Choosing the right pay-per-click platform to run your ads is almost as important as the ads themselves. Each network has its own set of unique features, distinct audiences, and areas where it excels. Therefore, it’s crucial that you understand these platforms’ strengths, weaknesses, and demographics in order to pick the one that best aligns with your marketing goals.
In this post, we will explore the most popular PPC platforms available today and assess what they excel at and where they fall short.
What Is a PPC Platform?
A pay-per-click (“PPC”) platform is a digital marketing advertising platform used to create and launch PPC ad campaigns. Meta Ads and Google Ads are two common PPC platforms.
These platforms give you all the user-friendly tools you need to create ads, target audiences (by location, age, interest, etc.), and monitor the ad’s performance.
Once the campaign has been launched, you’ll be charged every time someone clicks on your ad (i.e., pay-per-click).
Benefits of using PPC platforms
Uncomplicated Tracking + Measurement Tools
All PPC platforms have built-in analytics tools to track and measure your ad campaigns’ performance, helping you make more informed decisions. They allow you to track users’ actions–from the moment they click on your ad to when they make a purchase–to determine what works best for your business.
Advanced Targeting Options
PPC platforms allow you to target users based on diverse criteria, such as demographics, location, interests, hobbies, and more. If you narrow down specific options, you can get your ad in front of your dream audience.
Returning Customer/Visitor Retargeting
Retargeting PPC advertising platforms help you reconnect with previous visitors to your website or online brand. This feature is excellent for keeping potential customers in the loop about new products, services, or promotions.
You Can Stop Campaigns at Any Time
PPC campaigns can be switched off at any time, allowing you to adjust your budget and ad campaigns on the go.
Get Access To New Audiences
PPC platforms help you get your brand in front of new audiences that would otherwise be difficult to reach. This feature is handy for companies looking to expand their online customer base and increase their market share.
Types of PPC Platforms
Now, let’s review the various types of PPC platforms currently available on the market:
- Search PPC ad network platforms display your ads in search engines such as Google, Bing, Brave, etc.
- Social media advertising platforms let you target specific audiences on their respective social media networks.
- Video PPC platforms focus on–you guessed it–video content. Popular platforms include YouTube, TikTok, and Twitch.
- Display advertising platforms help you place visual ads on websites, apps, and other digital platforms in the form of banner ads, images, and even videos.
- Retargeting platforms help advertisers re-engage visitors who have been on their website but left without making a purchase or booking a service. Retargeting ads track these users as they browse online and are displayed to them, reminding them of your product or service.
- Native advertising platforms allow advertisers and publishers to meet their advertising goals by syncing their ads with web content. A native ad doesn’t display like a typical ad; instead, it is seamlessly incorporated into the web content that a user is viewing.
- Comparison Shopping Engine (“CSE”) advertising platforms allow users to search for a specific product, find multiple retailers that sell it, and compare the options to decide which one to buy. Examples of CSE ad platforms include Google and Bing Shopping Ads.
Search PPC Platforms
These platforms focus primarily on displaying your ads as search engine results targeting the keywords you’ve provided.
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Google Ads
Google Ads (previously Google AdWords) is the world’s largest and most popular PPC platform. This likely doesn’t surprise you; Google is the default search engine for 92% of the world’s population, regardless of device. Considering the scope of the platform, it’s a no-brainer why advertisers swear by Google Ads.
- Ad Formats: Text, display, video, shopping, app, local, and discovery ads
- Pros: The biggest and most advanced advertising platform in the world
- Cons: You need to invest time and money into high-quality landing pages
- Pricing: The average CPC can range from under $1 to over $10
- Suitable industries: e-commerce, healthcare, legal services, home services, and education
- Unsuitable industries: Financial products, gambling, and adult content
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Bing Ads
Bing is the second largest search engine after Google, with a 10% market share on desktop.
- Ad Formats: Text ads, shopping ads, dynamic search ads, and various native, display, and video ads
- Pros: Bing Ads are significantly cheaper than Google Ads and have less competition.
- Cons: Not that many people use Bing as their search engine. Also, the platform isn’t great for international audiences as it currently supports only 12 or so languages.
- Pricing: The average CPC ranges from $1.54 to $2.80
- Suitable industries: Financial services, luxury brands, and high-end products.
- Unsuitable industries: Local services and niche markets with very small audiences.
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Amazon Ads
Amazon is the largest Western e-commerce platform right now, accounting for more than 83% of shopping in US households. So, if you’re running an e-commerce business and your products are not listed on Amazon, you’re missing out on a ton of revenue.
As an ad platform, Amazon is behind only Google and Meta.
- Ad Formats: Sponsored Products, sponsored brands, and sponsored display
- Pros: People who see your ads are already on the platform looking to purchase something, making it easier to convert.
- Cons: The competition for ad space is very high.
- Pricing: Varies significantly depending on the product, competition, or ad type. Generally, the average CPC ranges between $0.15 and $6.
- Suitable industries: Electronics, home goods, and health and household products.
- Unsuitable industries: B2B products and services; luxury brands.
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Apple Search Ads
Apple search ads allow you to advertise your app on Apple’s App Store. You can only advertise apps on this PPC platform, though.
- Ad Formats: Search results ads and product page ads
- Pros: Your ads appear to people who’re already on the lookout for an app like yours.
- Cons: Ads only appear in the App Store, limiting their reach.
- Pricing: The average cost-per-tap (CPT) ranges between $0.84 and $2.50.
- Suitable industries: All industries with an iOS app, particularly mobile games, health and fitness, and educational apps.
- Unsuitable industries: Businesses that don’t have an app, and industries prohibited by Apple’s policies.
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Ecosia Ads
Although small, Ecosia still has around 20 million monthly active users, primarily based in Europe. Ecosia can be a great place to run ads, especially if your brand aligns with its key values. It doesn’t have its own PPC network; instead, all ads are delivered through Microsoft Advertising.
- Ad Formats: Standard text ads and shopping ads
- Pros: High click-through rate if your ad corresponds with the platform.
- Cons: Ecosia has a small user base.
- Pricing: Ecosia does not have its own PPC pricing model; instead, its partner, Microsoft Advertising, delivers its ads.
- Suitable industries: Industries focused on eco-friendliness and sustainability, such as sustainable fashion, renewable energy, and environmental services.
- Unsuitable industries: Local services and niche markets with very small audiences.
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DuckDuckGo Ads
DuckDuckGo Ads, like Ecosia and Brave, are run through Microsoft’s PPC ads platform. This is a great platform to target tech-savvy potential customers who are not using Google.
- Ad Formats: Keyword-based text ads
- Pros: The competition is low.
- Cons: There’s a lack of personalization as you can’t target specific user demographics or behaviors.
- Pricing: DuckDuckGo does not have its own PPC pricing model; instead, its partner, Microsoft Advertising, delivers its ads.
- Suitable industries: Industries that handle sensitive matters like law, healthcare, and personal finances.
- Unsuitable industries: Local services and niche markets with very small audiences.
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Brave Ads
Brave is currently the fastest-growing alternative browser and search engine. Running ads on Brave can help you reach audiences that are unreachable through other channels (especially those that really value their privacy).
- Ad Formats: New tab page images, push notifications, and search ads
- Pros: Since it’s a new platform, being an early adopter has benefits, such as lower costs and lower competition.
- Cons: Most Brave users use the built-in ad blocker.
- Pricing: Brave does not have its own PPC pricing model; instead, its partner, Microsoft Advertising, delivers its ads.
- Suitable industries: E-commerce, technology, finance, and gaming
- Unsuitable industries: Data brokers, performance-based ad networks
Social Media PPC Platforms
Social media sites consume so much of people’s time online that it would be unwise not to advertise your products or services on them. So, let’s look at the biggest social media advertising platforms and how you can take advantage of them.
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Meta (Facebook) Ads
Meta ads is the largest social media PPC platform. It allows you to reach audiences on Instagram and Facebook at the same time. Meta even has an automated ad deploy option, where they will run your ad on the platform they think it will do better on.
- Ad Formats: Image ads, video ads, carousel ads, slideshow ads, and collection ads
- Pros: Ads have a low cost per impression and are budget-friendly for awareness campaigns. They are great for top-of-funnel brand awareness.
- Cons: The performance of your ad campaign heavily depends on audience fatigue. Also, ads on meta are less suited for direct, instant conversions.
- Pricing: The average cost per click ranges from $0.50 to $2.00.
- Suitable industries: e-commerce, fashion, travel, local services, and B2B businesses
- Unsuitable industries: Industrial B2B
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LinkedIn Ads
LinkedIn Ads is a great platform for recruiters and B2B companies. It’s where professionals spend time looking to improve their careers or businesses.
- Ad Formats: Sponsored Content (single image, carousel, video, document, and event ads), Sponsored Messaging (message and conversation ads), and Dynamic Ads (job, spotlight, and follower ads)
- Pros: You can target people based on their jobs, something no other platform offers (or if it does, it’s not to this degree).
- Cons: It is way more expensive than other social media ad platforms.
- Pricing: The average cost per click ranges from $5 to $10.
- Suitable industries: B2B companies, especially in technology (SaaS), financial services, and professional services
- Unsuitable industries: Healthcare, legal, finance, real estate, and dating services
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X (Twitter) Ads
Although X is a large social media platform with hundreds of millions of monthly active users, it gets somewhat overlooked by advertisers. Despite the company’s change in leadership and branding, X remains one of the top social media platforms and a great place to run your ads.
- Ad Formats: Image, Video, Carousel, Poll ads, Vertical Video, Collection Ads, Dynamic Product Ads, and Website Cards
- Pros: High potential for virality and great niche targeting options.
- Cons: Excessive amounts of spam bots that could dilute your ad campaign’s effectiveness.
- Pricing: The average cost per click (CPC) is approximately $0.18 to $0.50.
- Suitable industries: B2B SaaS, technology, media, entertainment, and political sectors
- Unsuitable industries: Industries with complex financial products or expensive services
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Reddit Ads
In an endless stream of polished, overly-manufactured social media ads, Reddit stands out as the only platform where users can directly interact with ads in real time. If done right, an ad on Reddit won’t just get seen; it will encourage discussions, drive traffic to your website, and also help you start a conversation with your target audience.
- Ad Formats: Image Ads, Video Ads, Carousel Ads, and Free-form Ads.
- Pros: Reddit ads offer the option of enabling comments on your advertisements. Although some comments may be critical of the ad, this is an excellent way of gathering feedback and engaging with potential customers.
- Cons: Many Reddit users avoid ads, especially overly promotional.
- Pricing: The minimum daily spend is $5, while the minimum campaign budget is $50. The average cost per click is approximately $0.50 to $4.00.
- Suitable industries: Tech, e-commerce, gaming, businesses with products or services that appeal to a young, engaged, and highly niche audience
- Unsuitable industries: Low-value e-commerce
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Pinterest Ads
Fun fact! Pinterest users spend twice as much time shopping online monthly as people who don’t use the platform. And with the right ad campaign, a small chunk of Pinterest users can convert into customers.
- Ad Formats: Standard image and video ads, Shopping ads, and Collection ads
- Pros: Can create effective brand recall, as once customers have your product on their clipboard, it stays there until they decide to remove it.
- Cons: You have limited control over where your pins go.
- Pricing: The average cost-per-click (CPC) ranges from $0.10 to $1.50.
- Suitable industries: Home decor, fashion, beauty, weddings, and DIY/crafts
- Unsuitable industries: Highly niche B2B services and industries that aren’t visually appealing
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Quora Ads
Quora is a platform where people go to ask questions and get answers. However, over the years, it has also become a popular platform for businesses to jump on and talk about their products and services.
- Ad Formats: Text Ads, image Ads, promoted answers, video ads, app install ads, and lead generation forms
- Pros: It helps you reach people who are interested in specific topics or exhibit particular interests or behaviours.
- Cons: Quora’s audience is quite limited. So, even if your campaign does well, the reach won’t be as big as on other platforms.
- Pricing: The average cost-per-click (CPC) ranges from $0.02 to $2.00.
- Suitable industries: education, technology, finance, and health and wellness
- Unsuitable industries: Dating services and health-related supplements
Video & Display PPC Platforms
Now we’ll dive into some of the options for video advertising platforms!
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YouTube Ads
Youtube PPC ads are 100% video-based and are actually cheaper than those on other platforms. This is mostly because most advertisers don’t have the budget for producing the video content itself. The higher barrier to entry also means less competition.
Now let’s take a closer look at what YouTube ads offer:
- Ad Formats: video ads (skippable and non-skippable), bumper ads, display ads, overlay ads, and sponsored cards.
- Pros: Extremely popular with over 2.7 billion users. It’s easier to build trust through video ads than with regular ones.
- Cons: Creating a high-quality ad is time-consuming and expensive, and many YouTube users simply skip ads or have an adblocker installed.
- Pricing: The cost per view (CPV) ranges from $0.01 to $0.30, averaging around $0.05 to $0.10.
- Suitable industries: E-commerce, finance, automotive, technology, and beauty/fashion
- Unsuitable industries: Local services
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TikTok Ads
TikTok is one of the fastest-growing social media platforms right now, so it should come as no surprise that many marketers are jumping on the TikTok Ads bandwagon.
Unlike other video ad platforms that offer some flexibility, TikTok only allows you to run in-feed video ads. If you want to succeed on the platform, you need to create UGC (user-generated content), because those types of ads have the highest success rate.
- Ad Formats: In-feed video ads, TopView Ads, Spark Ads, Branded Mission Challenges, Branded Effects
- Pros: Unlike traditional PPC platforms, TikTok’s ads blend in with organic posts, leading to higher engagement rates. Factor in that the average TikTok user spends 55.8 minutes a day on the platform, and you can see why TikTok ad campaigns can be highly effective if done right.
- Cons: TikTok users tend to scroll past any content that is slow-paced or visually under stimulating, so your ad needs to be really creative, eye-catching, and captivating; otherwise, it will just get lost in a sea of shorts.
- Pricing: The minimum daily spend to run TikTok ads is $50. The cost is based on CPM (cost per thousand impressions), which works out to around $1-10 per CPM.
- Suitable industries: Fashion, health and fitness, travel and beauty, gaming, food
- Unsuitable industries: B2B services, B2B software, healthcare and pharmaceuticals, financial services
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Snapchat Ads
Snapchat advertising is really similar to Instagram advertising: shortform videos that pop up when users scroll through their feeds or stories.
- Ad Formats: In-feed image/video ads, collection ads, story ads, AR lenses and filters
- Strengths: High engagement rates with young audiences
- Weaknesses: The temporary nature of Snapchat ads means they have a short lifespan.
- Pricing: The CPM on Snapchat ranges between $2.95 and $10.00.
- Suitable industries: Since most Snapchat users are in the ballpark of 15 to 30 years old, the platform is great to advertise goods aimed at young people: trendy clothes, entertainment, food and drinks, and technology.
- Unsuitable industries: Businesses focusing on medication, real estate, or gambling will find little success with Snapchat advertising.
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Twitch Ads
worldwide; its engagement is off the charts. The platform attracts around 35 million daily users, most of whom are under age 34 and enjoy gaming, music, sports, politics, and chatting. What makes Twitch different from other video-based platforms is the fact that users spend multiple hours daily on the site.
- Ad Formats: Homepage headliner, medium rectangle, super leaderboard, video ads (pre-roll and mid-roll), first impression takeover, stream display ads
- Strengths: Great for brand awareness as the ads have the opportunity to reach a global audience.
- Weaknesses: The platform is home to many ads, making it hard for yours to stand out. Also, young people tend to use AdBlockers on desktops.
- Pricing: $2 to $10 per 1,000 impressions. If you collaborate with a well-known streamer, the amount can go in the thousands, but you will get much better engagement.
- Suitable industries: Gaming, tech, and entertainment
- Unsuitable industries: High-end B2B services, financial services, broad-based general consumer products.
Other PPC Platforms (Niche / Emerging)
A handful of advertising platforms outside of the mainstream are worth checking out!
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Outbrain
Outbrain is a third-party PPC platform that offers native advertising. It’s available to advertisers and publishers alike. It works by displaying ads on designated areas of websites, such as the sidebar below the content, within the content, or as a banner.
Ad Formats: standard native ads (image and text), video ads (outstream and short-form clips), and interactive carousel ads.
Pros: Your ads appear on popular newspapers and major magazine websites and blogs in a very natural way, blending in seamlessly with the content and leading to high user engagement.
Cons: Users tend to think they’re clicking on a legitimate article on the same website they’re on.
Pricing: The cost per click usually goes between $0.10 and $1.00.
Suitable industries: E-commerce, media, content publishers, and mobile apps
Unsuitable industries: Niche businesses -
Taboola
Taboola is a platform similar to Outbrain, offering native ad marketing.
- Ad Formats: Standard native ads (image and headline), video ads, and newer formats like carousel and display ads
- Pros: Better CTR than typical display ads and a robust network of top-tier publishers.
- Cons: Ads on Taboola can be frowned upon as clickbait if not done correctly
- Pricing: The average cost per click usually goes between $0.10 and $0.30.
- Suitable industries: E-commerce/retail, financial services, telecommunications, and home services
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RevContent
RevContent is another content recommendation ad platform similar to Taboola and Outbrain. Although RevContent isn’t known for its partnerships with high-end sites, it does have a good reach with US audiences.
- Ad Formats:
- Pros: Not much competition
- Cons: The platform’s minimum bid requirements are relatively high.
- Pricing: The minimum daily budget is $100, and the recommended minimum bid amounts are around $0.05 for desktop, $0.03 for mobile, and $0.04 for tablet.
- Suitable industries: Finance, e-commerce, health, and entertainment
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MGID
MGID is a market leader in the native advertising industry, garnering more than 185 billion monthly impressions.
- Ad Formats: Native Ads, Push Ads, Display, Video
- Pros: MGID has a global presence and a wide market reach.
- Cons: The quality of traffic can be hit or miss.
- Pricing: The minimum deposit is $100 with the average cost per click being $0.05.
- Suitable industries: E-commerce, finance, gaming, travel, health, and lifestyle sectors
Final Thoughts
Although there is an overwhelming number of PPC platforms to choose from, you shouldn’t let that scare you. Just stick to the platform that makes the most sense for your business.
If you run a local services business, you can’t go wrong with running PPC campaigns via Google Ads. However, if your business is an E-Commerce site, Meta would probably be the optimal PPC platform.
Remember: some platforms (for example, Pinterest) are great for generating demand but not the best for converting customers on the spot.
So, it’s important to experiment with different platforms to see what works for you and what doesn’t. Measure the success of every PPC campaign you run (across multiple platforms) to understand the impact each platform has on your business’ revenue.
Ready to leverage PPC to engage your audience and maximize conversions? Get in touch with our digital marketing gurus. We work closely with you to create and implement personalized ad strategies that reach and exceed your goals–whether that’s getting qualified leads, making more sales, recruiting new employees, or getting a message to reach more people.
