Google PPC figures down
Pay per click (PPC) revenues on Google-placed advertising have shown a decline this month, prompting concerns over the profitability of the channel.
Amid claims that advertisers are now more sophisticated and not as reliant on PPC revenues, ComScore revealed that web users clicking through this January were seven per cent lower than the previous month.
PPC advertising revenue is Google’s major source of income – and the drop-off in user response to its placed advertising led to a four per cent drop in Google share value.
Jay Hallberg, vice president of marketing at network management service Spiceworks, told Information Week: "We’re seeing the resurgence of CPM and display-based advertising. In all of the deals we’re doing, we actually aren’t pricing any of them on cost-per-click."
One factor leading companies away from PPC advertising and back to traditional display advertising could be reports of ‘click fraud’, a trend where companies bombard their rivals’ ads with clicks in order to raise their advertising bills and deny them conversions.
Google refused to comment on ComScore’s findings, but the group has recently shown an interest in potentially moving away from PPC and toward a pay-per-action advertising format.
