Forbes magazine has reported that PPC advertising spend has reached $8 billion in 2008.

The three primary core elements that form the center of a successful PPC ad program are constant monitoring, analysis, and refinement.

PPC search engines offer a way to buy your way to the top of search results for any term you wish. With proper Pay Per Click (PPC) management, and a clear focus, PPC search engines can offer some of the most well targeted and easy on the pocket ways of advertising on the Internet.

PPC advertising works through a bidding process, and the ads appear prominently on the results pages of search engines such as Google and Yahoo. The highest bidder for a particular word or phrase gets top placement, and depending on the engine, the top three to five bidders also normally receive placement on the first page of unpaid search results.

Primary questions to be addressed when formulating a PPC search engine strategy include the following:

- Does Google AdWords or Overture work better for your particular product or service? Or, maybe neither one is correct from a return on investment (ROI) side.

- How can you keep your PPC bids from cannibalizing your search efforts on other non PPC search engines?

- What percentage of your PPC budget should go to each search engine?

- When is the top PPC bid necessary for highest conversion, and when will bidding for a second or third place position create a more attractive return on investment (ROI)?

It is of most importance to focus sharply on identifying the search terms that convert most often for your particular site, eliminating those that don’t perform, and most importantly, calculating and maximizing your return on investment.

The cost structure of PPC is action-driven and each time a user clicks your advertisement, the PPC engine deducts the amount of your current bid from your account. PPC offers a high level of assurance that your advertisement is reaching the proper target. PPC campaigns, however, are not perfect. Without CONSTANT Pay-Per-Click campaign monitoring, you sometimes risk incurring advertising costs that can spiral out of control, focusing on terms that don’t convert well for your product or services, or falling way down in position during a bidding war.

PPC advertising can be a great help to a site’s success, but only with very close supervision and a thorough knowledge of the unique characteristics of each PPC search engine.