PPC

Also called Pay per click, Paid search, Google Ads

Buying advertising placement and paying each time someone clicks. Instant, measurable, and a fast way to waste money.

What it means

Pay-per-click advertising places your advert against a search term or an audience, and you pay when somebody clicks it. Google Ads and Meta are the main platforms; LinkedIn is the usual choice for business-to-business.

Cost per click is set by auction, so competitive terms are expensive.

Why it matters

Unlike SEO it works immediately, which makes it useful for testing whether there is demand for something before investing in it.

It is also the easiest way for a small business to spend a lot of money quickly with nothing to show, because the platforms' defaults are optimised for spend rather than for your margin.

What it looks like in practice

Work backwards from the numbers. If a customer is worth £500 in gross profit and one in ten enquiries becomes a customer, and one in twenty clicks becomes an enquiry, you can afford roughly £2.50 a click. That is the constraint, not the platform's suggestion.

Send clicks to a page about the specific thing advertised, not the home page. This single change routinely doubles conversion.

Use negative keywords aggressively and check the actual search terms report weekly, especially early on.

What to watch out for

Broad match keywords with automated bidding, which is where budgets disappear into irrelevant searches.

Bidding on your own brand name when you already rank first for it, which sometimes just buys clicks you had for free.

Agencies charging a percentage of spend, which rewards spending more.

Where to get proper advice

Google's own help is good on mechanics and silent on whether you should spend the money. Set your own target CAC before starting.