Conventional modes of advertising and marketing are often far from exact sciences. For example, how do you judge the effectiveness of a television or radio campaign? Yes there are viewing figures, but have you targeted your key demographic, moreover, has the advert actually resulted in a sale or generated the desired interest?

Whilst keeping your brand in the public domain and creating a buzz, offline marketing rarely provides anything in the way of tangible results.

The Internet however, is a completely different beast. Everything can be scrutinised, anything can be analysed and changes can be made in an instant. It has revolutionised the way in which businesses and personal users can reach out to an audience; but, more importantly, it has also changed how we advertise our services.

Pay per Click (PPC) advertising is one of the most traceable and agile forms of marketing available today. We’ve all seen the sponsored adverts at the top of search engine pages; but beneath this rather simplistic exterior, lays a highly complex organism.

It’s no coincidence that a PPC advert appears that is directly related to your search. Online marketers and SEO professionals are charged with the task of identifying key terms to feed into their PPC campaigns, to ensure their adverts are seen by the right people. The wording is vital in producing a standout ad that’ll appear on the front page of the most popular searches; so spending time perfecting this can really pay dividends.

Behind the scenes, PPC is a constantly evolving tool. Whether using the extremely popular Google AdWords format or the equivalents on any of the other top search engines, real-time statistics make monitoring and adapting advertising campaigns a walk in the park. Not only does PPC show how many people click through to your site, but it can also unearth a treasure-trove of other essential statistics.

Amalgamating your PPC information with an analytics programme – for example using AdWords in conjunction with Google Analytics – opens up a whole new world of statistical data to help you better understand your site’s visitor activities. With Bounce Rates, Cost per Click {CPC) and Conversions at your fingertips, it’s easy to pinpoint exactly where campaigns are succeeding and failing.

This is particularly prevalent in situations where campaigns are hemorrhaging money but your site isn’t reaping any noticeable benefit. One click on the analytics can immediately indicate exactly what it is that people who follow your ad are looking for, how long they stayed on your site and ultimately whether their visit ended in a sale. If for any reason your campaign has struck a reef and there are hundreds of inappropriate clicks flooding on board, you can halt it in an instant.

Financially, Pay per Click remains a very astute advertising choice. With budgets controlled entirely by yourself, you won’t – or at least shouldn’t – find yourself swamped with an unmanageable campaign that costs you more than you can afford. Used wisely, PPC is arguably one of the most effective ways of advertising, particularly when the global economic climate is so turbulent.

If you like to stay in control, then Pay per Click advertising is unrivalled particularly when compared to its offline compatriots. There are no expensive start-ups, initial costs or ambiguous results; everything is produced in black and white right down to the smallest detail. With executive control, you’re able to shape where campaigns go, which ones to run with and which ones to drop.

Of course, if you are to master the most effective PPC advertising campaigns, you will have to really understand the finer details. This isn’t unattainable, but it may take some work. But fundamentally this remains one of the most accessible and user-friendly ways to advertise to a vast targeted audience. Ignoring the potential of Pay per Click would be to miss a huge opportunity.