Marketing Agency
When you’re exploring digital marketing, you might come across terms like “PPC” and “Facebook Ads” frequently. If you’ve ever wondered whether Facebook Ads fall under the umbrella of PPC (Pay-Per-Click) advertising, you’re not alone. Let’s break it down simply so you can better understand the relationship between the two and why Facebook Ads are indeed considered PPC.
What is PPC?
PPC is an acronym for Pay-Per-Click, a form of online marketing through which the promoter pays for his or her advertisements every time the link is clicked. The goal is simple: drive higher amounts of traffic to your website by targeting ads to consumers who are most likely to click on them. Pay-per-click advertising can be done in search engines, including Google, social media, Facebook, and other sites. The prices of PPC ads vary depending on the platform used, the popularity of keywords, or the audience that you target.
What are Facebook Ads?
Facebook Ads are the ads displayed on the Facebook App, Instagram, Messenger, and the Audience Network. These are common forms of ads, and some of them include photo ads, video ads, carousel ads and so on. Facebook Ads also provide a platform to reach people of interest from specific locations, ages, behaviour, and interests. It is also important to know that the ad platform is rather effective, allowing businesses to reach a huge number of potential customers while targeting them rather closely. It is beneficial to advertisers because they can set their budgets, track currently used funds, and control their actions based on analytics.
How Facebook Ads Work
Facebook Ads are essentially paid advertisements displayed on Facebook, Instagram, or Messenger. When setting up Facebook Ads, advertisers choose their objectives (e.g., awareness, conversions, traffic), create the ad, select their target audience, and set a budget. Once the ad is live, advertisers pay Facebook when someone clicks on the ad or interacts with it in some other way. The payment model often works on a bidding system, where advertisers bid for their ads to appear to certain audiences.
Are Facebook Ads PPC?
Facebook Ads are basically a type of PPC advertising. Here’s why:
- Payment per Action: Facebook advertisers target users and pay depending on their activities, such as clicks, impressions, or actions towards the ad placed. Facebook Ads, especially the traditional type, usually work on the Cost Per Click (CPC) or Cost per thousand impressions (CPM) system. Specifically, in CPC, one pays per click, which makes this model an excellent example of PPC advertising.
- Click-based Advertising: Facebook Ads, similar to Google Ads, are built with the goal of trying to get as many people to click on the advertisement in question. They fall under PPC since you make a payment each time a user clicks on your ad, as was illustrated earlier.
- Bidding System: Facebook works on the auction model where people bid for the advertisement space. This system is very much like how PPC campaigns are conducted through other platforms such as Google Adwords. You state a budget and bid per click; the ad then appears to your desired audience on Facebook.
- Ad Auction: Facebook Ads are placed in an auction-style system, and your ad is given to users depending on your bid, relevance score, and estimated action rates. This is one feature that makes Facebook ads fall in place of traditional PPC advertising models.
Facebook Ads vs. Other Forms of Advertising
Although Facebook Ads are a great form of PPC advertising, it is crucial to note that there is other advertising available as well. For example, banners can be placed on the websites and in the applications, and although the user does not follow the link for the advertiser to be charged, they may be based on the Cost-Per-Mille or CPM model, which charges for the number of times the ad is displayed rather than when it is clicked on.
Another example is Google Ads, which functions primarily through the results in the PPC search section. It is somewhat different from Facebook Ads in that advertisers are provided with a range of advertisement placements that are located in users’ feeds and stories.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Facebook ads are PPC since they operate on the basis of paying for the click or the desired action from the users. Since the advertising system on Facebook is very individualized, businesses are capable of putting up their PPC campaign where they only get charged when they get what they want, which is to reach people.