How is Ad Position Determined When Paying for Pay-Per-Click?

While SEO (organic search engine optimization) is the focus of most businesses, big and small, those fortunate enough to also have a bit of a budget for paid advertising often wonder if it should be directed to pay-per-click, often referred to AdWords, rather than more traditional advertising like Yellow Pages or print magazines.

Pay-per-click ads are the ads that appear at the top of the “results” page when conducting an online search using a search engine like Google or Yahoo.   Determining the cost of pay-per-click can be somewhat confusing to businesses, since placement operates like an “auction” (the highest bidder wins top placement though other factors come into play such as ad quality).

Your To The Moon Media pay-per-click ad manager will create your ads and help you develop strategy.  Ad quality matters, as higher quality ads often lead to higher ad positions and lower CPC (cost-per-click).

Your To The Moon manager will help you determine the ceiling amount or overall monthly budget that should get you placed at or near the top of page.  A fixed dollar amount is usually established with a not to exceed amount.  Some companies with large budgets do not set a “stop order” on click spending and can rack up an AdWords bill in the many thousands of dollars per month.

Keyword research is critical here to contain costs and generate TARGETED traffic; it’s vital that your pay-per-click manager be very knowledgeable in this and has a proven track record of generating results.

How will your ad rank once your campaign begins? According to Google, every time someone does a search that triggers an ad that competes in an auction, they calculate an Ad Rank.  This calculation incorporates your bid, auction-time measurements of expected CTR, ad relevance (to the search and keywords), landing page relevance (make sure you’re sending visitors to a well-designed and relevant page), and other factors.  Better ads mean better ad rank.

For more information on PPC marketing visit support.google.com or call our office or email TakeAction@ToTheMoonMedia.com