PPC FAQ
Below are some frequently asked questions about pay per click.
What is pay per click?
Pay per click is an online advertising tool that is used on search engines, advertising networks, and content websites and blogs. This form of advertising allows advertisers to only pay when a user clicks on their ad to visit the advertiser’s website. Advertisers bid on keywords that potential customers are most likely to search for when looking for the advertiser’s product. Pay per click allows advertisers to reach a potential customer at the exact time the customer is interested in purchasing their product.
What is conversion tracking?
In online advertising, a conversion takes place when a customer takes a desired action. This action can be signing up for a newsletter, requesting more information, or purchasing a product. A main benchmark of conversion is the conversion rate. The conversion rate is the percentage of visitors that take a desired action once they visit the site. Conversion tracking can assist advertisers in identifying campaign success and refine their advertising practices.
What is the difference between a campaign and an ad group?
A pay per click campaign is the advertising level that contains the daily budget, language targeting, location targeting, ad distribution, start and end dates, and preferences information for a set of ad groups on and keywords. A pay per click ad group is the second level of advertising that is within a campaign. An ad group contains a set of keywords and ads for a specific product, brand, or idea.
What are the different forms of bidding?
There are two forms of bidding used in pay per click advertising. They main form of bidding is cost-per-click (cpc). CPC bidding requires the advertiser to specify a maximum cpc for the keywords they use. They maximum cpc is the maximum amount you are willing to pay for a click on your ad when it appears. This amount is used in conjunction with the keywords quality score to determine the position of the ad when it appears. The advertiser will never be charged more than they maximum cpc specified.
A second form of bidding, though not used as often in pay per click, is cost-per-impression. Instead of bidding on price per click, bidding is on the price per one thousand impressions. The advertiser specifies the maximum price he or she is willing to pay per one thousand impressions the ad receives. This form of bidding can be used on Google AdWords placement-targeted advertising campaigns.
What are the different forms of keyword matching?
There are a few different match types for keywords. Match types and the control you have when identifying them can differ by search engines. The main match types are broad, phrase, exact, and negative.
Broad Match: Broad match keywords are keywords that will trigger your ad whenever the keyword or variations of it appear in a search query. Your ad will appear if other words are included in a query, the terms are not in the same sequence, or when plurals or synonyms of the keywords are queried. This type of match is great for receiving a large amount of impressions; however, the advertiser has less control over when the ad will appear. This type also tends to have lower click-through-rates and conversion rates.
For example: If you have the keyword great books, your ad could appear for the following queries:
o great used books
o great free books
o great books for cheap
o books on great white sharks
Phrase Match: Phrase keyword match gives the advertisers a little more control over when ads will appear. The phrase match is identified by placing quotes ” ” around your keyword. This keyword match will allow your ad to appear on any query that contains your keyword or phrase in the exact sequence you specify. This allows the advertiser to make sure the ad shows up when the keyword is queried as intended; however, the ad can show up when any other words are typed in the query as well. These keywords tend to have a higher click-through-rate and conversion rate than broad match, but your ad can still receive impressions on queries that do not exactly relate to your product or service.
For example: If you have the keyword “new apartments”, your ad could appear for the following queries:
o find new apartments
o buy and sell new apartments
o new apartments in St. Louis
Exact Match: Exact keyword match gives the advertiser the most control over when an ad is served. Exact keywords are identified by placing brackets ([ ]) around the keyword you specify. This allows your ad to only show when the exact keyword or phrase is queried. These keywords tend to have the highest click-through-rate and highest conversion rate. The only downfall to this form of matching is that your ads will only show up for these keywords, which means that you may not be able to identify those keywords that users search for and could convert better.
For example: If you have the keyword [homes], your ad would only appear for the query:
o homes
and not for the queries:
o home
o new home
o find new home
Negative Match: The negative keyword match allows advertisers to make sure that their ads do not appear for queries that have nothing to do with their product, or for queries they do not want their product associated with. You can specify a negative keyword by adding the minus (-) sign in front of the keyword.
For example: If you have the negative keyword –cheap and you have the broad keyword baskets, you would show up for the query:
o wooden baskets
but not for the query:
o cheap wooden baskets
Not finding what you’re looking for? Here are some other helpful FAQ sites from the major search engines.
