Pay-per-Appointment
Pay-per-appointment (PPA), also known as cost per appointment (CPA), is an internet advertising model where the advertiser pays explicitly for an Appointment (normally a sales meeting) by a consumer or business interested in the advertiser's offer. It is also commonly called online lead generation.
Contrary to pay-per-lead (PPL) and cost per click (CPC) pricing models, where advertisers are charged for impressions (a.k.a. "views") and clicks, respectively, in a PPA pricing model, advertisers pay only for a qualified demo, consultation, or sales meeting; regardless of how many impressions or clicks their advertisement receives. PPA advertising enables advertisers to generate guaranteed returns on their online advertising money, which are commonly better quality leads than found in PPL and PPC by them being multiple steps further down the sales funnel.
In recent times, due to the growth of transparency in the online lead generation market, the marketing leads segment of online lead generation segment has grown rapidly.
Pay-per-click is commonly associated with first-tier search engines (such as Google AdWords and Microsoft Bing Ads). With search engines, advertisers typically bid on keyword phrases relevant to their target market. In contrast, content sites commonly charge a fixed price per click rather than use a bidding system. PPC "display" advertisements, also known as "banner" ads, are shown on web sites with related content that have agreed to show ads and are typically not pay-per-click advertising. Social networks such as Facebook and Twitter have also adopted pay-per-click as one of their advertising models.
The PPA model is best served in B2B sales organizations, and any service and / or product where one or more meetings are commonly necessary before a purchase.
Websites that utilize PPC ads will display an advertisement when a keyword query matches an advertiser's keyword list that has been added in different ad groups, or when a content site displays relevant content. Such advertisements are called sponsored links or sponsored ads, and appear adjacent to, above, or beneath organic results on search engine results pages, or anywhere a web developer chooses on a content site.
Pay-per-appointment ads however are typically found in B2B publishing networks, where leads are considered high value.
The PPC advertising model is open to abuse through click fraud, although Google and others have implemented automated systems to guard against abusive clicks by competitors or corrupt web developers. Pay-per-appointment (PPA) advertising however, is easier to quality control; as users must provide an email address in order to schedule an appointment.
Flat-rate PPA[edit]
In the flat-rate model, the advertiser and publisher agree upon a fixed amount that will be paid for each appointment booked. In many cases, the publisher has a rate card that lists the pay-per-appointment (PPA) within different areas of their website or network. These various amounts are often related to the content on pages, or the category in which the advertisers are competing. In many cases advertisers can negotiate lower rates per appointment, especially when committing to a long-term or high-value contract.
The flat-rate model is particularly common to comparison shopping engines which have either high valued products, or services. These sites are usually neatly compartmentalized into product or service categories, allowing a high degree of targeting by advertisers. In many cases, the entire core content of these sites is paid ads.
Bid-based PPA[edit]
The advertiser signs a contract that allows them to compete against other advertisers in a private auction hosted by a publisher or, more commonly, an advertising network. Each advertiser informs the publisher of the maximum amount that he or she is willing to pay for a qualified appointment. The auction plays out in an automated fashion every time a visitor books an appointment. Often publishers will have its advertisers pre-determine a maximum bid they are willing to pay for a single appointment, and if they are the top bidder they also have the most favorable positioning on a page; leading to higher conversion rates.
References[edit]
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