Learn More About Paid Search Advertising Software
What is Paid Search Advertising Software?
Paid search advertising software allows companies to target keywords that are relevant to their businesses and gain more prominent positioning in search engine results, gaining visibility with users who are already searching for those keywords. Paid search advertising is also known as paid search, search engine marketing (SEM), sponsored ads, and pay-per-click (PPC) marketing. This type of software is used by companies to identify, target, and bid on keywords. Paid search includes both first-party and third-party platforms. First-party platforms are platforms offered directly by Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo! that offer direct access to ad placement on each of the respective search engines. Third-party platforms may manage ad campaigns across multiple search engines and may also offer functionality to serve ads across display advertising software, video advertising software, mobile advertising software, or social media advertising software as well.
Key Benefits of Paid Search Advertising Software
- Improve brand recognition and exposure on search engines
- Create extremely targeted advertising campaigns while consumers are searching for specific keywords
- Track measurable results like reach, conversions, form completions, and return on ad spend (ROAS)
- Bid on keywords across AdWords, Bing Ads, or Yahoo!
Why Use Paid Search Advertising Software?
Paid search advertising software helps businesses scale their search engine marketing by launching and managing all of their search advertising campaigns. Paid search software helps companies report on the outcomes of their campaigns to optimize their ads moving forward.
Organic or native feel — When companies use paid search advertising software, their ads usually appear at the top of a search engine results page. This not only leads to great brand recognition, but these ads seem more organic to consumers because they are actually searching for those keywords. At first glance, many searchers are unable to tell the difference between paid and organic search results.
Results tracking — Tracking is a lot easier using paid search software because businesses can track every ad, keyword, and dollar spent, allowing them to track a more accurate return on investment (ROI). This also makes it easier for advertisers to test paid search advertising campaigns.
Online reputation management — Similar to organic search rankings, search engines also have requirements for paid search ads to ensure all ads consumers view are relevant and trustworthy. Search engines don’t just look at ad bids, but also at a company’s quality score, which consists of how relevant a company’s keywords are in relation to their ad text and what a consumer is searching for. Because of this quality score, having a paid ad on search engines won’t detract from a business’ overall brand reputation.
Who Uses Paid Search Advertising Software?
Businesses, both B2B and B2C, use paid search advertising because an abundance of new visitors to a website discover it by first performing a query on a search engine. Companies like search ads because they are non-intrusive and they reach consumers while they are already searching for information, unlike other forms of digital advertising, like display and video advertising.
Marketing and advertising teams — Typically, in-house marketing and advertising teams within a business use paid search software within their marketing technology stack. If a company doesn’t have a dedicated marketing or advertising team, they look to marketing or digital advertising agencies to conduct paid search advertising campaigns.
Small and local businesses — These types of businesses may not have a large budget for advertising campaigns, but because of features like geotargeting, they can get their search ads in front of the right target market. Geotargets only let ads appear to consumers in a certain location, or locations, that they specify. For example, local search ads can stand out within the local results sections of a Google search, which includes location, phone number, hours, and reviews. These ads can also be displayed in Google Maps and are pushed to the top of local results. One example of this type of campaign could be for a local florist and would use keywords like “florist in Chicago" or “florist near me."
Kinds of Paid Search Advertising Software
There are different kinds of search engine marketing, like local SEO, organic SEO, and paid search. Local SEO focuses on getting a business listing displayed in Google map results, whereas organic SEO results in website content optimized for increased visibility in unpaid, non-local search results. Additionally, within paid search there are different kinds of payment models to deploy search ads. It is important when evaluating payment models to identify considerations like advertising budget, campaign objective, and search engine channel.
Pay per click (PPC) — Under a PPC model, marketers only pay for an ad when someone clicks on it. This model is used by marketers who only want to pay for ads that actually lead to website visits, content downloads, etc. The more popular the keywords, the more expensive the cost per click (or CPC).
Pay per impression (PPI) — PPI, sometimes known as cost per mille (or CPM), is a search ad payment model where marketers pay for every 1,000 impressions of their ad. This type of model helps with objectives around visibility and brand awareness (similar to traditional ads like billboards). PPI campaigns can often be less expensive than PPC campaigns.
Pay per sale or action (PPS/PPA) — A PPS or PPA payment model occurs when a publisher or website owner is only paid when a search advertisement leads to a direct sale. With this payment model, a publisher is paid on a previously agreed upon commission rate and is often more favorable for advertisers, as opposed to publishers. Advertisers only pay for ads that actually generate sales from that site. Therefore, publishers must concern themselves with the quality and quantity of their website audience and also the quality of the advertiser’s creative ad.
Paid Search Advertising Software Features
Paid keyword optimization—This feature helps companies find the right keywords to drive relevant traffic to their website. Keyword optimization, or keyword research, analyzes and selects keywords to drive qualified leads to a company’s website.
Bid rules—Marketers can set bid rules to minimize pay-per-click costs or maximize conversions from the keywords they select.
Bid optimization — This feature assists in automating bid changes based on marginal ROI so marketers know their next dollar will get them the most return. Some paid search advertising software options have a bid simulator that helps estimate the click, cost, and impression data their ads have received over a specified time period to optimize for different bids moving forward.
A/B testing — A/B testing tools also help optimize search ads by deploying different versions of ads, such as calls to action or images, and tracking which ones encourage visitors to convert at higher rates.
Budget execution and monitoring—When executing paid search advertising campaigns, it's important to set a budget plan and automate its execution with monitoring capabilities to ensure businesses get the best value for their advertising dollars.
Advanced targeting options — Companies can implement advanced ad targeting options beyond just keywords, such as location, time of day or week, by devices, or other demographic data.
Attribution — This feature enables marketers to track the click path of consumers that come to their site via paid search and if they convert to customers.
Potential Issues with Paid Search Advertising Software
Ad structure updates and changes — The ad structure for search engines can impact how marketers optimize their search ads. For example, Google Ads have previously incorporated updates like new discovery ad formats, images in gallery ads, and updated smart bidding controls. It’s up to marketers to stay on top of these updates to ad structures and features that search engines rollout.
Data privacy and remarketing — Increases in data privacy regulations, like GDPR and the CCPA, have an impact on paid search retargeting strategies. For example, advertisers using AdWords will need consent to use cookies where legally required, and for the collection, sharing, and use of personal data for personalized ads.
Click fraud — Click fraud is a concern for marketers wanting to explore paid search advertising. Click fraud is an attempt to misleadingly inflate the number of clicks on a pay-per-click ad. Click fraud is often driven by advertisers that want to sabotage their competitors by driving up their ad costs and by ad publishers clicking on ads displayed on their own websites to generate additional revenue. One way search engines combat this issue is by creating algorithms to detect and filter for invalid clicks before advertisers are charged.
