Paid Search Advertising

What is search advertising?

Modern search engines are constantly evolving the “search engine result page” (SERP) to provide the best experience for users, and to capture advertising revenue. One of the most powerful truths about search is that by its nature, every user has a need. Capturing search traffic related to your organization’s products or services can be extremely valuable. Paid search advertising, often known as “pay-per-click” advertising, enables organizations to bid on search terms and display ads on these search result pages.

Paid Search vs. Organic Search

While these ads are separated from the search results, they look very similar. This similarity to “real” search results means that fewer users skip over or ignore these ads. In addition, since organizations typically only pay for clicks (hence pay-per-click ads), there is a low risk of wasted budget. In contrast to search engine optimization (SEO) which takes time to implement and provides lasting results, your ads appear immediately when they are published and disappear immediately when deactivated. This makes paid search advertising a very powerful tool in capturing valuable search traffic.

Since paid search ads appear alongside natural or organic (non-paid) search results, many of the main considerations for successfully capturing search traffic apply to both. However, the price for each click varies based on many factors, such as competition for search terms, the type of ad to display, and even how relevant your website is to the keywords you are bidding on. Building an effective search advertising campaign requires a strong understanding of the advertising platform and the techniques needed to ensure ads are displayed to the right search users. The Plaudit Design Internet marketing team has extensive experience building successful search advertising campaigns that don’t just drive traffic, but drive quality traffic.

Capturing Traffic vs. Capturing Leads

Using paid search ads to drive traffic to the site can be an effective tool for any organization. But to achieve a good ROI, we need to take it further. Visitors are often at different points in their buying journey, and an effective search advertising campaign will incorporate this understanding into not only each ad, but also the web pages people reach when they click an ad. For the best results, it’s critical that this destination page is optimized to help the visitor find the information they seek, as well as to focus their attention on taking action. The Plaudit Design team will work closely with you to establish key performance indicators for your ad campaign that go beyond clicks. This enables your organization to see the full picture and make the most out of your search advertising campaign.

Paid Search Advertising Process

The power of digital and Internet marketing platforms lies in the ability to quickly optimize ads for impact. Our process takes advantage of this dynamic to make sure your ads are up and running fast, and the best-performing campaigns evolve into even stronger sources of traffic. Similar to search engine optimization, our paid search advertising services typically take place across three stages.

Key Phrase Research

In order to target the right audience, it’s important to understand the search landscape for your products or services. The Plaudit Design Internet marketing team works with you to build a comprehensive collection of potential search phrase candidates, and then analyzes them to identify the best opportunities. These phrases are assessed for overall search volume, cost-per-click, and the overall relevance score to find the most effective entry point for a successful paid search advertising campaign.

Initial Campaign Generation

Utilizing the insights gained through this thorough research, our paid search advertising team builds a comprehensive campaign. Designed to capture the attention of your core audience, the initial campaigns set the stage to drive traffic, as well as gather important insights about ad performance. These insights provide additional information about search patterns and user behavior, and help us optimize existing campaigns and build new ones.

Ongoing Search Advertising Management

A successful search advertising campaign is built through an ongoing cycle of enhancement. New campaigns can explore additional audiences, or test alternative ad copy. Periodic assessment of existing active campaigns will reveal additional opportunities to capture more customers. Successful strategies can be scaled to larger audiences or additional products / services. We think that this continuous cycle of “Build, Monitor, Assess, Enhance” is the most important part of search advertising.