SEM (search engine marketing) is big business today. Mainstream companies new to online marketing are now directing considerable budgets normally reserved for other forms of media straight at PPC. This revolutionary business model delivers customers at a determinable cost unlike TV print or radio. PPC allows the user to control customer acquisition cost better than any other advertising platform, it also gives flexibility over geographical elements, delivery time & budget control, the ability to alter creative material instantly and directly compare results. PPC gives advertisers powerful reporting tools to track customer traffic patterns and spending habits.

Of the PPC options google by far represents the very best option in terms of exposure, the interface to google adwords is currently the very best around so they dominate the PPC world in a similar manner to organic search results. The google model encourages relevance for advertisers by assigning a quality score to pages advertised and matches them to chosen keywords. The google quality score has a direct impact on advertisers costs so this encourages relevant products matched to pages and keywords chosen for a particular advert. Creative text also plays a role with quality score as does on page optimization in a similar manner to organic search pages. In effect to get the best from an adwords campaign an advertiser needs to have completely optimized website and product or service pages.