What is Paid Search? How Paid Search Marketing Works

Companies will spend over $190 billion on paid search in 2024. This investment continues because of the results paid search ads deliver—$2 for every $1 spent. As a critical part of your marketing strategy, spending wisely and generating revenue from this tactic should be a primary focus.

In this blog, Meghan Parsons, our SVP of Paid Media, explains the difference between paid search and paid media. It’s an important distinction that informs your advertising strategy and budgeting.

You’ll also learn why your business should use pay-per-click (PPC) marketing, how to develop a paid search plan and avoid common mistakes.

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 

My Expert Opinion on Paid Search

Paid search has been an integral part of digital marketing for decades. Yet, it shows no signs of a decrease in spend and usage. It’s a tactic that can work for any business anywhere because it capitalizes on how people search for services and products. Search is often the first place people begin the buying journey, so paid search ads gain attention from the start. To consistently succeed with paid search, you need a flexible strategy that considers search trends, competition, audience needs, and emerging technology like AI.

Paid Search v Paid Media

What is paid search?

Paid search or PPC marketing describes an online advertising model where ads appear in SERP (search engine results page). If a user clicks the ad, the advertiser pays a cost based on bidding for that keyword or phrase.

It’s a way to generate paid traffic to your website and convert audiences. Paid search is available on multiple platforms, including Google, YouTube, Yahoo, and Bing. These ads are displayed above the organic search results.

The execution includes creating keyword sets and defining a budget for bidding. The ad’s budget and quality impact when the search engines serve it to searchers.

There are three main elements to a paid search ad:

•  Headline: This is the ad’s title and typically includes the keyword and other important information.
• URL: The URL goes under the headline and is customizable.
•  Description: This copy offers more details and often includes services, products, ratings, and other attributes that convey trust to the user.

Paid media describes all types of purchased advertising. Paid search is a tactic in the overall paid media strategy. Other paid media tactics include:

• Social media ads
• Display ads
• Geofencing ads
• OTT/CTV (over-the-top/connected TV) ads
• Native advertising
• Sponsored content
• Video advertising
• Streaming audio ads

Key Differences: Paid Search vs. Paid Media

Here is how they differ:

Audience Targeting

In paid search, targeting focuses on the keywords people search for related to your business. You can also geotarget the ads.

In all other paid media options, you may have additional ways to target, such as by:

• Demographics
•  Interests
• Online behaviors
• Geography
• Contextually (Contextual targeting places display ads based on the context of the website. For example, sports equipment advertisers would see their ads on properties like ESPN.)
• Using 1st party data back the business owns 

Platforms and Formats

What is a pay-per-click campaign format exactly?

PPC marketing appears on search engines or platforms that allow keyword searches. The format for traditional paid search ads is text. However, there are now options for image-focused ones, such as Google Shopping ads.

Other paid media have specific platforms including social media platforms, third-party websites, streaming (video and audio), and apps.

In the case of programmatic advertising, bidding occurs through a demand-side platform (DSP) that then traffics the ad to a property aligned with targeting criteria. Streaming works similarly through a supply-side platform.

Formats include text, static imagery, video, and interactive ads.

Objectives and Outcomes

Objectives for paid search and paid media fall into each phase of the buyer’s funnel. They can be for brand awareness, which is the top. These ads can also focus on goals further down the funnel, attempting to convert interested audiences into customers.

The outcomes of any paid media tactic depend on the objective. You can strive to gain more website traffic, engagement, conversions, leads, and sales.

Why Your Business Needs Paid Search

Paid search advertising helps your business with greater visibility, better targeting, and much more.

1. Immediate Visibility – Appearing at the top of searches gets the attention of searchers. It’s a much faster way to do this than the long-term strategy of SEO. Interested parties see your brand as an immediate solution to their query, which can earn you traffic and conversions.

2. Targeted Advertising – With paid search, you are optimizing for specific keywords used by an audience in need of what you offer. Your ads match their queries, meaning the clicks and traffic are relevant and likely qualified. When searchers use purchase intent terms like buy, hire, purchase, etc., you reach those folks at the point of sale. You can add negative keywords to your sets to further target and eliminate junk leads.

3. Measurable Results – You can track and analyze every element of the campaign. You’ll learn what ads and keywords perform the best and can optimize more to increase the results. These metrics, website reporting, and trend analysis help you make data-driven decisions about paid search marketing.

4. Cost-Effectiveness – You have complete control over the budget and bid adjustments. You can allocate more of your budget to high-performing ads based on the performance. The potential to achieve high ROI is possible with regular monitoring and optimization.

5. Competitive Advantage – Gaining market share is an outcome of using PPC marketing. Your competitors are also likely using it, so you’ll need to keep up visibility with searchers. It’s not just about outbidding. Rather, the quality of your ads and where they take users matters just as much. It should be compelling for a customer to choose you.

How to Create a Paid Search Strategy

Follow these best practices to build your paid search strategy.

Research and Planning

1. Select Relevant Keywords

Start by conducting keyword research. There are three main kinds of match types:

• Exact Match: This triggers ads only for the precise 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.

Understanding these match types ensures your ads appear to users whose search intent aligns with your offerings. It also minimizes irrelevant clicks and optimizes your budget.

2. Understanding The Power of Negative Keywords

Negative keywords prevent ads from showing up 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.

3. Define Your Campaign Goals

In addition to keyword research, your plan should define the goals you expect from paid search advertising and the key performance indicators (KPIs) you’ll track.

Goal examples:

• Increase website traffic.
• Generate leads.
• Boost sales.
• Drive conversions.

KPIs include:

• Clicks
• Click-through rates (CTRs)
• Conversions
• Engagement
• Time on page
• Bounce rate
• Cost-per-click (CPC)
• Conversion Rate 
• Return On Ad Spend (ROAS)
• Cost Per Conversion / Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)

Campaign Structure

The setup of paid search involves organizing campaigns and ad groups. Consider structuring your campaigns, focusing on one topic or idea at a time.

Google recommends adding roughly 20-25 keywords to each ad group, but being more specific can improve results and minimize unqualified clicks. Your ads will be more relevant to searchers, which boosts engagement.

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

Once you define ad groups, you must develop ad copy and landing pages.

Components of Ad Copy

When writing 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, which may detract from the user experience. It’s essential to strike the right balance between creativity and clarity to ensure 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.

The final piece is the landing page, where the ad directs people. It should match the theme and offer of the ad rather than simply going to a home or product page. If not aligned with the ad, you could see high bounce rates.

Budgeting and Bidding

Review the average CPC for the keywords you plan to target and evaluate how much budget you have for bidding. Highly competitive keywords cost more, so you have to balance that with your spend.

Bid amounts are an element of ad rank, but you’ll run out of budget quickly if this is the strategy. Instead, consider relevant keywords with decent volume but lower CPCs. As you learn from performance data, you can keep optimizing your bidding.

Ad Creation

Above, we discussed the copy components, what they should include, and guidelines. A few other things to consider in ad copy:

• Be concise.
• Show social proof, like star ratings.
• Speak to the audience specifically using their language.
• Make the offer one that aligns with their buyer’s journey phase.

You should also use ad extensions.

How to Leverage 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 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.

Targeting Beyond Keywords

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

Google also has advanced targeting options such as:

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

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

Monitoring and Optimization

Paid search ads aren’t set it and forget it. You should review campaign performance regularly and adjust based on data insights. You can use this to:

• Refresh ad copy to be more attractive.
• Update landing page experiences if clicks aren’t turning into conversions.
• Allocate budget to the ads with the best ROI. 

A/B Testing

Conduct A/B testing to get a better understanding of your audience’s preferences. Do so by experimenting with ad formats, headlines, and CTAs. This practice uncovers 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.

Common Mistakes in Paid Search

Paid search is complex and ever-changing. Be sure to avoid these mistakes.

Poor Keyword Selection

Keyword errors to avoid include:

• Using terms that are too broad, making clicks unqualified
• Ignoring long-tail keywords, which indicate greater intent and audience specificity
• Overlooking negative keywords which can attract clicks that have no value

Ineffective Ad Copy

Ad copy should tell a very quick story that includes the keyword, benefits, and a CTA. If the data says clicks are rare, go back to your ad copy and refresh it. Not using ad extensions effectively also adds to this problem.

Ignoring Landing Page Quality

Never send targeted traffic to generic or irrelevant pages. Heed these guidelines for the best landing page experience:

• Offer relevant, useful content. Fill your landing page provides valuable information about the user’s search query.
• Create a page that reflects the keyword and ad copy. Maintain consistency between your ad copy and the content on your landing page.
• Be transparent about your business and what you do. Communicate your value proposition and business offerings clearly.
• Make it easy to find contact information. Provide clear and accessible contact information for users seeking further assistance.
• Ensure your site loads quickly. Optimize your landing page for fast loading times to enhance user experience.
• Build mobile-responsive pages. Ensure your mobile-friendly landing pages cater to users across various devices.

Inadequate Budget Management

Keep an eye on budget to avoid overspending on low-performing keywords. Paid search is something that needs constant optimization. Learn from the data and adjust bids accordingly.

Lack of Continuous Optimization

Again, paid search advertising requires regular review and tweaking of campaigns based on your metrics and industry trends or customer preferences. Stay current on these things and look to Google Trends for emerging keywords. Also, pay attention to changes in search algorithms and the next horizon of search that includes AI factors.

Paid Search FAQs

1. Can paid search work for small businesses?

Small businesses with tight budgets can start the process by 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 is crucial to optimize performance without overspending.

2. What metrics should I track to measure success?

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. Mobile-friendly ads and landing pages are non-negotiable with the increasing use of smartphones. 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 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 plan and adjust 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.

6. What is the difference between paid search and organic search?

Paid search is an advertising tactic that places ads at the top of search results. Organic search is not paid. Results from organic search come from businesses applying SEO.

7. How much should I budget for paid search campaigns?

Budgeting depends on many things, including industry, audience, and competition for keywords. You can start by spending a small amount to test results and then increase budgets for keyword sets that show ROI.

8. How do I choose the right keywords for my campaign?

The right keywords have much to do with your audience, what you do, and the terms they use when seeking a solution. You want keywords with enough volume demonstrating it’s a popular term, but balance this with its competitiveness. Long-tail keywords usually perform the best because they are more specific.

9. How can I improve my Quality Score?

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. You may want to improve the copy and its relevance to the query and landing pages, as well as make better use of extensions.

10. What are some common pitfalls to avoid in paid search?

Common pitfalls include inadequate keyword research, not using negative keywords, and ad copy that is absent of benefits and a CTA. Other mistakes businesses make are not monitoring performance and optimizing.

11. How often should I review and adjust my campaigns?

At a minimum, you should be reviewing monthly. Do this more often at the beginning of campaigns.

12. How does remarketing fit into a paid search strategy?

Remarketing allows you to reconnect with potential customers who previously visited your website or engaged with your brand. With remarketing paid search, ad results show those users the products or services they previously viewed. It creates a more personalized experience.

13. What tools can help manage and optimize paid search campaigns?

Many marketing tools support paid search. Examples include:

• Software for keyword and PPC research
• AI tools for ad copy creation
• Account alert tools that send you real-time notifications about campaigns
• Position tracking to report rankings for PPC keywords
• Google Ads Editor, which enables management offline
• Platforms that allow you to build custom dashboards for PPC campaign monitoring

Elevate Your Paid Search Strategy with Ignite Visibility

Paid search directly connects users precisely when they want what you’re selling. Effectively executing it is one of the quickest paths to online business growth.

Managing and optimizing paid search is essential to reap these rewards. Partnering with our paid media experts reduces strain on you and better results. We can:

• Perform keyword strategy.
• Build a PPC marketing plan.
• Write and design ads.
• Launch campaigns.
• Measure and monitor.

Connect with us today to get started.