What is Paid Search? How Paid Search Marketing Works

What You’ll Learn:

• What is Paid Search?
• Why You Need to Use Paid Search in Your Marketing Strategy
• How to Craft a Paid Search Strategy
• What the Quality Score Is
• 6 of the Most Common Mistakes in Paid Search
• How to Optimize a Paid Search Campaign
• The Future of Paid Search
• FAQs: Paid Search Campaigns 

What is Paid Search? How Does it Work?

Paid search, also known as pay-per-click, is an online advertising model where advertisers pay a fee every time someone clicks on their ad. It’s a strategic method to drive targeted traffic to a website. 

Companies pay for ad space from search engines like Google, YouTube, Yahoo, and Bing. Marketers will bid for a spot in the sponsored links by entering into an auction. Their focus is bidding on the specific keywords that will trigger their ad. 

The success lies in optimizing campaigns for platforms with the highest reported ROI rates, such as Facebook Ads and Google Ads. 

Ads generally appear above and below organic search results and typically include three key elements: a headline, a URL, and a description, which, when done right, entice searchers to click. Text ads might also include extensions, which expand your ad by including additional information. 

Why You NEED to Use Paid Search in Your Marketing Strategy

At this point, you might be wondering if paid search is worth the effort. Why bother with it when you can rank the organic results for free?  

Unfortunately, ranking organically is neither easy nor free. 

Gaining the domain authority and brand recognition needed to rank on the front page of Google demands a lot of resources, including time and money required for developing and distributing high-quality content. 

Paid search ads can offer a shortcut, bringing qualified traffic directly to your site, while simultaneously supporting your organic efforts.

Here are the main benefits of a paid strategy:

1. Increased SERP Visibility – SEO practices alone might land you in the top organic position, but SEO is a long game. Paid ads can help you get on your audience’s radar immediately. 
2. It Can Be Used with Other Channels – Use paid search to direct traffic to other channels, specific pieces of content—you name it.
3. Qualified Prospects – Because search ads target specific search queries and audiences, using them allows you to put your ad right in front of people already searching for a solution like the one you provide. While impression-focused ads like Display ads or the ones you might find in your Facebook feed aim to capture searcher attention passively, targeting based on query allows you to tap into an audience with intent. These people are actively searching for solutions—whether they’re starting the research process or ready to buy.
4. Audience Insights. Paid search also allows marketers to learn more about their prospects, campaign performance, and what kind of return on investment (ROI) they’re getting from their ad spend.
   
5. Immediate Results and Adjustments: Unlike organic strategies that may take time to see results, paid search delivers immediate visibility and allows for real-time adjustments. This means you can quickly optimize your campaign based on performance data, ensuring your strategy stays effective and efficient.

What is a Paid Search Strategy?

A paid search strategy involves a few moving parts, including keywords, ad groups, match types, and more. Understand these foundational aspects before launching a paid search campaign.

Set Goals to Find Success

The cornerstone of a successful campaign is setting clear goals.

Whether you want to improve brand recognition, generate leads, increase sales, or drive conversions, having a well-defined objective is crucial. Remember, the ultimate aim is to convert website visitors into meaningful actions, not merely get more clicks.

Tracking Conversions

Conversions are not limited to sales; they encompass actions that align with the advertiser’s goals. It could be purchasing a service, signing up for a newsletter, initiating a free trial, or booking a demo. Tracking conversions is vital to gauge your ads’ effectiveness and attribute conversions to your paid campaign accurately.

Setting up conversion tracking is essential. Google Ads provides a sizable platform for tracking various types of conversions, allowing you to understand how users interact with your site after clicking on your ads. This insights-driven approach allows you to optimize your campaigns based on the actions that matter most to your business.

Selecting the Right Keywords

Keywords are the linchpin of any search marketing campaign, linking marketers to users’ search queries. Understanding match types is crucial for refining your approach in Google Ads.

Understanding Match Types

In Google Ads, you can choose from different match types when setting up a campaign. Each match type serves a unique purpose:

• Exact Match: This triggers ads only for the exact term, accounting for plurals and spelling errors.
• Phrase Match: It includes additional words in the search phrase while maintaining the core keyword.
• Broad Match: This triggers ads for synonyms or words in a different order, expanding your reach.
• Modified Broad Match: It allows queries in any order without synonyms, providing a balance between specificity and flexibility.

Understanding these match types is vital for crafting a targeted keyword strategy. It ensures that your ads are shown to users whose search intent aligns with your offerings, minimizing irrelevant clicks and optimizing your budget.

Understanding The Power of Negative Keywords

In addition to selecting relevant keywords, incorporating negative keywords is equally important. Negative keywords prevent ads from showing on irrelevant queries, enhancing campaign efficiency. By excluding specific terms, you can refine your audience targeting, reduce unnecessary ad spend, and improve the overall performance of your campaign.

Crafting Compelling Ad Copy

Writing effective ad copy is an art in its own right. Here’s a breakdown to maximize the limited space available.

Components of Ad Copy

When writing your ad copy, consider the following components:

• Headline: Include the keyword to grab attention and immediately convey relevance.
• Description Line 1: Discuss features and benefits to entice users to learn more.
• Description Line 2: Reinforce benefits and include a clear call to action, encouraging users to take the desired action.
• Display URL: Ensure that it aligns with your keyword and provides a snapshot of your website.

Ad Copy Guidelines

Follow Google’s guidelines for ad copy creation. Avoid excessive capitalization or exclamation points, as they may detract from the user experience. It’s essential to strike the right balance between creativity and clarity to ensure that your ad resonates with your target audience.

Calls to Action (CTAs)

Effective CTAs are instrumental in prompting users to take the desired action. Here are some of the best CTAs we’ve compiled for inspiration

Leveraging Ad Extensions

Google Ads allows the inclusion of extensions, expanding your ad’s visibility and context. Options include:

• Sitelinks: Directs users to specific pages, providing additional navigation options.

• Callouts: Highlights specific features such as “free delivery” or ongoing holiday promotions.
• Location: Displays your business address, enhancing local relevance.

• Call or Message: Encourages direct communication with potential customers.

• Seller Ratings: Showcases customer ratings from platforms like Google Business Profile or TrustPilot, building trust.

Including these extensions not only provides more information to users, but also occupies more real estate in the search results, increasing the visibility and overall effectiveness of your ads.

Structure Your Ad Group the Right Way

Organize your keyword lists into ad groups strategically, considering match types, messaging, and audience intent.

Consider the Buyer’s Journey

Align your ad groups with the various stages of the sales funnel. Tailor your messaging based on whether users are in the awareness, consideration, or decision phase. Understanding the buyer’s journey allows you to create targeted ad groups that resonate with the specific needs and preferences of your audience at each stage.

Campaign Structure

Consider structuring your campaigns focusing on one topic or idea at a time. While Google recommends adding roughly 20-25 keywords to each ad group, targeting the right audience is easier when you keep things as narrow as possible, limiting ad groups to three or four keywords a piece. This focused approach ensures that your ads are highly relevant to the users’ search queries, increasing the likelihood of engagement.

Targeting Beyond Keywords

While keywords are pivotal, other targeting options will enhance audience reach including:

• Device: Target specific devices based on your audience’s device preferences.
• Location: Focus on geographic targeting to reach users in specific regions.
• Day and Time: Optimize based on specific times when your target audience is most active.

Advanced Targeting Options

Explore Google’s advanced targeting options:

• Affinity
• In-market
• Remarketing
• Customer match
• Similar audiences

Combine these audiences and utilize data from your website or Facebook Insights for more precise targeting. This layered approach will help ensure that your ads reach users with specific interests, behaviors, and demographics, maximizing the impact of your campaigns.

The Element of Ad Rank

Securing the top spot in search ads involves more than just outbidding competitors. Google’s ad rank algorithm, which is defined as “a value that’s used to determine your ad position (where ads are shown on a page relative to other ads) and whether your ads will show at all,” considers various factors:

• Bid Amount: The maximum amount you will pay for a click.
• Ad Relevance: How well your ad matches the user’s search intent.
• Ad Quality: The overall quality of your ad, including relevance and user experience.
• Ad Format and Extension Use: Google prioritizes sites that use extensions.
• Contextual Signals: Factors such as device type, location, and search topic.
• Search Topic: The relevance of your ad to the overall search topic.
• Related Auctions: The competitiveness of the keyword and its relevance to your ad.

The Role of Ad Relevance

Ad relevance is a major factor in ad rank determination. Crafting ads that directly address the searcher’s query and align with the landing page is essential for success. Google aims to provide the best possible results to its audience, and ad relevance plays a major role in delivering a positive user experience.

Understand The Quality Score

Google’s Quality Score is a metric gauging ad relevance based on several factors: 

• Relevance of Keywords to Ad Copy: How well your chosen keywords align with your ad copy.
• Relevance of Ad Copy and Keywords to Search Query: The coherence between your ad copy, chosen keywords, and the user’s search query.
• Post-Click Landing Page Quality: The quality and relevance of the page users land on after clicking your ad.
• Overall Average CTR: The average rate at which users click on your ads.

Types of Quality Scores

Quality scores exist at three levels—keyword-level, ad group-level, and account-level. Each level provides insights into the performance of your ads, allowing you to identify areas for improvement.

Improving Land Page Experience 

Enhance your landing page experience to boost your quality score. Google may display ads less frequently if your landing pages offer a poor experience. Follow these guidelines to improve your landing page:

• Offer Relevant, Useful Content: Ensure your landing page provides valuable information related to the user’s search query.
• Ensure your Page Directly Reflects Keyword and Ad Text: Maintain consistency between your ad copy and the content on your landing page.
• Be Transparent About Your Business and What it Does: Clearly communicate your value proposition and business offerings.
• Make it Easy to Find Contact Details: Provide clear and accessible contact information for users seeking further assistance.
• Ensure the Site Loads Quickly: Optimize your landing page for fast loading times to enhance user experience.
• Build Mobile-Responsive Pages: Ensure your landing pages are mobile-friendly to cater to users across various devices.

What are the Most Common Paid Search Mistakes New Marketers Make?

1. Forgetting to Use Negative Keywords to Refine Your Campaigns

Inadvertently skipping the use of negative keywords can leave your campaigns less streamlined and more costly. Negative keywords prevent intent mismatch from disrupting your search performance—and by extension—consuming your budget. 

Not sure where to start with negative keywords? Here are a few of the top hacks for finding the right negative keywords for your brand.

2. Balancing Keywords in Ad Copy Effectively

These days, searchers are conditioned to spot spammy language and avoid it like the plague. Along with spelling errors and emails addressed with “Dear Sir,” overusing keywords set off consumer alarm bells. 

This graphic from Unbounce highlights where to use your keyword, striking a balance between optimizing your ad and talking like a human:

3. Applying Broad Match to Your Initial Paid Search Campaigns

Starting with broad match will allow Google to show your ad to anyone who types in all kinds of variations of your keyword.

When you’re new to paid search, casting a net as wide as broad match may not be to your benefit. You’ll likely end up showing ads to many unqualified searchers and limiting your ability to target your audience effectively. 

Keep in mind, your campaigns will be assigned broad match by default, which is where many new paid advertisers trip up, either by assuming it’s the best option or simply being unaware of the other match types. 

Instead, I recommend searchers start with exact or phrase match to gain more control over their campaign and targeting options. 

This way, you’ll start to collect data that you can later use to refine your strategy.

4. Failing to Research Demographic Information

Paid search success hinges on a combination of keyword research and a deep understanding of demographic information. 

While the concept of keywords, queries, and match types are relatively straightforward, conducting research the “right way” may be intimidating for newcomers. 

Remember, your goal is to “match” keyword targets to user queries. As such, you’ll want to rely on data to make decisions, not guesswork based on what you think people might enter into a search bar to find your website.

Luckily, Google offers free demographic reports that you can access from your Google Ads account, which help you understand your customer base and assess campaign and ad group performance. 

As you gather more data over time, your reports can help you refine your strategy and develop campaigns targeted to specific groups.

5. Not Getting Granular with Targeting

As Google continues to roll out new ways to reach audiences based on interests, income, and a whole lot more, brands that don’t take advantage of the targeting options available may get left behind. 

While keywords remain a core element of search marketing, relying on search queries alone means you might get it wrong when it comes to buyer intent. 

Capitalizing on hyper-specific audience targeting allows brands to drop the hard sell and focus on developing messaging that offers helpful, personalized solutions to buyers at each stage in the journey.

6. Not Focusing on the Right Problems and Solutions

If you want people to click on your ad, you’ll need to make sure you focus on the right pain point or need in your ad copy. 

One common mistake I see a lot of marketers make is that they fail to identify the motivating factors that trigger a search in the first place. 

Instead, they go ahead and assume that the consumers share the same set of goals as they do—and continue to emphasize the point they feel brings the most value to the table.

In this guide, I’ll walk you through a few simple formulas for uncovering the customer pain points you can use to target audience intent and make an emotional connection.

Optimize Your Paid Search Campaigns

Crafting compelling ad copy is just the beginning; true success lies in the ongoing refinement of your strategy. By incorporating these techniques, you can be confident that your investment in paid advertising will yield significant returns.

Analyze Your Campaign Data

Start by dissecting your campaign data to identify high-performing keywords and ad groups. 

With a keen eye on conversion rates and click-through rates, fine-tune your budget allocation to maximize ROI.

Conduct A/B Testing

Leverage A/B testing to get a better understanding of your audience’s preferences. 

Experiment with various ad formats, headlines, and CTAs to uncover the winning combination that resonates most with your target audience. 

Pay close attention to landing page optimization, ensuring a seamless transition from click to conversion. Load times, mobile responsiveness, and compelling content are the linchpins of a high-converting landing page.

Harness Negative Keywords

Embrace the power of negative keywords to filter out irrelevant traffic, refining your audience targeting for precision. 

Regularly audit and update your ad extensions, keeping them fresh and relevant to boost visibility. 

Looking Ahead: The Future of Paid Search Marketing

The future of paid search marketing is rife with both opportunities and challenges. As technological advancements reshape the way consumers engage with online content, anticipating the trajectory of paid search has never been more important. Here are some of the paid search trends we predict will grow in the coming years.

AI’s Role in Personalization

AI is poised to redefine the digital landscape, with machine learning algorithms driving hyper-personalized ad targeting. Automation will become more sophisticated, allowing marketers to allocate budgets with unprecedented precision and efficiency.

Voice Search’s Impact

Voice search is positioned to revolutionize user interactions with search engines. Optimizing for natural language queries and a conversational tone is imperative to stay ahead. Visual search, powered by image recognition technology, will transform how users discover products, prompting marketers to reassess their strategies.

Navigating Privacy Concerns

Marketers will need to navigate evolving data protection regulations while maintaining personalized targeting. The integration of augmented reality and virtual reality into paid search experiences is on the horizon, providing immersive and engaging interactions for users.

Embracing Technological Innovation

Ultimately, the future of paid search marketing rests in the hands of those who can adapt to shifting technologies and changing consumer behaviors. By embracing innovation and staying attuned to emerging trends, marketers can position themselves at the forefront of this dynamic and ever-evolving digital marketing frontier.

FAQs

1. How can small businesses get started with paid search marketing on a limited budget?

Small businesses with tight budgets can kick off the process by carefully selecting targeted keywords relevant to their niche. Begin with a focused campaign, use specific match types, and leverage ad extensions for additional visibility. Monitoring and adjusting the campaign regularly is crucial to optimize performance without overspending.

2. What metrics should be tracked to measure the success of paid search campaigns?

Key metrics for measuring paid search success include click-through rate, conversion rate, cost per click, and quality score. Tracking these metrics provides insights into the effectiveness of your ads, user engagement, and the overall return on investment. Regular analysis and adjustment based on these metrics ensure ongoing campaign improvement.

3. How does mobile search impact paid search marketing strategies?

Mobile search significantly influences paid search strategies. With the increasing use of smartphones, mobile-friendly ads and landing pages are non-negotiable. Understanding user behavior on mobile devices helps tailor campaigns for optimal performance.

4. Can paid search marketing be integrated with other digital marketing strategies?

Absolutely! Paid search should be part of an integrated digital marketing approach. Aligning paid search with content marketing, social media, and SEO enhances overall online visibility. Consistent messaging and coordinated efforts across channels contribute to a cohesive and effective digital marketing strategy.

5. How do seasonal trends affect paid search marketing campaigns?

Seasonal trends impact search behavior, and paid search campaigns should adapt accordingly. Understanding peak seasons, holidays, or industry-specific trends helps in planning and adjusting keyword strategies, ad copy, and budgets. Being agile and responsive to these fluctuations ensures that your paid search efforts remain relevant and capitalize on seasonal opportunities.

Elevate Your Paid Search Strategy With Ignite Visibility

Paid search offers a direct connection with users precisely when they want what you’re selling. When executed effectively, it stands as one of the quickest paths to online business growth. 

Our paid media experts are ready to help you craft a unique paid search strategy and scale it, regardless of the industry you operate in. With our detailed processes and expert project management, you will always know the status of your paid search campaigns.

Connect with us today to learn more about the paid media services our digital marketing agency offers.