PPC and paid search is one of the most important elements of digital marketing and it helps businesses all around the world to generate a handsome amount of revenue and upscale their business. However, there is a proper way to run PPC campaigns which is highly important for every business and enterprise.
PPC is an advertisement model that allows businesses to place the advertisement of their products or services on their platforms and pay the host whenever the ad is clicked by the viewer. The motive is to direct the user to click on the advertiser’s website or app. There users can complete the purchasing process.
Search engines are widely used platforms because they enable advertisers to display ads that match users’ search queries. Advertising platforms such as Google Ads and Microsoft Ads use real-time bidding (RTB), where ad inventory is auctioned in a private, automated process based on real-time data.
Paid search works in a simplified way. Every time there is an ad spot on a search engine result page (SERP) there’s an auction takes place for the keyword instantaneously.
A combination of multiple factors decides the winner including bid amount and quality of ad. These auctions are what keeps the gears of PPC moving. They begin when someone searches for something on a search engine.
When advertisers want to display ads related to a user’s search query, an auction is initiated based on the keywords they’ve bid on. The ads that win the auction are then displayed on the search engine results page.
Advertisers participate in these auctions by using platforms like Google Ads. There they create their ads and decide the placement and timing for their appearance.
Keywords are the main crux of advertisements as they enable to connect user’s search queries.
Queries are the actual words that a user types in the search box of the search engine. Whereas, keywords are the targeted words that indicate the query’s nature and what the user wants.
Keywords act as broad representations of various search queries, which can sometimes include irregularities like misspellings. Advertisers can choose how closely their keywords match search queries by selecting different keyword match types, allowing for varying degrees of precision.
For instance, advertisers can opt for an exact match between keywords and search queries. Otherwise, they can permit variations like different word orders, spellings, or the addition of extra words. Additionally, negative keywords can be used to block ads from appearing in search queries that contain certain words. It is really helpful to avoid attracting irrelevant traffic.
Advertisers create campaigns that include ad groups with related keywords. These ad groups contain ads with headlines, descriptions, and URLs. When a user searches for relevant keywords, the ad may appear at the top or bottom of the search results page. Advertisers should test different ad versions to see which performs best. Ad extensions like site links and call extensions can enhance ad visibility and engagement.
Bids are the amount that you have decided to pay for the keyword to participate in the auction. This is done using budgets at a campaign level and bids at the ad group or keyword level.
Budgets are established at the campaign level and can be exceeded daily, though the monthly spending cap will not be surpassed.
While budgets should align with the broader account strategy, bids offer a more detailed method of managing spending.
Ad rank is also important for having the highest bid. Search engines look at the other factors to determine which ad should be at the top on the SERP. Every search engine has its own way of factoring in other elements to determine the ad rank.
Let’s take the example of Google, it considers bid amount, ad relevance, quality, context of search, and more.
Quality Score is a key metric that measures the relevance of an ad in search engine advertising. It is determined by several factors, including the historical click-through rate (CTR), which reflects how often users click on the ad. The relevance of the keyword to the ad, and how well both the keyword and ad match the user’s search query. Additionally, the quality of the landing page linked to the ad also plays a significant role in calculating the Quality Score.
Ad relevance is essential; the higher the Quality Score is, the lower the CPC will be.
Search engines penalize advertisers who bid on keywords with low-quality scores by rarely showing their ads, even if they have high bids.
Well, wrapping this up at this point every business who wants to run a paid search campaign, should know all these terms and how to effectively use them to get the best results.
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