Paid Search

Also referred to as paid placement, pay per click, and sometimes search engine marketing, paid search marketing allows advertisers to pay to be listed within the search engine results pages for specific keywords or phrases. Paid placement listings can be purchased from a portal or a search network. Search networks are often set up in an auction environment where keywords and phrases are often associated with a cost-per-click (CPC) fee. Google Ads and Bing Ads are the two major players, but other sites also sell paid placement listings directly as well.

A good search engine marketing company offering this form of digital advertising will select an exhaustive set of industry-related search terms, set up your accounts, write advertising copy, create landing pages, control your bidding (how much you’re willing to pay per search term click) and budgeting, and test and refine your advertising for effectiveness.

More Questions People Ask About Paid Search

Is Paid Search Marketing Completely Driven By Google?

Google doesn’t have a monopoly on the paid search industry, but they are far and away the market leader. According to Statista, Google occupied about 90% of worldwide desktop market share as of January 2019, with Bing and Yahoo! combining for less than 6%.

There is some value in advertising through this medium on other platforms, but Google definitely drives the majority of activity in this marketing channel.

Does Paid Search Work? What Is The Strategy?

Compared to other marketing channels, paid search definitely does work. According to data from Wordstream, the average conversion rate in Google Ads across all industries is 3.75%.

Considering there are 3.5 billion searches per day in Google, that means over 131 million conversions are happening daily through this strategy.

The strategy for this is pretty simple:

• Gain exposure with people looking for your products and services in your target markets.
• Generate more conversions at a higher ROI than your other programs
• Get higher e-commerce sales growth, or
• Increase lead generation

How Much Does This Cost?

The numbers vary by industry and keyword phrase, but the average CPC in Google paid search is about $2.00.

But there are extremes on both ends.

Millions of keywords for e-commerce products can cost just a few cents per click. Millions of keywords in enterprise B2B services or the legal industry can cost well over $50 per click.

To determine how much this is really going to cost your business, we suggest you contact us.

What Is Paid Search In Google Analytics?

The Paid Search channel in Google Analytics comprises all of the traffic sources bringing visits to your site that are attributed as CPC, PPC, or paidsearch.

Note that this grouping may include traffic sources outside of Google, Bing and Yahoo!. Because of that, you may need to closely analyze your performance data if you are running ads on multiple platforms.

What Are These Results? Are They The Same As SEO?

Paid search results and SEO are not the same. The way Google search engine results pages (SERPs) are currently structured, these results are typically located in the first 1-4 positions on the page. There may also be 1-4 of them located at the very bottom of a page, as well.

In contrast, links on Google SERPs that are placed from SEO efforts can be found on the remainder of the page.

What Is The Difference Between Paid Search And Organic Search? Do They Affect Each Other?

The difference between paid and organic search is best explained by how rankings are acquired.

In paid, rankings are determined by a variety of factors including an auction-style bidding system.

In organic search, rankings are determined algorithmically by a variety of factors on the page, as well as off of the page.

Across every reputable search engine, these two search platforms do not directly affect each other. However, numerous studies have been done indicating that leveraging both paid and organic search together can be highly effective to produce results.