From the course: OMCA™ Certification for Digital Marketers Test Prep

Exploring the benefits of paid search advertising

From the course: OMCA™ Certification for Digital Marketers Test Prep

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Exploring the benefits of paid search advertising

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- Paid search marketing is big. It's so big that Google makes nearly $100 billion a year from search advertising. Why? Because it works. For the OMCA exam, you'll need to be able to explain why paid search advertising is so effective. For starters, paid search places relevant ads alongside search results in the search engines. Paid search advertising is also called PPC, Pay per Click. It's called that because of the system of only paying for visitors that click to your website. Paid search ads are shown with search results, typically at the top and bottom of the page. In this example, you can see the first listing is noted as an ad. This is a different system than the organic results and paying for ads won't increase your website's rankings. Search engines keep these systems separate. It's effective because you are able to get an ad in front of someone as soon as they search for something. Many times it is very early in the process, when people are just interested in a new product. By placing an ad in front of them early, you are able to get their attention, possibly the sale. Next, this type of advertising is immediate. While search engine optimization relies on editing a website, it takes time. Paid search is up and running as soon as you create the campaign and runs as long as you pay for the ads to appear. Also, the ads can be highly targeted. You can run general ads targeting fitness trackers or be very specific and target search phrases such as, where to buy a Fitbit Force in Denver. In addition, the campaign isn't static. It's highly flexible. You can change budgets, campaign parameters, add new campaigns, or adjust your campaign settings anytime you want. Finally, the data generated from your campaigns is near real-time. You can make decisions based on sales data, budget spend, or any other campaign settings based on immediately available data. This allows for accurate budget and ROI calculations and the ability to act quickly when opportunities arise. Now, when it comes to creating and managing a paid search campaign, many companies will utilize their in-house marketing team. Other companies prefer to contract with agencies that specialize in this advertising. Generally, they pay a monthly fee or a budget for the agency manage their campaigns and pay the hard costs, that is, the cost of clicks to the search engine. Alternatively, some agencies will manage paid search campaigns and only take a percentage of sales they generate through their management. When a person searches for something, the search engine presents the information they're looking for. Paid search results present a clear compelling advertisement in front of a searcher at the moment of their need. No other form of advertising is able to match that. Because of this, it is a strong force in an organization's digital strategy.

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