How To Make Money With Pay-Per-Click Advertising

With traditional advertising on radio, TV, and newspapers, it’s difficult to know how many people took action because they saw your ads. As a result, return on investment, or ROI, for these (often expensive) broad exposure campaigns is hard to compute. There’s no way to pay only for the audience who engages with your content. That’s where pay-per-click (PPC) advertising shines. 

Pay-per-click, or PPC advertising provides specific audience engagement feedback to brands. If someone clicks, they have some degree of interest in your product or service. This intent is the first step to make money with pay-per-click tactics. 

You can make money from PPC ad campaigns by attracting potential customers at minimal costs. If you’re selling a product or service, PPC ads can help you reach an interested audience, and it costs you only when a lead actually clicks the ad. Here’s how to use a PPC advertising strategy to generate more revenue.

What is pay per click (PPC)?

Pay per click (PPC) is an online advertising model where advertisers pay a fee each time a user clicks on their ad. It has also become an umbrella term for other bidding and payment models, like cost per thousand impressions (CPM) and cost per acquisition (CPA). 

PPC includes text, photo, or video ads. PPC ads appear on various platforms, including search engine results pages (SERPs), social media platforms, and websites. The content and format of your ad depend on the advertising platform and marketing objectives. 

PPC advertising enables precise targeting by letting you bid on specific keywords, user behaviors, or audience interests, based on your keyword research. For instance, your athletic apparel brand could bid for the keyword phrase “retro sweatbands.” Because you know your audience, you might also target those whose web browsing or social media behaviors indicate they’re interested in tennis. 

Advertisers place bids on ad space by specifying a maximum fee per click. PPC advertising platforms use algorithms to compare bids and determine ad placement. How much you end up paying depends on how competitive the keyword is and the bid amount.

An alternative to a traditional PPC ad is a pay-per-conversion ad. If you run a pay-per-conversion campaign on a platform like Shop Campaigns, you pay only when a customer takes a desired action. 

Types of PPC ads

PPC ads can appear across the internet and in different forms. Here are three popular types: 

Search ads

With paid search ads, or what’s known as search engine marketing, brands pay to improve their visibility in search engines. Search ads are the most popular digital ad type, making up 40% of digital ad spend in the United States in 2024, according to Statista. 

Eugene Ravitsky, co-founder of air purifier brand FactoryPure, says that buying Google search ads makes it easy to target customers who are further along their buying journey—and who might be more likely to convert. 

The key to success, he says, is avoiding general keywords in favor of more specific ones. 

“If somebody’s searching for something very vague, like a water heater, there’s a very low chance that they actually could convert, because they could be looking for anything,” he says on an episode of Shopify Masters. 

“So we try to target longer-tailed keywords, where people are a little bit further into the process and they know what they want. They’re searching not just for a water heater—they’re searching for a specific brand or a specific size or a fuel type. If people are searching for that phrase, they’re more likely ready to buy.”

With a Google Ads campaign, you can also segment audiences based on habits, demographics, location, purchase intent, and interactions with your business. 

Social media ads

Social media ads appear on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, Pinterest, and Snapchat. Because these platforms collect large amounts of user data, such as personal interests, scrolling behavior, and demographics, they serve your ads to the right audience. 

Within this category, there are different types of ads that you can run, including image ads, video ads, and carousel ads. 

Jaclyn VanSloten, founder and growth strategist at Femra Consulting, suggests running different Instagram ad types for different reasons. 

“Awareness will be Reels and Stories—full-screen, immersive, and a little bit more authentic and not as polished. It’s more emotional. Conversion will be a bit more polished. It will be feed or carousel and then a clear CTA.”

Display ads

Display advertising places ads on digital platforms, apps, and websites. They can be banner ads, interactive content, and pop-up ads. Marketers invested $67.12 billion in banner advertising, making it the second-most popular form of digital advertising in 2024, according to Statista. 

Display platforms use browsing history, demographics, or interests to determine which ad campaigns users see. 

For example, if a user is visiting a media website, they might see an ad placed within an article for something they’d previously searched. 

Elements of a successful PPC campaign

• Clear goals
• Robust keyword research
• High-quality ad content
• A good landing page
• Performance data

Building and managing a PCC ad campaign involves selecting an advertising platform, allocating ad spend, and developing a bidding strategy. Here are some of the essential elements of a strong campaign:

Clear goals

PPC campaigns can have a variety of objectives, like increasing conversions, driving awareness, or generating leads. Each of these objectives focuses on a different audience and requires different messaging. 

Robust keyword research

Keyword selection is crucial to success with search ads. Start by defining your target audience. Map their interests, pain points, and search behaviors. Then, use keyword research tools to select keywords directly connecting potential customers to your product’s unique value proposition, or UVP. 

For example, if you sell simple handmade leather wallets you might target the keywords “handmade leather wallet” and “minimalist design leather wallet” to attract design-conscious customers.

PPC advertising platforms view ad relevance as a component of quality—ad content is ideally related to target keywords. If your chosen terms aren’t connected to your ad content, your ads are less likely to receive placement. 

High-quality ad content 

Good ads communicate your product’s value proposition clearly. But how do you know if your messaging will actually resonate with customers? 

Mary Gui, founder of Sock Candy, infuses her brand’s ad copy with language pulled straight from customer surveys. “When we’re writing ads, we put out a survey to current customers,” she explains on an episode of Shopify Masters, noting that using customer language helps her brand’s ads resonate a lot more. “The way I describe my socks may not be the way a customer describes them.” 

You might also take a data-driven approach, creating multiple versions of your ad content and using A/B testing techniques to identify the highest performing ad creative.

A good landing page

To get the most value from your ad clicks, send users to a clear, comprehensible landing page. If a user clicks through but finds a landing page design that poorly communicates your product’s specifications and benefits, they may leave quickly, increasing your bounce rate. Visitors who feel a mismatch between the ad and the PPC landing page translates to wasted ad budget, so aligning the content of the page with the ad is key.

Marketing leader Nik Sharma recommends using the “grandma” litmus test for your ad landing pages. “Your grandma should be able to go there and fully understand: What does the product do? Why does it exist? How is it going to benefit me? And how does it compare to the other products on the market that say they do the same thing?” he explains on an episode of Shopify Masters.

Performance data

Monitor PPC ad campaign performance by tracking metrics like cost per click, click-through rate, and return on ad spend to optimize your PPC ad spend.

Use your advertising platform’s analytics tools to identify high-performing keywords and ads. This data can help you decide if you need to adjust your keyword strategy or reallocate your budget to place more money behind top terms.

How to make money with PPC ads

• Conversion-focused campaigns
• Awareness campaigns
• Remarketing
• Lead generation
• Ad assets
• Pay-per-click affiliate programs

To generate revenue for an ecommerce business, PPC ads have to drive more than clicks. They have to drive purchases. Here are some of the strategies you can use to start making money with PPC campaigns: 

Conversion-focused campaigns

Conversion-focused campaigns aim to drive an action, such as a purchase. You can run ads on Google Shopping, TikTok Shop, Amazon, and more. 

Target keywords related to your product’s category or intended use. For example, rollerskating brand Impala Skate targeted the keyword “women’s rollerskates” on Google. 

Awareness campaigns 

Brand awareness campaigns can drive long-term growth by introducing products to new audiences. These campaigns focus on creating memorable impressions through broad, engaging messages that spark curiosity. 

Paid social media ads are one way you can run an awareness campaign. For example, if someone is scrolling through Instagram Stories, they might come across a brand’s video that explains a problem the viewer is familiar with. 

As the video progresses, a call to action (CTA) that says “Learn more” appears, encouraging the viewer to tap and get more information about the solution. 

Remarketing 

PPC remarketing, also known as retargeting, allows you to focus on converting users who’ve engaged with your website or products in the past. They’ve already shown interest—a well-placed ad can remind them to return and make a purchase. 

Remarketing ads often show users products they’ve previously viewed or related items, and can increase conversions and reduce cart abandonment rates.

Lead generation

Build your potential customer base with a PPC lead-generation campaign. This strategy focuses on collecting user contact information and demographic data. Instead of immediately asking visitors to make a purchase, lead-gen campaigns often offer a discount or perk in exchange for specific actions like email sign-ups. The goal is to build your email list, which can help you generate more revenue over time. 

To strengthen your lead-generation efforts, focus on creating a high-converting landing page. Aim to write a compelling headline, add high-quality visuals, have clear CTAs, and reduce distractions. 

Ad assets

Increase paid search ad engagement through ad assets. These additional content pieces appear below the paid search ad, expanding their real estate on search engine results pages. Assets provide valuable supplementary details like product specifics, pricing, business locations, or contact information, turning your basic search ads into more informative, compelling marketing assets. 

The more room your ad takes up, the more eyecatching it can be to customers. You can add ad extensions on Google (called assets) for free, though whether they’re displayed depends on the algorithm.

For example, if someone were searching for “seeds for houseplants,” they might come across Plantfix’s ad, which features several assets that direct customers to different sections of its site, such as all its seeds or its indoor blooms kit. 

Pay-per-click affiliate programs

PPC affiliate programs allow website owners to make money online by hosting ads. Affiliate marketers earn money each time a visitor clicks on an advertisement. Popular affiliate programs include Google AdSense and Skimlinks. 

PPC affiliate marketing can be a good fit for people who want to make money blogging and other content creators. For ecommerce businesses, displaying advertisements from other brands on your blog could distract customers from your own products. 

If you decide to join a PPC affiliate program, consider setting strict parameters to prevent low-quality or competing ads from appearing on your page.