Pay Per Click (PPC)

PPC stands for pay-per-click, a model of internet marketing in which advertisers pay a fee each time one of their ads is clicked. Essentially, it’s a way of buying visits to your site, rather than attempting to “earn” those visits organically.

Google Ad API is designed for representing large, tech savvy advertisers and third parties. It allows developers build an application that directly interacts with Google AdWords server.

Google designed AdWords with an aim to assist in marketing product and services in a search engine and its affiliated sites. It places a text ad that appears when people search for phrases associated with your offering. Working of AdWords- Google AdWords works on the basis of a bidding system. For instance, if the bidding price and quality score are higher, your ad will appear on top of the Google page. Working on the ‘pay per click’ model, you only pay the amount you have bid if someone taps on your ad that appears on Google SERPs. Ad Rank decides the ad position on Google page. This is determined by your bid for that quality score and keyword.

Ad rank defines the actual cost per click that your opponents pay when someone clicks on their ads. The CPC can be calculated as- Price by you = The ad rank of the person below you / your quality score + $0.01.

An auction runs billion of times each month and the results are such that users find ads that are relevant to what they are looking for. Google processes the request and runs the auction that determines the ad position and CPC of each advertiser.

Google’s quality score determines the value and relevancy of your ad to the user on the basis of keyword relevancy, quality of your landing, and your ad’s CTR. Higher quality score keywords will save your money and get better ad ranking.

Ad group is a container of your landing pages, advertisements, and keywords. Google rewards advertisers who prepare AdWords Campaigns with tightly structured ad groups. Adding all keywords into the single ad group is not advisable rather it is better to organize keywords into themes.

There are different ad extensions to boost the traffic. Some of the common ad extensions are: Sitelink Extension Callout Extension Structured snippet extension Call Extensions Message extension Location extension Affiliate location extension Price extension App extension Review extension Promotion extension (recently added & used it in new adwords interface only)

In AdWords, the limit for Headline 1 – 30 Character Headline 2 – 30 Character Description Line – 80 Character

Click through rate abbreviated as CTR tells the number of visitors visited on your ad on the web page. To calculate CTR, one can use the formula: Number of clicks/Number of impressions X 100 = CTR The answer will be in percentage which represents % of customers who have viewed your ad.

There is no definite type of keywords, however, they are classified on the basis of how likely is going to be clicked by visitors. For instance, Research Keywords: dress Consideration: white dress Purchase: buy white dress Loyalty: This must be shorter – Forever21 In addition, PPC Account structure also incorporates seven keyword match types- Exact Phrase Broad Modified Broad Negative

Good Ad API is designed for representing large, tech-savvy advertisers and third parties. It allows developers build an application that directly coordinates with Google AdWords server. With Google Ad API, one can build an application to do following things: Develop additional applications and tools to manage accounts Automatically generate landing pages, custom reports, ad text, and generate keywords. Synchronize AdWors data with your inventory system to manage campaigns on the basis of the stock.

This is one of the most common PPC interview questions you will face during the interview! When the interviewer asks this question, he/she wants to know more about you as a candidate and why you chose to work in the field of Pay Per Click Marketing and Advertising. You need to tell them about your passion and your desire to work in the industry in the future. It would be great if you tell them about your back story with regard to what makes you tick as a candidate. Also, a good response could be to say that you are aware that the industry is extremely challenging and this is what attracts you. Show that you don’t want a boring job and prefers one which would challenge you on a daily basis.

Who doesn’t showcase their accomplishments on CV? And, it is highly possible that you too have listed your most successful PPC campaign on your CV. When the interviewer poses related PPC Interview questions, he/she wants to know about your accomplishments in your words. They want to know the ins and outs of the campaign. Tell them about the aims, what keywords you want to target and the reason behind using those keywords along with the result achieved by you. While talking about your previous campaigns, they will judge you on your passion and see if you are genuinely enthusiastic about the industry. Be sure to include stats and avoid giving false hopes.

Such PPC interview questions are quite common as helps the interview know the amount of homework you have done before coming for the interview. Do your homework. Before you appear for your interview, learn about the company you are applying to. You should research about the company’s background, their rivals, the strategies of the company and their competitors’ strategies.

You are there for the Search Engine Marketing job but if you don’t know the why of SEM then you lost it. PPC interview questions will for sure be directed towards your knowledge about SEM. Since, a high percentage of the developed world is online, so the company’s potential customers, shareholders, employees, and partners are online. Search Engine Marketing is one of the fastest growing marketing channels and the most cost-effective one as well. Therefore, the company can build an excellent avenue for cost effective and brand building at lead generation and online sales. If the company doesn’t have a search engine marketing strategy, they are behind the curve. Undoubtedly, it is one of the basic SEM interview questions raised by the interviewer.

The efforts you put in search engine marketing are quantifiable and can be measured easily. If your objective is to generate awareness then you can track ‘impressions’ and ‘clicks’ on paid and organic search engine listings. Whereas, if the aim is to measure brand performance or preference of text ad creative then you can measure ‘click through’ and ‘conversion’ rates. For generating qualified leads, one can track email inquiries, downloads (demos or trials), or online registrations (for white papers, events, or newsletters). In order to track SEM efforts for sales, you can track offline sales or e-commerce sales through printable coupons or phone call tracking.

This is again one of the most common PPC interview questions asked to the freshers, and the answer is ‘after creating my AdWords account, you cannot change the Currency and Time Zone settings’.

People across the world rely on the US-based search companies. Google has versions of its search engines for many different countries whereas Yahoo and the Open Directory have international branches of their directories. By getting listed on a smaller regional or local website directory, the company can boost their search engine placement on all of the major search engines by increasing popularity i.e. the number and quality of links to your site. There are some local directories providing direct links to a website listed whereas others use scripts to track clicks on the sites listed. This helps in driving visitors to your website.

The hallmarks of a good PPC landing page considers the following aspects: An attractive and powerful headline A supportive tagline Trust symbols A list of advantages A clear CTA (call to action) A lead capture form Use an image showing the context of use or a graphic that appeal to the visitors’ emotional side.

The two options for bidding are: CPM – Cost per Thousand CPA – Cost per Action

Product Listing Ads (PLAs) are best for E-commerce PPC campaign. PLAs are actually the square units that let you include titles, prices and images of E-commerce products, which makes it perfect for E-Commerce PPC Campaigns. PLA Ad Copy uses Google product feeds and is connected to Google Merchant Center account. The very same feature in Bing is known as Product Ads, and Bing Merchant Centre manages it.

The PPC marketing plan to increase traffic to your website should be focusing on Click Through Rate (CTR). According to WordStream, “PPC click-through rate is the rate at which your PPC ads are clicked. This number is the percentage of people who view your ad (impressions) and then actually go on to click the ad (clicks). The formula for CTR looks like this: (Total Clicks on Ad) / (Total Impressions) = Click Through Rate”

According to me, some of the basic PPC tools that a PPC fresher should know about are- Change History Keyword Planner Display Planner Ad Preview and Diagnostics Labels Automated Rules

In Google AdWords, conversion tracking can be done by: Enabling your ad rotation setting to optimize for clicks which means AdWords will serve the ads it feels are likely to be clicked. View-through conversions window option tracks when a person sees your ad but doesn’t click it. This is called impression. Tracking purchases by involving basic tracking code provided by AdWords and modifying it with an additional code unique to your particular e-commerce platform. A person can know when customers click on their ad for the first time and how frequently they saw your ad before converting by accessing search funnels inside tools and analysis.

Depending upon the level of ad control (by changing your keyword count), the number of keywords in an ad group varies. For almost 50% of the advertisers, 10-20 keywords per ad group will work fine. However, newbies to PPC often fill ad groups with over 100 keywords but this doesn’t work well. This is because your ad group is serving one ad message, therefore that one single ad has to represent all of your different keywords. AdWords’ Quality Score system loves it when your ad, your keyword & your landing page work in perfect harmony and are closely relevant. Too many keywords lead to too little relevance in your ad.

Here are some factors affecting the Quality Score or QS: Historic Account data Landing page quality Relevance of keywords and ads CTR of the keyword

CPA bidding method will enable you tell the AdWords the amount of money you want to pay for a conversion. CPA is actually Cost-per-Acquisition bidding that helps you in reaching to the customers who are most likely to convert. 2 types of CPA bidding are- Target CPA- It is the average amount you want to pay for a conversion Maximum CPA- It is the maximum amount you would want to pay for each conversion

Negative keywords are used to eradicate unqualified traffic. For example, if you are running an advertising campaign for ‘High Value Custom Furniture’, adding ‘Free’, ‘Cheap’ or ‘Bargain’ as your negative keywords will not include your Ad in search results for queries like ‘Free Furniture’, ‘Cheap Furniture’, or ‘Bargain Furniture’. Note- It is one of the most important PPC interview questions and your concept has to be clear about the same.

With this question, the interview wants to know your ways of hitting the ground and making an instant difference to their business. Do research. Your answers don’t have to be complicated or extremely detailed. Have a glance at the company’s current activity and list three quick changes which would act as instant wins. While answering such questions, outline the points you have come up with and emphasize that there are a lot more ideas which would take longer to implement but will yield better ROI. The aim is to show the interviewer that you have both short-term and long-term plans in mind.

Trademark infringement is an issue in PPC industry and leads to inevitable consequences. This question tests the candidate’s knowledge on Google trademark infringement policy as well as the best practices for bidding on a competitor’s keywords. You have to reflect your conflict resolution skills.

To fulfill advertisers’ need to analyze their campaigns, Google introduced Google Attribution. It incorporates most advanced machine learning that lets marketers measure the impact of their marketing campaigns across different devices and marketing channels. Google Attribution 360 is updated version of Google Attribution. It integrates Google Analytics, DoubleClick Bid Manager, DoubleClick Campaign Manager, and DoubleClick Search to let you receive all your marketing event data within 48 hours. Key Differences between Google Attribution & Google Attribution 360 are- Google Attribution is Free and it offers Data Collection, Expanded Data Collection, 1P Bidding Integration, and Standard Reports. Google Attribution 360 is paid and it offers Data Collection, Expanded Data Collection, 1P bidding integration, and standard reports along with Digital Optimizer, 3P Cost Data & Custom Data Upload, Custom Configuration & Custom Dimensions, Advanced Reports, 3P bidding integration, Data Export, and Reprocessing.