How are rates of pay per click programs determined?

The rates of pay per click programs can be determined in two ways; with the help of bids or at flat rates determined by the advertiser. The primary consideration behind both these ways is the relative potential of each and every click which would be obtained at the particular source. There are many factors which determine the value of rates of pay per click programs are as follows:

  • Interest of the visitor
  • Type of content of the website
  • Whether the visitor intends to buy the product or not
  • Location
  • Time and day when the visitor is browsing

Flat-rate pay per click: In Flat-rate pay per click model the rates are agreed upon by the publisher and the advertiser. It is common to see the publishers charging different rates depending on the part of their website where the advertisement is going to be placed. The advertiser is presented with a rate list with all the rates along with the area of the website where their advertisements are going to be placed. The rates are higher for such areas which have higher potential of generating clicks than those which have lesser potential.

Some publishers might be willing to discuss lower rates for their pay per click programs if the advertiser is willing for a long term contract or a contract with a higher value. Major publishers tend to present rate cards to the advertisers who can choose a particular rate as per their budget. It is also possible that the advertisers might be willing to pay higher than these rates to trade for higher visibility.

Bid Based pay per click: A publisher may organize a private auction in which different advertisers can place competitive bids for prized slots. All advertisers specify the maximum amount that can be paid by them for different slots. Usually, such bidding is made with the help of automated tools which can be accessed by the advertisers on the website of the publishers. The bidding process is completed automatically using such automated tools.

The bids for pay per click programs are usually based on keywords and bids are started whenever a new keyword is available for bid. Following factors are kept into consideration while displaying the advertisements to the visitors: geographical location of the visitor, time and the date of search. It is quite possible that there might be multiple slots on the search result page for every keyword. In such a scenario, there can be multiple bids for these slots and multiple winners for all such bids.

Major search engines such as Google, Yahoo etc have large networks and advertisers can publish their advertisements on websites in such networks. These advertisements are not considered of lesser value than those posted on the parent website and hence the advertisers need to pay a lower price for pay per click programs on the partner networks.