Although many PPC providers exist, Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing, and Microsoft adCenter are the three largest network operators, and all three operate under a bid-based model.
In February 1998 Jeffrey Brewer of Goto.com, a 25-employee startup company (later Overture, now part of Yahoo!), presented a pay per click search engine proof-of-concept to the TED conference in California. This presentation and the events that followed created the PPC advertising system. Credit for the concept of the PPC model is generally given to Idealab and Goto.com founder, Bill Gross.
Search engine market share between 2005-2008
Google started search engine advertising in December 1999. It was not until October 2000 that the AdWords system was introduced, allowing advertisers to create text ads for placement on the Google search engine. However, PPC was only introduced in 2002; until then, advertisements were charged at cost-per-thousand impressions. Yahoo! advertisements have been PPC-based since their introduction in 1998.
The list of runner-ups is pretty long…
New Jersey-based SearchFeed (http://www.searchfeed.com) first began operations in November of 2000 and has relied upon a technique of personally and thoroughly researching any potential Web advertiser and providing assistance and software tools to help each advertiser target the most relevant traffic to their site.
There are presently more than 8,000 websites integrated with SearchFeed and they estimate traffic of more than 360 million searches each month. SearchFeed claims to have more than 20 million unique keywords available and with a starting bid of 1 cent for many of those keywords, SearchFeed has built a reputation as a solid base from which to run an effective marketing campaign, especially for smaller businesses.
Google, Microsoft and Yahoo marketshare in 2009
Headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, the company that would eventually become 7Search began as a supplier of humor on the Internet. At some point, 7Search decided to concentrate on the PPC market and began diversifying with the slogan “the closest prospect to a buyer.” In 2004, 7Search claims to have over 400 million searches per month through their affiliates and partners.
What sets 7Search apart from other PPC search engines is their concentration on a niche market for the business owner who either does not want to or cannot afford to pay more than 10 cents per click.
Formerly known as Ask Jeeves, Ask.com is a part of IAC Search & Media, with headquarters in Oakland, California.
The keyword auction model pricing is based upon what is called the “eCPM ranking,” which is defined as the cost per click multiplied by the clickthrough rate. Your ad will be ranked using its eCPM rank in relation to other listings bidding on the same keyword(s). The minimum cost per click needed to guarantee placement at the top of the sponsored listings is known as the reserve price and is based upon “market intelligence” and Ask.com CPCs already in place.
A forecast of expected ad spend for a month is provided to advertisers. Budgets can be set for a campaign, for a daily spend or for a month’s worth of advertising.