Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is similar to SEO in the sense that you’re trying to get your website to the top of page 1 for relevant keywords. However, the similarities end there. Pay-Per-Click (PPC) gives you full control over when and where your ads appear, and offers significantly faster results than SEO. If you’re looking to start generating results now, PPC is the way to go.
In simple terms, you tell a search engine (let’s be fair, most of you are here for Google Ads) what keywords you want to target, write your ads, and then your ads will show when users search your targeted keywords.
Each time someone clicks on your ad, you get charged a dollar value. This value varies quite considerably based on a range of factors such as time-of-day, the number of people that search that term each month, the quality of your overall advertising experience, and how many other businesses are also targeting that keyword.
Prices range from very cheap to very expensive. For example, the average Cost Per Click for the search term Google Ads is $591.76, but for most businesses, the Cost Per Click varies between $0.20 to $5.
Pay per click is the most common, and it works very simply. Every time someone clicks on your ad, you pay a cost-per-click. This cost varies across keywords and fluctuates depending on how many users are searching for that word, and how many other websites are paying to advertise on that search as well.
Every time you show an ad, this is called an ‘impression.’ 10 impressions mean your ad has shown ten times, so 1,000 impressions means your ad has shown 1,000 times.
CPM stands for Cost-Per-Mille, or Cost-Per-1,000-Impressions, meaning you’ll pay once your ad has been shown 1,000 times.
SEO & Google Ads work incredibly well together. The control and flexibility afforded to you by Google Ads allows you to find genuine opportunities for your SEO campaign. You’ll see what’s worth investing your time in, and find that they work well running side by side.
If you can afford it, I suggest you do both. If you need results now, then side with Google Ads. If you want long term, sustainable and uncapped growth, and you’re happy to wait for it, then SEO is great for you.
On Search Ads, you’ll come across something known as ‘match types.’ This introduces new parameters into your keywords to expand or limit your search. The three types are:
Broad Match
This casts a wide net by targeting not only your keywords, but similar or related search terms as well. Think synonyms & aliases. For example, if you target “bags” then your ads may also appear for “satchels”, “handbags,” “purses”, “backpacks” and so on. CPC is cheaper on broad match, but you’ll also find a lot of your media budget is spent on keywords that simply aren’t relevant.
Phrase Match
This narrows your targeting, and will only trigger your ads to appear in keywords that contains a phrase (i.e. a string of words in a certain order). Returning to bags, a phrase match keyword might be “black bags”. You would no longer appear for keywords such as those mentioned above, but you would start appearing for terms such as “black bags for sale”, “affordable black bags,” “black bags with gold buckles” and so on.
These terms shrink your audience pool to be more relevant, but your CPC will go up as a result of the increased control you have over your account.
Exact Match
Exact match limits your ads to only appear when all words in a search term match your target keywords.
For example, if you target “bags” as an exact match keyword, then your ad will only ever show when a user searches “bags.” Outside of minor variations (such as singular vs. plural), Exact Match restricts your audience pool, which is great if you have a handful of high-converting keywords on which you want to focus. The CPC of Exact Match keywords is generally higher than Phrase & Broad Match.
Most PPC platforms are designed to be easy to use by people with little to no experience. A lot of the setup is automated and you just need to enter some basic details such as your business name and website to start advertising.
However, these campaigns can tend to scattergun your ads to places where they aren’t relevant, which then wastes your budget. While easy to use, they aren’t successful in the long term so when it comes to scaling, an agency will be able to do a much better job.
The truth is that PPC platforms have a lot of functionality that can help get more results for your media spend, but as a business owner or marketing manager, it’s rare that you’ll have time to keep up to date with everything you could be doing. That’s where an agency comes in.
All Google Ads campaigns come with a free Account Manager, but those Managers aren’t always employed directly by Google.
For small businesses with low spend, your Google Ads Account Manager generally works for a company to which Google outsources its account management. They are given a script, and their number one objective is to get you spending more.
Their technical skills & general knowledge of the platform is very limited, and they will usually base their recommendations on poorly analysed data. Not only is their intel bad, but their implementation is also based on general best practice. It’s not based on what is right for you.
It is rare that a campaign becomes successful through using a Google Ads Account Manager, which is why you’re always better paying extra to have an agency on your side.
All keywords on Google have a dollar value. That value is determined by how often those keywords are searched, how many other businesses are targeting that keyword, time-of-day, day-of-the-week, user location, user device and a range of other factors. That keyword value fluctuates throughout the day, and is rarely the same twice in a row.
Every time someone searches a keyword on Google, there is a miniature auction to decide whose ad appears, and how much they’ll pay if that user clicks. It is guided by the dollar value of that keyword, but it can also vary depending on how good a job you’ve done of advertising.
Every business that has targeted that keyword will be entered into the auction. The winner is normally the business that is willing to pay the most for the click. However, Google also takes into account your businesses’ relevance to the searched term, and how good your overall advertising and website experience is.
This all takes place in an instant – it’s so fast you’d never know that anything happened. But the results of that auction determine what you pay for the click.
The campaign types you can use are similar to the networks listed above.
Search Ads
These are text-based ads that you’ll see at the top of the search engine results, marked by an “Ad” symbol. You tell search engines when and where you’d like your ads to appear, what you’d like to happen when a user clicks on your ads, write your copy, and your ads will start appearing accordingly.
Shopping Ads
If you are selling a product online (not services) then you can use Shopping campaigns. This takes a product feed from your website and uses it to place paid ads in the search engine shopping results. You can’t really target shopping ads. Search engines use your product feed and your product information to determine where your ads do and don’t appear, so getting the most from shopping ads involves making sure your product feed has as much information in it as possible.
Display Ads
These are image or animation-based ads that appear around the websites. They are available in a variety of sizes and placements, which is why you’ll see the same ad in multiple different dimensions, sometimes even on the same page. Businesses use them for two main reasons: brand awareness, and remarketing. As this is a visual campaign, you will need creative assets to use display ads.
Display ads are targeted in a variety of ways – demographics, site content, & website placements.
Video Ads
Video ads are short videos that can appear across video placements on sites such as YouTube. Ranging from 5 seconds to 30 seconds, they are great for marketing funnels. The complexity of video campaigns come from two things: knowing which type of video ad to use, and getting video assets created.
They can be targeted by keyword, content, placement, and even targeted to appear on other YouTube channels.
Discovery (Google Ads Only)
Discovery campaigns use Google-based apps such as YouTube, Gmail, and the official Google App to show your ads to people while they are using their phones. They are image-based ads similar to Display Ads, but you don’t have as many custom targeting options.
Performance Max (Google Ads Only)
A relatively new type of campaign, Performance Max blends all of Google’s campaign types into one. When you use Performance Max, you’re getting video, display, shopping, search, and Discovery all in one go, removing the need for you to decide which one is best for you.
They are generally very effective for both lead generation and eCommerce, but they can be hard to customise and report on.
They are targeted based on audiences, so to get the most from them, you need to have a clear idea on who you want to see your ads.
Media Spend is how much you’ll pay directly to Google to cover the cost of your advertising.
For example, if you pay an agency $1,000 to manage $10,000 monthly media spend, then you’ll be handing Google $10,000 at the end of each month
The good thing about PPC is that you decide how much you spend each month. Increase or decrease your budget as often as you like, and make sure that your costs don’t run away from you.
Generally, most search engines offer some sort of Paid Search option.
Google
Google owns, by far, the biggest SEM network in the world. Approximately 90% of all searches are done on Google’s search engines, so the potential audience for your business is as large as the potential results you’ll get from your campaign.
Microsoft
Microsoft Ads (formerly Bing Ads) has been slowly growing to take second place after Google Ads. It works in almost the exact same way as Google Ads, but is regarded to be generally cheaper. Its audience tends to be older, and while it will rarely bring you the volume of results you need to effectively grow your business, it will generally cover its own costs & produce profit quite well.
Brave
Brave Ads are difficult to get on board because Brave is a privacy-centric web browser that has to approve every advertiser that wants to use their advertising services. You need to commit to spending a minimum amount every single month on top of that, which deters a lot of advertisers looking to try something new. Brave users are rewarded with tiny quantities of Basic Attention Tokens (BAT – a form of cryptocurrency that rewards publishers for their content and users for their attention).
Beyond this, you can also use Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, YouTube, and Pinterest.
Copyright All Rights Reserved © 2024