While that 30 Second YouTube Ad Plays, Click Here and Learn More about Paid Media

Today, I want to start with discussing something near and dear to me: YouTube. And one of YouTube's favorite marketing tactics - paid search.

If I could be any person in the world, it would be Doug DeMuro - renowned YouTuber, automotive journalist, and founder of the Chernin Group's most recent investment: Cars & Bids! The idea of getting paid to drive cars and write about them is a dream come true - so I live vicariously through Doug and simply enjoy his content.

So, how did he gain all this success? YouTube videos. A few a week, each one starting exactly the same way: a paid ad. An ad that a brand targeted at consumers of Doug's content. Sound familiar?

Paid media is a bit confusing to a lot of us, but it brings a lot of benefits to a company's digital marketing strategy. Let's dig in.

Should You Be Using Paid Search?

Paid search is essentially paying for rankings in search results - your business pays to have a search engine (Google, most likely) display your ads in more traffic-heavy sections of a results page: often the beginning or end.

Another term often heard when discussing paid search is PPC (pay-per-click), a digital advertising model where the advertiser pays for every "click" on an ad from a user. This is most effective when you anticipate the value of the sale will exceed the cost of the click.

A common place to start when thinking about paid search is Google Ads. Google Ads allows you to create a variety of different paid ads, evaluate keywords, view a Quality Score that rates how well your ad is landing, and then monitor all the results to see what is actually happening.

It is worth noting that it shouldn't be a decision of utilizing organic methods or paid methods. Rather, an effective digital marketing strategy will cover both types, as both bring cool and useful things to the table. So, to answer the original question - YES, you should be using paid search.

So, what can paid search do for your business?

1. Wider Audience Reach: Paid advertising has an easier time reaching customers less or unfamiliar with your brand, assuming that is an objective.
2. One Stop Shop: Platforms like Google Ads make it very easy to set up the ads, monitor/track them, and analyze the results in one place.
3. PPC is Easier to Measure: With the ability to synthesize Google Analytics and Google Ads, learning about metrics like impressions and conversions is very seamless and easy.

Allowing SEO and PPC to work together is often said to be best practice. If you want to dominate the SERP, they complement each other. Take an example - imagine reaching a point in SEO that your website is the top result, or near the top result AND then you run a paid ad campaign to rank it at the top.

Think about how credible the sites look that both have the paid ad at the top of the results, and show up again organically at the top of the results underneath the paid content.

In addition, consider the timeline of results each offers for your purposes. SEO is much less costly, but takes longer to see results whereas paid search costs more upfront but does see results quicker. How valuable is time for this campaign? How can you take advantage of PPC's when you do pay for them to make sure they are also enhancing your SEO strategies?

As an investment in future business, paid search is absolutely worth it's weight. Understanding how it works and when it works best is critical to getting the most out of it - it's not for every business at every stage, and SEO is more than likely where you would want to start with your digital marketing efforts. That being said, paid ads are a very valuable tool for both increasing traffic and strengthening a digital strategy that every marketer should understand.