- Beyond9to5
- Posts
- Week 4: Paid Marketing
In partnership with
4Beyond9to5 - by LoopGenius | Read Time: 5 mins | Advertise
Want to get the most out of ChatGPT?
Revolutionize your workday with the power of ChatGPT! Dive into HubSpot’s guide to discover how AI can elevate your productivity and creativity. Learn to automate tasks, enhance decision-making, and foster innovation, all through the capabilities of ChatGPT.
Welcome back!
Hope you’re all recharged after an eventful weekend! This week, we’re turning our attention to paid search. Just like an expert bargain hunter finds the best deals in a huge store, paid search connects your brand with people actively searching for your products & services.
Paid search, known by many names like SEM/SEO, PPC, and sponsored listings, is a shortcut to boosting your brand’s visibility. We'll cover the basics, & explain the different strategies out there to turn your ad spend into conversions.
Let’s dive in! 📲
News
What Everyone’s Talking About
Tools + Productivity
Here’s What You’ll Love
📒Cohesive - AI-powered web scraping & research in Google Sheets
💡Airbook2.0 - Think Notion for Analytics
📩La Growth Machine - Personalize multi-channel convos at scale
📹Social Media Kit- Customize templates to create carousel posts
🗺️ConcurrenceAI- Take care of spam in your community 24/7
Strategy
Decoding the Paid Search Alphabet Soup
Paid search advertising is like buying a fast pass to the top of the search results line. You pay search engines to move your ads to the front of the queue on search results pages (SERPs), making sure they get noticed by users actively looking for what you offer.
What do these results actually look like in the wild?
Say you search “phone case” on Google— the SERP looks like this:
From the screen grab, you’ll notice that the paid search results are featured in a carousel at the top, labeled “Sponsored.” These are Product Listing Ads (PLAs), often referred to as Google Shopping ads, although other comparison services might also appear in these spots. They are a type of PPC ad that shows up when someone searches for a product on Google.
PPC, or Pay-Per-Click, is the most popular form of paid search. You only pay when someone clicks on your ad, so you only spend money when you’re getting potential customers to your site. No clicks, no charges.
CPM stands for Cost-Per-Mille (where "mille" means thousand in Latin). With CPM, you’re paying for every thousand times your ad is shown, regardless of whether people click on it. This model is good for building brand awareness and reaching a large audience, especially if your goal is to get your message seen by as many people as possible.
CPA, or Cost-Per-Action, means you only pay when a specific action happens—like a sale, a sign-up, or another conversion. This model is focused on results, so you're paying for actual outcomes rather than just clicks or impressions. It’s generally more stable than PPC or CPM but can be tricky to track if you're looking to understand how people move through the sales funnel.
Going Once… Going Twice
In the world of paid search, bidding is how advertisers compete for ad space. When someone searches for something related to your business, an auction takes place to determine which ads appear and in what order.
Here’s how it all unfolds:
The Bid: Think of your Max CPC (maximum cost per click) as your bid in this auction. It’s the highest amount you’re willing to pay for a click. The more you bid, the more you’re willing to spend on getting a user to click on your ad.
Relevance: But it's not just about the bid. Search engines want to show ads that users will find useful. So, if your ad is relevant, you get brownie points. This is where Quality Score comes in—a measure of how well your ad and landing page match what users are searching for.
Rank and Pay: Your position on the search results page and what you end up paying is determined by your Ad Rank. This is calculated by multiplying your Max CPC with your Quality Score. The higher the Ad Rank, the better your ad’s position.
You don’t always pay your Max CPC. Instead, you pay just enough to beat the next highest bid. So, your actual cost per click is usually a bit lower than your maximum bid.
The formula is:
Ad Extensions
Ad extensions add extra information to your ads, making them more useful and noticeable. Here are common types you’ll find using Google Ads which can be either manual or automated:
Sitelink Extensions: These are extra links that direct users to specific pages on your site, like product categories or contact pages.
Here, you can pick specific URLs you want to add or let Google automatically pick the pages.
Call Extensions: Allow users to call your business directly from the ad, making it easy for potential customers to reach you.
Location Extensions: Show your business address in the ad, which helps users find you if they’re nearby. Google automatically populates the contents if you ad this extension.
Callout Extensions: Highlight specific features or offers, like “Free Shipping” or “24/7 Support.” Either automatically or manually. These extensions apply to an entire ad campaign so make sure these match with all ads.
Price Extensions: ad cards to display product pricing and set cost expectations from the get-go, so that clicks are about equal to conversions.
Promotion Extensions: Highlight ongoing sales in your ads to create a sense of urgency.
Seller Ratings Extensions: If your reviews shine, let customers know!
Image Extensions: Make your ads stand out with Images.
Lead Form Extensions: Direct searchers to relevant forms on the spot.
App Extensions: If you have a great mobile app, this is the extension for you.
🔑words
When you brainstorm keywords, start broad then narrow down to specifics. For example, start with “shirts” and refine to “women’s black long-sleeve shirts.” Include variations and synonyms to cover all search bases.
Long-tail keywords, like “men’s black long-sleeve shirts,” are often less competitive and more targeted, leading to better conversion rates.
A key part of managing your PPC campaign is using negative keywords. These are terms you don’t want your ads to appear for. They help you avoid wasting your budget on clicks that are irrelevant to your business.
If you sell luxury furniture, you might add “cheap” as a negative keyword to keep your ads from showing up for budget-conscious shoppers looking for bargains.
Use keyword research tools like Google’s Keyword Planner to assess search volume and competition. Organize your keywords into ad groups that match your website’s structure to create relevant ads and improve your Quality Score.
Regularly update your keyword list and allocate some time to refine it. This ongoing adjustment keeps your campaigns effective.
Testing, attention please
Testing is your secret weapon to making every dollar count—it’s a fun experiment where you mix and match headlines, body text, ad links, and keywords.
Different viewers will see different versions of your ads, so you can track which combination performs best and fine-tune your recipe for success.
Keep your tests running for a few days to a couple of weeks, and make sure you track both click-throughs and conversions.
Looking Ahead
Paid search can seem like a bit of a wallet-drainer, but it's your VIP pass to the top of the search results. Paying to play may sting, but it gets you prime real estate—especially on those tiny mobile screens where sponsored results dominate.
Join us for the last week of the month as we dig into a more traditional but still relevant form of paid advertising: display ads.
Social Media Strategy
Week 1: Paid Social Media Advertising
Week 2: Native Advertising
Week 3: Affiliate Marketing
Week 4: Paid Search (this week!)
Week 5: Display Advertising
Stay tuned!
How was today's article?This helps us improve and write content that you'll love |
Hey! Don’t keep us a secret! Refer your friends and start earning rewards! Share this link with your friends: https://beyond9to5.beehiiv.com/subscribe?ref=PLACEHOLDER
If you get just 3 friends to subscribe you’ll get our exclusive sticker pack OR refer more and earn a trip to Vegas!
Your Progress
Number of referrals so far: 0
You're only 3 away from Sticker Pack
Ready to earn more rewards?
Share your personal referral link → https://beyond9to5.beehiiv.com/subscribe?ref=PLACEHOLDER
Log into referral hub
What did you think of this newsletter? |
Run IRL ads as easily as PPC
AdQuick unlocks the benefits of Out Of Home (OOH) advertising in a way no one else has. Approaching the problem with eyes to performance, created for marketers with the engineering excellence you’ve come to expect for the internet.
Marketers agree OOH is one of the best ways for building brand awareness, reaching new customers, and reinforcing your brand message. It’s just been difficult to scale. But with AdQuick, you can plan, deploy and measure campaigns as easily as digital ads, making them a no-brainer to add to your team’s toolbox.
You can learn more at AdQuick.com