 5 cent per click. What you may not realize though is that the ad is going to be seen more times than it’s going to be clicked so you may end up paying out more for the impression than you would the click. Say you’re paying that 1 cent and the page that your ad is on gets viewed 500 times, therefore costing you $5.00 for that day. Now say the ad is on the same page with the same number of views but you’re paying per click and the ad gets clicked 100 times. You’re paying the same $5.00 and the ad is actually being clicked and you’re getting website visitors.

Another thing to consider regarding pay per impression is that a lot of websites that offer this adverting service use it in conjunction with pay per click. In this case, you’d be charged a per impression rate and then a click through rate on top of that.

Pay per impression ads do have their purpose and they can be beneficial. But if you’re looking for a way to cut down on costs and see the same results, this might not be the way to go. You could still be paying the same amount of money or even more if you placed your ads on a busy website.

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Posted on March 5th, 2011 by in Internet Marketing, marketing tips, PPC Marketing / 29 Comments

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