The simple mechanism behind PPC advertising is to pay for every click on your ad. Search engines allow advertisers to bid for listings on their result pages. The positioning of these ads is directly proportional to the amount of bid. In turn, the search engine gets money for every click generated through its site.

Though this sounds a little complex, experts insist that this form of advertising is highly effective in getting websites an increased amount of traffic inflow, and thus better revenue generation. However, it is important to understand the methodology behind this service, or else you might end up losing money in your campaign.

Pay per Click services involves the following mechanisms:

1. It is important to allot a budget to your campaign. And, always remember to use this means of advertising as an additional service to your main marketing strategy. The trick lies in targeting the right keywords. Your campaign gives you a great chance to find out about the conversion rates of these keywords, in order to further strengthen your search engine marketing process.

2. You might be excited about getting increased traffic to your site. But, do not forget that more clicks mean more money spent on your part. Thus, to balance out your ROI, it is imperative that you get conversions. Segregate your prospective buyer segment and target them, keeping your long-term goal in mind.

3. After you have decided on your target keywords and customers, distribute the keywords on basis of estimated click-through rates and conversion rates. Also, determine the search engines you wish to cater to.

4. Getting traffic might be easy, but retaining it on to the site can be extremely difficult. For this to happen, you should construct a site that is both appealing and informative. Users click on your ads expecting to derive relevant information from your website. Offering them a site which is not easily navigable or irrelevant in terms of content will put off the users. Thus, make your landing pages attractive to retain visitors' attention.

5. Enlist the ways in which you want to track your campaign. This task can be done by a PPC expert, who is well aware of the methodology behind such services.

6. Keep a tab on your competitors' advertising gimmicks. Unintentionally, he might just pass on a profitable clue to you.

These steps comprise the 'discovery and design' aspects of Pay per Click campaign. The next level is developing and deploying your campaign in the online marketplace.