What Is PPC (Pay-Per-Click Advertising)?

Pay-per-click advertising is a way to buy visits to a website instead of relying only on organic search. It’s also at the center of many disputes about budgets, leads, and business results.

How PPC Works

In PPC campaigns, advertisers pay each time a user clicks an ad. Platforms like Google Ads and Microsoft Ads run auctions for every search or impression, deciding which ads show and what each click costs.

Advertisers set budgets, bids, and targeting rules. They choose keywords, audiences, locations, and devices, and they send traffic to landing pages designed to generate leads or sales.

Core PPC Components

  • Keywords and audiences: The phrases or audience segments that trigger ads.
  • Ad copy and extensions: The headlines, descriptions, and extras users see.
  • Bids and budgets: How much advertisers are willing to pay and how much they can spend daily or monthly.
  • Landing pages: The pages users land on after the click.
  • Tracking and analytics: How conversions, revenue, and calls are captured and reported.

Why PPC Details Matter in Legal Cases

Many PPC disputes hinge on small, technical details inside the account: how keywords were matched, how budgets were allocated, or whether tracking was configured correctly.

When those details are misunderstood or ignored, parties may draw incorrect conclusions about who is responsible for poor performance or alleged damages.

Common Issues in PPC Disputes

  • Claims that an agency wasted ad spend or mismanaged budgets.
  • Lead quality questions: many clicks, but few real customers.
  • Confusion over attribution and which channel generated a lead or sale.
  • Click fraud or invalid traffic concerns.
  • Misalignment between what was promised in a contract and what the account shows.

Where PPC Meets Evidence

PPC platforms keep detailed logs: impressions, clicks, costs, and changes over time. That data can support or contradict claims about performance, negligence, or damages.

A PPC expert witness reviews those logs, account exports, and analytics reports to show how campaigns were built, managed, and changed. That analysis can clarify what was reasonable, what went wrong, and how that lines up with the story the parties are telling.

To understand how that works in practice, see What is a PPC expert witness?