Paid Search Ads, also known as the search ads, search-engine ads, PPC Click Ads or Sponsored ads is a pretty common technique of showcasing ads in the search engine results, every time someone searches for any particular product or services – which are offered by the advertisers. Because of this, every single ad showcased matches perfectly the search query!
Search ads are very effective; they are based on the users’ explicit need instead of simply on implicit information about what they are looking for. Because of this, the probability of getting more clicks and eventually conversions increases drastically.
We all are aware of the world’s leading provider of search ads -Google. Their AdWords program enables businesses offering products or services to pay for their ads in which are totally based on the queries entered into the search boxes, related to their products and services! It’s quite easy–ad boxes with relevant ads are displayed next to organic results, which load up when any search is made.
Also, another good thing about search ads is, the businesses aren’t charged until or unless someone clicks on the ads. Because of this payment model only, the search ads are also called the Pay-Per-Click or PPC Advertisements!
What Are Search Ads?
Whenever we search for any product or service online, the search engine which we are using at that time showcases ads to us – which are both organic and sponsored. Even though the ads can be shown in many ways, but most of the search engines, including Google indicate which result is sponsored and which isn’t.
In the Google Search results, the ads are generally shown on the top of the page, before the organic search results. But in many cases, the results are also shown at the bottom of every search result page. Right now, Google uses a tiny green “Ad” sign right next to the sponsored results, which easily lets one knows which results are sponsored and which aren’t. Previously Google used different colored backgrounds, like Blue and Yellow and a yellow coloured “Ad” icon.
Who Offers Search Ads?
Even though the global search-engine ad marketing is heavily dominated by Google (77.43%) and the number is constantly growing, there are a number of other services providers as well, because the audiences gathered by some of them are hard to ignore. They are:
- Google (77.43%)
- Baidu (8.13%)
- Microsoft Bing (7.31%)
- Yahoo (5.6%)
- Ask (0.13%)
How do the Search Ads Work
There are some slight differences between the actual mechanics behind search ads and some of the other popular search engines. As Google is the most celebrated search engine, we will use it to demonstrate how its search ads operate.
To rank the ads on Google Search-engine result pages (SERPs) and determine the value marketers to pay for featuring at the top of the results page, Google is using a modified second-priced auctioning process.
The second-price auction systems of Google effectively allow advertisers to dodge paying the full price and allows them to pay only the amount they need to defeat the closest competitor, based on their ad rating.
The method, however, is not simply bidding oriented. If Google sold its ads to the highest bidders only, SERP would have poorly paid ads and will link the search queries to totally irrelevant landing pages. And of course, the reliability of the search engine would be affected. Google also takes an advertiser’s ad rank into consideration to enhance the experience for consumers and advertisers.