Whether you know about marketing and want to understand it better, or you already know you want to use pay per click to grow your business but don’t know where to start, you’re in the right place. This guide is your introduction to from Bloom – a clear and structured starting point that will walk you through everything you need to know about pay-per-click advertising and how to make it work effectively for your brand.
What is PPC?
Pay-per-click, is a digital advertising model where advertisers pay a fee every time someone clicks on their ad. Simply put, you buy targeted visits to your website, landing page or app. When is executed well, the cost becomes negligible compared to the value of the click. For example, if you spend $3 on a click, but the visitor turns into a $300 customer, the return on investment is immediately visible.
It ads come in many formats – text, images, videos, or a mix of the three. These ads can appear on search engines, partner websites and social media platforms, giving brands flexible, high-visibility options to reach the right audience at the right time.
Search engine advertising – often called paid search or search engine marketing – is one of the most widely used formats. This allows advertisers to bid for ad placements in the search engine’s sponsored results whenever someone searches for keywords related to their product or service. For example, if Bloom were to bid on a keyword such as “Google Ads auditing”, an ad promoting our auditing service could appear at the top of the search results whenever a user searches for that term or something related to it.
How does PPC Advertising Work?
It advertising works slightly differently across platforms, but the overall process follows the same basic structure. First, you select the campaign type based on your marketing objective. Next, refine your targeting—such as audience, device, location, and time—to ensure your ads reach the right people. Next, set your budget and bid strategy, add your landing page URL, and create your ad.
When your campaign goes live, the platform’s algorithm determines when and where your ad will appear, as well as how much you pay for each click. These decisions depend on your bid, budget, targeting settings, and most importantly, the quality and relevance of your ad.
Every advertising platform wants its users to have a positive experience. That’s why they reward advertisers who create relevant, high-quality campaigns with better placements at lower costs. To maximize your profitability, it is important to understand how the system works and how to optimize your strategy effectively.
What Is Google Ads?
Google Ads is the most widely used platform in the world, allowing businesses to display ads on Google Search and Google’s vast network of properties. Every time a user searches Google, the platform scans a collection of potential ads and selects the most relevant ads to appear on the search results page.
Ads that win placements are decided based on a combination of search order relevance, ad quality, expected engagement and advertiser bid. Google’s goal is to show users the most useful and reliable ads possible.
How Works in Google Ads
When setting up a Google Ads campaign, advertisers choose keywords on which to display their ad and bid on those keywords. If you bid on a keyword like “pet adoption,” you’re essentially telling Google that you want your ad to appear when someone searches for that phrase or a related term.
Google then evaluates each ad using its Quality Score – a rating from one to ten – that is based on search order relevance, user experience on the landing page and expected click-through rate.
Your Quality Score is multiplied by your highest bid to create your Ad Rank. Only ads with the highest ad rank get placement.
This auction model ensures that advertisers reach potential customers at a price that fits their budget and goals.
How to Run Using Google Ads
Google Ads is powerful because Google dominates global search traffic, giving your campaigns access to high-intent users. How often your ads appear depends on the keywords you choose, your budget and the fit between your ad and user search.
Your campaign results will improve significantly when you:
- Bid on relevant keywords: Crafting relevant keyword lists, tight keyword groups, and proper ad text.
- Focus on landing page quality: Create optimized landing pages with persuasive, relevant content, and a clear call to action tailored to specific search queries.
- Improve your Quality Score: Quality Score is Google’s rating of the quality and relevance of your keywords, landing pages, and campaigns. Advertisers with better Quality Scores get more ad clicks at lower costs.
- Capture attention: Enticing ad copy is vital; and if you’re running display or social ads, so is eye-catching ad creative.
How to do Effective Keyword Research
Keyword research forms the foundation of any successful strategy. Since results depend so much on the keywords you target, it’s important to constantly expand and refine your keyword list.
A strong keyword list should be relevant to your offers, comprehensive enough to include long-tail keywords, and constantly evolving. Long-tail keywords, although searched less often, are often cheaper, more specific and better aligned with buyer intent – making them valuable assets in any campaign.
Manage your Campaigns
Launching a campaign is just the beginning. Continuous management determines long-term success. Regular performance analysis helps you adjust your targeting, refine your keyword list and improve ad relevance. Over time, you should expand your keyword list, add negative keywords to filter out irrelevant searches, block bad results, refine landing pages, and restructure ad groups for better targeting and relevance.
Account activity and optimization play an important role in delivering strong PPC results.
Get Started With PPC
If you’re ready to begin, setting up your Google Ads account is the first step. And if you already have one, reviewing your performance will help you identify key improvement areas. Bloom’s digital marketing solutions can support your strategy—whether you need help optimizing campaigns, improving Quality Score, or scaling your results.
Rahul M.
B2B Service Provider