PPC and Affiliate Marketing – which one is best for your company?

If you’ve been looking at ways to promote your business online to boost sales, it’s likely that you’ve come across PPC and affiliate marketing. Both offer a brilliant way to reach out to new potential customers, though it goes without saying that your business is unique and there’s no uniform way to go about online marketing. Here, we’ll take a look at the differences between the two to help you decide which is best for your company.

So firstly, what is PPC? Well, it’s short for Pay Per Click and involves running paid advertisements via search engines. Imagine that you sell wooly jumpers, for example. You can pay to have your website appear top of the search when people use Google to search for your exact product. You’ll only be charged when someone clicks on your website, and the price you’ll pay will depend on a number of factors, including the level of competition for those particular search terms.

The main benefit of PPC is that it can produce almost immediate results. SEO can take months to start paying off, but with this option, you can rank straight away. Of course, though, your site will only continue to appear in searches for as long as you’re running the campaign. Once your budget has run out, the traffic will stop immediately.

Next up, let’s consider affiliate marketing. This method involves rewarding affiliates for each sale or inquiry that is referred to the business through a commission. The affiliate will do their own marketing and promotion, so the business itself receives a sale or lead with no cost to themselves. Amazon is a great example of a company using this technique. Anyone can sign up to be an Amazon affiliate, promote the products through their own website, and take a percentage of the sales.

The fantastic thing about affiliate marketing is that it requires little to no effort in terms of marketing for the business. Of course, the scheme will have to be promoted through the appropriate channels and it takes a certain level of administration to make sure that payments are processed properly, though the appeal is that it’s quite a hands-off approach.

So now that you know the difference between the two and why they can be useful, which one is best for your business? There’s no definitive answer, and it’s largely about weighing up the pros and cons. Affiliate marketing can be less costly, though it’s often worth using the help of experts to get it set up. Silverbean is a digital marketing agency that offers this service. PPC doesn’t involve giving a percentage of your profits away, though it does involve an initial outlay.

Always remember that when it comes to online marketing, testing is key. Make sure that you very carefully monitor the results of your efforts and always look for ways to improve. You’ll eventually come across the best way to market your business and take your sales to the next level.