Learn the facts and figures by reading this brief history of PPC
In Pay per click (PPC) advertising, advertisers pay a fee whenever a user clicks on their ads. The advertiser can choose whether the click redirects the user to their business’s landing page, dials a phone number, or opens up an image. PPC has been evolving since its inception in 1996. Read on below about the fascinating history of PPC.
Google Achieves 1 Billion $ Advertising Revenue: 2004
- In late 2004, Google lost its lawsuit to Overture. As Overture was acquired by Yahoo, therefore, Yahoo received 2.6 million shares worth almost 290 million $.
Google achieved its 1 billion $ advertising revenue goal as well as completed its IPO at a valuation of 23 billion $. Google launched its own AdWords campaign management platform called Jumpstart. In order to improve its AdWords platform, it launched the Google Analytics Platform that helped advertisers make better decisions and efficiently run their ad campaigns. Youtube, which was launched in 2005, was acquired by Google in 2006 for 1.65 billion $.
Google Unaffected By The 2008 Financial Crisis
- Google launched the Youtube Partners Program that allowed content creators to receive a portion of the ad revenue from their content. Google also introduced AdWords IP Exclusion that allowed advertisers greater visibility control for their target audience. Facebook launched its own PPC advertising platform, and being a top trending social media it did not have to struggle to get advertisers on board.
Despite the global financial crisis of 2008, Google continued to expand and improve on its services. A major acquisition was of DoubleClick for 3.1 billion $ that helped Google expand their PPC network. Google also launched Google TV, Google TV ads, and Google Chrome.
AdBlock Plus Whitelists Google Ads: 2010
- As smartphones were becoming increasingly popular, Google acquired AdMob in order to expand its PPC market to target cell phone users. Click-to-call phone numbers were made available on its mobile search platform. A global favorite adblocking software AdBlock Plus was reportedly paid a huge sum by Google for whitelisting their advertisements. This caused a huge uproar from the general public, although AdBlock Plus maintained that they only allowed acceptable ads from Google so that websites don’t have to set up paywalls to meet their costs.
Facebook started giving fierce competition to Google in the PPC market. Facebook acquired Instagram for 1 billion $ to upscale their PPC network. Facebook completed its IPO, with a valuation of 104 billion $. They launched several services and improved their ad analytics platform.
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Facebook’s Fierce Competition & Google’s Response: 2014
- In response to Facebook’s new strategy, Google continually improved its search engine to make content and ads easily accessible to users. In addition to search results now displaying sub-pages, phone numbers, and inventory, a new type of campaign was launched by Google called call-only campaigns. These campaigns allowed users to skip visiting landing pages and instead of calling the business directly.
Facebook launched the Facebook pixel that allowed advertisers to collect demographic information that can then be used by the advertisers to create better advertisement campaigns.
Google Fined For User’s Privacy Breach: 2019
- 2019 was a tough year for Google. They were subjected to fines for manipulating the online advertising market, by being less transparent about ad sponsors, and collecting user information without consent.
Many governments began to target Google and other tech companies to clearly define their privacy policies as well as to seek user consent before collecting data. An opt-out option was required to be placed on all platforms to enable users to select what data they are sharing.
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