Pay Per Click Advertising

Google/Bing Ads Frequently Asked Questions

What Is PPC Advertising?

Pay-per-click advertising is an online advertising method used to direct traffic to websites. The advertiser (business) only pays the publisher (an advertising platform) when the person clicks on the advertisement. Advertisers like Google Ads use a bidding system to determine who will pay for a slot on an ad and what amount of time the ad will stay on the web page.

Publishers add content to their web pages, display network or search engines and bid on keywords related to advertisers’ content; the publisher then displays targeted advertising related to that keyword/s and pays the host site whenever someone clicks on the ad.

How Does PPC Advertising Work? 

After the display ads or search ads are shown, the users will have to click on it to the publisher’s site. The users will have already chosen keywords potential customers will use to find the information they are searching for.

Pay-per-click advertising platforms’ main benefit is that the advertiser can target a specific audience with personalized ads, change the ad text based on customer responses, and measure statistics such as click-through rate.

Who are the beneficiaries of PPC advertising?

Advertisers benefit because it is cost-effective and very efficient. A company can quickly test hundreds of advertising campaigns in minutes using a single system such as Google Adwords. They can track who is clicking on their ads, how many times someone clicks on the ad, and the amount of time someone spends on the site. This info will provide the conversion rates of all PPC campaigns.

Since these ads are served at a specific URL for a set period of time, the advertiser can calculate costs per click and estimate the amount of time they spend on their website.

How is PPC advertising profitable?

The answer is relatively simple: when someone clicks on your ad, you pay the host website a predetermined amount, known as a PPC bid. If the bid is higher than your cost per click, you get a lot of traffic, which means more sales. But if the bid is lower than your cost per click, you may not receive as much traffic, which does not result in as many new sales.

How is Pay Per Click Advertising Used?

When a company wants to promote their products or services, they bid on keywords related to the products and services they want to market. If someone clicks on your advertisement, you will have to pay some amount of money based on how many times someone clicked on your ad.

The more clicks your ad gets, the higher your ad will appear in search results. As mentioned, the more clicks it receives, the higher your ad will show up in search results, and the more likely someone is to click on your ad and make a purchase. This is one of the advantages of pay per click advertising campaigns.

Improving Campaigns With Negative Keywords

Negative keywords can be added alongside the positive terms to help remove unqualified traffic. For instance, looking for a “free coffee” doesn’t want to buy it. Adding “free” as a negative keyword, when a query containing this term is typed, the advertiser’s ad won’t show. For a company selling high-end products, words related to “bargain” or “cheap” can create the right negative keywords.

Understand The Campaigns Quality Score

Based on your clickthrough rate (CTR) measured against the average CTR of ads in that position, this is the rating that search engines give your ad based on the relevance of your keywords, the quality of your landing page, and your past performance on the SERP.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

All forms of digital advertising are intended to rank for a target keyword, and this can be done in various ways. Search Engine Marketing (SEM) refers to any (paid or unpaid) digital marketing performed on a search engine, such as Google, Yahoo, or Bing.

SEM is an umbrella term covering both paid advertising and search engine optimization, i.e., the organic ranking of keywords. It’s important to note that not all PPCs on social media search engines have PPC ads, too (think: Facebook Ads).