Paid Search: A Key Complement

What we've covered so far

Over the past few weeks, I've learned a lot about digital marketing. Some topics I've covered include articles and short posts about Google Analytics, A/B testing & Conversion Rate Optimization, Buyers Personas, Content Marketing, Organic Social, Paid Social, and much more. This leads me to write my 10th article about Paid Search.

If you haven't already figured out today's topic, we are going to talk about three things:

• Paid Search (PPC) Basics
• Google Ads & Bing Ads Comparision
• PPC recommendations for Western Washington University's MBA Program

Paid Search? PPC? What's the difference?

Paid search is a form of digital marketing where search engines allow paid advertisements on their search engine results page's (SERPs). When you pay for an ad on a search engine results page it runs on a pay-per-click model. It's exactly that; whenever someone clicks on your advertisement, you pay for that click. Paid search is a measurable and effective way to utilize your marketing dollars.

To answer the question, PPC is apart of paid search!

Google Ads vs Bing Ads

I know what you're thinking, who uses Bing Ads? Hopefully, after reading the section below you can gain a better understanding of the two search engines Ad platforms.

Network:

Google Ad's is comprised of two advertising networks: Search Network (text ad placements) and Display Network (display ad placements). These are the two platforms for advertising on Google's SERPs. Google's network consists of webpages and sites owned by Google. This includes Gmail, Blogger, and AdSense, among many others. The Google Display Network reaches 90% of all worldwide internet users.

Bing Ads provide the same ability to use Display Ads and Text Ads on their SERPs. Even though Google dominates the search world in terms of market share, Microsoft owns three search engines: Bing, AOL, and Yahoo. In total, Microsoft's Search Network Audience accounts for 36.2% of the desktop search market.

Display URLs:

• The two screenshots below show the difference between how Bing and Google display text ads in SERPs.
• Bing bolds the URL and Google doesn't. According to research done by SEO Book, if there is no right-hand column on the SERP, almost half of people (45.5%) can’t tell the difference between organic and paid search results.
• As of current, both Bing and Google allow up to 80 characters for their description text.

Keywords:

• Bing utilizes similar keyword match types found in AdWords to strengthen your campaign. Keyword match types are the parameters you can set on your keywords to control which searches trigger your ads to appear. Below are the four types:

When should you use Bing Ads?

• Audience: Microsoft Search Network audience spends 35% more online when shopping from their desktop computers than average internet searchers.
• Diversify Your Audience: If you are using Google Adwords and not Bing, you aren't tapping into the 116 million unique desktop searchers on Bing's network.
• Campaign Costs & Less Bidding Competition: Average cost-per-click on Bing is $7.99 vs $20.08 on Adwords. In result of Bing's lower traffic, CPC is lower but can make up on performance and quality.

At the end of the day, Bing Ads shouldn't replace your paid search efforts, it should complement your paid search on google. If you have already decided to invest in Google Ads as a marketing channel, you want exposure, so why not tap into Bing's network as well. Bing offers lower CPC, less competitive bidding process for keywords and a new audience for you to advertise to.

Using paid search to increase awareness of WWU's MBA Program

As apart of this week's article, we have been tasked with creating a paid search strategy with the goal of increasing awareness and applications to WWU's MBA Program. Here are the keywords and ad text I would start with.

Keywords.

I would target: "mba programs seattle", "best part time mba programs". The broad matches and [exact matches] would look like:

• mba programs seattle, [mba programs seattle]
• best part time mba programs, [best part time mba programs]

Ad Text.

Below is an example Google Ad I created. The goal of the first URL Display Ad is to create awareness of Western's MBA Program and communicate that there are varying program times and locations appealing to professionals with varying schedules. The second ad provides a call-to-action, asking the potential MBA candidate to take action and learn more about how WWU can help them.

Takeaway

I hope you learned a thing or two about Bing Ads and Microsoft's Search Audience Network. Like I mentioned up there ?, Bing Ads shouldn't replace your marketing efforts on Google Ads, they should complement each other. Bing offers lower CPC, less competitive bidding process for keywords and a new audience for you to advertise to. Bing's audience also spends 35% more online when shopping from their desktop computers than average internet searchers... some food for thought!

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If you enjoyed this, you might also enjoy last week's article about landing pages and why a t-shaped marketer should understand UI/UX. A t-shaped marketer is a marketer that understands a broad width of knowledge and has a deep understanding of a few expert areas. If you're wondering how you rank shape up as a t-shaped marketer, GrowthTribe offers a T-shaped marker test here!

If you're interested in learning more about what I do, check out my personal website below.

Written by Judd Bobin