PPC and US Elections

Posted in Pay Per Click (PPC) by Click Consult on 9th of January, 2008

USA is the largest world consumer and producer, as many say "if America sneezes, the whole world getting a cold".

Future political and economical developments that this country may follow are extremely important, especially taking in consideration the wars in Iraq & Afghanistan, high oil prices and climate change issues. This is why the whole worlds eyes are fixed on the current US election campaign.

But what has PPC got to do with all of it?

Let’s take a look.
If I type in “Barack Obama”- there is a PPC ad by Times Online:

But if we type “Mike Huckabee”, his contender, there are no PPC ads displayed.

If we type in “US elections” we get following:

As we can see PPC ads do play an important role:
• Appearance of Election Campaign related ads on the top & a right make them to stand out and be visible, when otherwise they could be lost among campaign reflecting articles on natural listings.
• PPC listings, such as Overseas Vote Foundation provide voters with one-stop resources for essential voter information and ideas about possible developments without costing too much money, as there is no competition due to a small number of advertisers.
• As natural listings should be optimised in order to appear on a first page, which takes time and considerable amount of money, PPC ads give you a quick and easy option.
• In some ways PPC ads could be used for indirect propaganda, as it can be seen from the Barack Obama ad on Times Online. This is an example that political party affiliates (in this case a newspaper) can push their views and opinions more easily using sponsored links, hence their favourite candidates may get more exposure and therefore attract more attention then their contenders, which may affect a final vote.
• Due to the fact that Google allows Political advertising, Sponsored links could be used for pushing political agenda or soliciting political donations.

Overall PPC is a great tool which can contribute to both voters and candidates by helping people with relevant information, ideas and ability just share their opinion (which could be very useful for candidates). So why shouldn’t we use PPC?

For more information please contact Click Consult specialists in PPC and Internet Marketing.