By To-Wen Tseng

Internet offers myriad ways to reach new audiences in a cheaper and more efficient way than traditional advertising. These days, one of the most effective marketing techniques which marketers are taking notice of is pay-per-click (PPC), or cost-per-click (CPC) advertising.

The appeal of pay-per-click advertising through search engines like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft Bing is that you can reach potential customers based on keywords - presumably, what they are searching for. Using a pay-per-click advertising program is easy, even for the smallest of businesses.

Currently there are three major pay-per-click players: Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft. Google leads the way with the PPC program Adwords, while Yahoo owns Yahoo Search Marketing (previous Overture) competitive search engine, and Microsoft recently launched its own AdCenter. These are programs where webmasters can create their own ads and choose keywords, and pay only if people click their ads. Here is how it works.

Take Google Adwords as an example. First, you create your ads and choose keywords, which are words or phrases related to your businesses. Then your ads appear on Google. When people search on Google using one of your keywords, your add will appear next to the search results. Now you’re advertising to an audience that’s already interested in you. And then you attract customers. People can simply click your ad to make a purchase or learn more information about you. You don’t even need a webpage to get started; Google will help you create one for free. It’s that simple.

However, if your product is geared toward a niche market, you might want to consider advertising on a website that caters specifically to the target group. For example, Wedding Mapper is a site dedicated to people planning weddings. The site has over 400,000 unique visitors each month, the visitors are there because they are interested in or looking for something related to planning their weddings.

Wedding Mapper has a slightly different twist on their advertising options. They only offer three fixed ad spots per local page (there are over 10,000 local pages) and each ad runs for two weeks. Here is how it works. Wedding vendors bid on a placement based on target cost per click, and the 3 vendors who bet the most win the auction and ad space in the “Vendor Spotlight.” The lowest bidder determines the cost.

For example, if four vendors bid the following:

Vendor A is willing to pay $.90 CPC
Vendor B is willing to pay $.70 CPC
Vendor C is willing to pay $.50 CPC
Vendor D is willing to pay $.35 CPC

Vendors A, B, C would win this auction and would all pay $.50 per click. They would have fixed placement in the Vendor Spotlight for a 2-week time period. The vendor only pays once the page has been viewed. For example, if the vendor’s profile were clicked for 10 times, they would pay five dollars. If there were no click, the vendor pays nothing.

Now of course, your business may target more than one area or one niche market - most florists do more than just wedding flowers. And all potential customers in that niche market are not necessarily visiting any one niche website. So advertising there probably won’t replace your entire existing online advertising plan, but it can be a valuable addition.

Limos.com, a Wedding Mapper advertiser, used Google Adwords in addition to Wedding Mapper’s ad platform. While they do pay a slightly higher cost-per-click on Wedding Mapper, they find it worthwhile because the audience is highly targeted on a “hyper-local” level.

If you wish, you can choose to hire an advertising provider such as Kontera. These advertising providers have relationships with niche sites and can help ensure unique access to a broad and highly targeted audience for your advertising.