Pay-Per-Click Advertising
In this chapter:
• Using pay-per-click advertising to promote thought leadership
• Establishing a goal for your search engine marketing campaign
• Paid vs. free search results
• Keyword selection
• Using the Google Display Network to place ads on websites, apps, and videos
So far, we have covered channels that target users directly, like email, or indirectly, through their demographics or industry, like paid social media targeting. Now we turn to targeting users by their keyword searches or sites they visit.
Users reading your content are looking to learn, find useful information, or be entertained. They may not have a particular purpose in mind. Social media posts gauge a user’s interest and try to engage. Success metrics vary, but most try to measure user interest as shown by user actions, such as likes, clicks, shares, and retweets—and most important—whether the user converts, or takes the desired action, like downloading content on a landing page.
The most important part of search engine marketing is establishing a goal.
Google searches, though, are fundamentally different. Unlike social media, where the focus is on catching the user’s attention, Google searches begin with the user. The user has a particular question or need that triggers the search. Though obvious, the distinction is important to point out, because it requires the advertiser to take an entirely different approach.
The most important part of conducting a search engine marketing campaign is establishing a goal. Once the user clicks on your ad and arrives at the destination page, what do you want him or her to do? How will you measure success? For e-commerce companies, this will often be purchasing a product or service. For a business-to-business company, the goal may be downloading content in exchange for providing contact information.
This is a key point that marketers sometimes miss. They are so focused on their ad copy and generating impressions and click-through rates that they forget about which action they want the user to take after clicking on the ad. Some marketers say they don’t have a goal for users. Their search engine marketing is simply a brand awareness tool. But if that’s the case, these marketers should think through whether this is the right channel. There may be more effective ways to promote a brand.
Paid vs. free search results
Google search pages display two kinds of search results: organic and paid. Paid ads are displayed on the top and right-hand side of the search engine results page (SERP). Any organization or individual can bid for placement among the paid ads through purchasing Google Ads, a pay-per-click advertising program.
Google Ads are different from traditional outbound marketing efforts like television or radio advertising. Unlike traditional advertising, which charges by impressions, or how many individuals are likely to see an ad, Google Ads fees are based on how many users actually clicked on the ad, not on the number who only viewed it. This makes Google Ads a far more efficient form of advertising.
How well your ad ranks within a search engine results page is determined by two key factors: bid and relevancy. Relevance to Google searches is measured by keywords. Google defines keywords as “words or phrases that are used to match your ads with the terms people are searching for.”1 The search engine determines how relevant a user’s keywords are to the ad and to the landing page. This is the search engine’s way of ensuring that the user sees the most relevant pages.
Figure 16.1 on page 141, based on data from the Bangalore, India–based firm DAS Digital Marketing,2 shows the various attributes contributing to pay-per-click (PPC) success.
The bidding value of your ad is based on how many other users are also bidding on the same keywords at that time. More popular keywords will require higher bids for favorable display positions. Essentially, Google conducts a real-time auction. As at a traditional auction, the higher your bid, the greater your chances of winning a favorable placement. However, also just as at a traditional auction, you can also overbid and offer far more than the value of the placement. This usually happens when the winning bid is far above that of the second-place winner.
Figure 16.1 Elements of successful pay-per-click advertising. Illustration by Robert Pizzo.
Selecting relevant and high-quality keywords is the cornerstone of your Google Ads campaign. Here are four tactics to keep in mind. Let’s use the example of a tour operator selling tickets for tours of Manhattan.
Think like your customer—which categories best fit your product and what keywords are users most likely to search for?
When choosing keywords, you have to think the way a user would. Google will not figure out what you mean. The keywords you are bidding on must match those of the user’s search and, ideally, words in your ad and landing page. As a tour operator selling tickets for a tour of Manhattan, you bid for the keyword “Manhattan tours” or “tours of Manhattan.” But you neglect to bid on “New York City tours.” Though your keywords “Manhattan tours” are more precise, you will miss out on many searches that are for New York City. Most users are more likely to input “New York City” than “Manhattan.” Google won’t translate Manhattan as being a part of New York City. Therefore, in choosing keywords to bid on, you must think of the keywords a user is likely to input.
Consider speaking to target users about which keywords they are likely to search for.
You may consider speaking to target users about which keywords they are likely to search for. You can do this informally with customers or as part of a structured market research initiative. For B2B companies, this is especially important. You want to ensure that you are bidding on the right keywords for your target industry.
Some questions to ask B2B users are:
• When do you search for products, services, or solutions, if at all?
• At which stage in the buying process are you when you conduct Google searches?
• For a given topic (give three examples), what are typical keywords you would search under?
Importantly, you need to find out whether your target audience searches at all for a product, solution, or content piece. If not, search may not be the right channel. It’s also possible that they search once they are further down the buyer’s funnel. In other words, once the buyer is more committed, he or she searches for specific companies or products. This is important information, because that means you should focus some of your keywords on branded search terms. These are keywords that focus on your brand, company, and names of your products or solutions. This is both good and bad news. On the one hand, the cost per click (CPC) may be cheaper as the competition for such branded keywords is likely to be lower. On the other hand, the search volume may be very small, especially if your industry and products/solutions are niche.
Organize around themes
To organize your search marketing plan, come up with topics and subtopics, each with their own specific keywords and ads. The tour operator may want to divide groups of offerings: history tours, cultural tours, and food tours. Under each of these categories, there could be subgroupings. For example, under the history tour, there could be subgroupings or Google Ads groups for each of the company’s history tours: “Colonial New York,” “New York and the Roaring 1920s,” and “New York During the 1970s.” You would create an advertisement and 5 to 20 keywords for each ad group above.
The more specific you can be, the better. Avoid keywords that are too general. Instead of “history tours,” use something like “Colonial New York Tours Discounted” and have the sales price in the ad.
Use negative keywords to ensure that ads don’t show to the wrong people
You should also include negative keywords. These are words that tell Google not to display your ad when the user inputs them. Negative keywords help you save costs and improve the user experience by avoiding irrelevant ads. Let’s go back to our tour operator example. Since the tour is only in Manhattan, suitable negative keywords would include “Bronx,” “Queens,” and “Brooklyn.” Since your tours do not include interiors of buildings and you don’t want users who are looking specifically for that, you can add “interior tours” as an additional negative keyword term.
Use Keyword Planner
Google’s Keyword Planner will help you choose keywords to add to an existing campaign or for the one you are starting. The planner will offer ideas for keywords and estimates for how they may perform. These estimates may include anticipated search volume, predicted clicks, and conversions. Other features allow you to start a new keyword list by multiplying lists of keywords together. Keyword Planner can also help you select competitive bids in order to improve existing or new campaigns.
Besides the Google Search Network, there is the Google Display Network. Whereas the Google Search Network relies on the user to input various terms, the Google Display Network serves ads on relevant websites, blogs, smartphone apps, or videos. The Display Network claims to reach about 90 percent of worldwide internet users through its potential online properties. If your product is very niche and you are not receiving much search volume, the Display Network may be a good option.
The Display Network gives you more alternatives than the Search Network. You can choose types of pages or websites for your ads. Additionally, you can select audience types and ad formats such as text, video, pictures, or rich media.
Depending on where your typical customer is on the buyer’s journey, you can place your ads strategically on specific kinds of sites. For example, if your company is selling content management platforms, you could place display ads on sites reviewing the best platforms. It’s likely that users of that site are already committed to buying a content management system and are now considering which vendor to purchase from, and that’s an opportune time for an ad.
There are three ways to reach relevant users in the Display Network:
• Contextual targeting: Choose keywords and topics. Google Ads then finds suitable web pages, smartphone apps, and blogs to place your ad in. Continuing with the example of the New York tour operator, suitable topics would be “travel,” “New York,” or “vacations.” If a user searches for best places to stay in New York and is presumed to be a leisure visitor, the tour operator’s display ad would appear. The timing of the purchaser’s decision in this example is important too. If the user is searching for lodging, he or she is likely making other decisions about the trip, so the ad is not only reaching the relevant audience but doing so at the right time.
• Managed placements: You place your ad on the websites, smartphone apps, or online videos you believe are most suitable. For example, as the tour operator in New York, you may choose to be on a website about New York events. Conversely, you can block your ads from sites you deem irrelevant.
• Retargeting: Visitors who have visited your website can be remarketed with your ad in an attempt to bring them back. The sites where your ad appears in this context may have nothing to do with your topic. The purpose is to win users who did not convert back to your site. But be careful not to overpromote to these users, creating ad fatigue. If you’re working with a small pool of cookie-tracked users, the same users are likely to see retargeted ads over and over again.
There’s an untapped online destination for your ads where you likely have the user’s attention—error pages. Historically, if a user entered an invalid URL, the browser would display a 404 error page and the user would be at a dead end. But a little-known fact is that you can use error messages to display your ads. The frustrated user just may be receptive.