Pay Per Click Marketing

How Paid Search Works

Every time there is an ad spot on a search engine results page (SERP), an auction takes place for the keyword instantaneously.

A combination of multiple factors, including bid amount and the quality of the ad, decide the winner who will appear in the top position.

These auctions are what keeps the gears of PPC moving. They begin when someone searches for something on a search engine.

Keywords

Keywords lie at the center of PPC, connecting advertisers to users’ search queries.

• Queries are the actual words that users type into the search box of a search engine to find results.
• Keywords, on the other hand, are what marketers use to target these users by matching their search queries.

Keywords work as generalized abstractions of a wide range of search queries prone to irregularities like misspellings.

Depending on the keyword match types they use, advertisers can match search queries with more or less precision.

Advertisement or Ads

Along with keywords, advertisers need to prepare ads in their campaigns.

These are nestled together within ad groups that target shared sets of keywords and are organized by common themes.

Ads are what the users will see if the auction is won, so they’re essential to get right. On a SERP, they can show up on top of the results or at the bottom of the page. Services like Google Ads and Microsoft Ads provide features called ad extensions that enhance the appearance of ads.

Budgets & Bids

To participate in the auction, advertisers need to decide how much they’re willing to spend on a given keyword. This is done using budgets at a campaign level and bids at the ad group or keyword level.

Budgets are set at the campaign level and can be exceeded daily, but will not be overspent monthly. Budgets should be set according to the overall account strategy, but bids are a more precise way of controlling spend.

These allow advertisers to set a specific goal for their campaigns and then have the advertising platform determine the most appropriate bid for each auction. Bid strategies can be applied to individual campaigns or a portfolio of multiple campaigns.

Ad Rank

Search engines look at other factors to determine which ads should be at the top and most valuable spot on the SERP. Search engines have their own particular ways of factoring in other elements to determine ad rank.

Google, for example, considers:

• Bid amount
• Ad relevance and quality
• The context of the search (such as the user’s device and time of day)
• Format impact (e.g., whether it includes extensions that enhance the format of the ad)