Search ads

What Are Search Ads?

Whenever you look for a product or service online, Google displays a results page consisting of both organic and sponsored results. The ads can be displayed in many ways, but search engines typically indicate which results are sponsored and which are not.

In Google Search results, sponsored entries are typically displayed as the top few results, and some are also displayed at the bottom of the page. Currently, Google is marking paid search results with a small green “Ad” symbol next to them, letting you know they are not organic. Some of Google’s previous implementations of sponsored results included different backgrounds (yellow, blue) and yellow-colored “Ad” icons. 

The user will see your ad If the keywords which you have chosen for the search campaign ad are relevant to the search query.

How Search Ads Work

The actual mechanics behind search ads are similar across most of the popular search engines with some slight differences. As Google is the most popular search engine, we’ll use it as the example and explain how its search ads work.

Google uses a modified second-price auction system to rank the ads that appear on Google search engine results pages (SERPs), and determine the cost advertisers have to pay to appear on top of the results page.

Google’s Ad Rank score

Google’s second-price auction mechanics basically mean that instead of having to pay the full price, advertisers pay the amount needed to beat the nearest competitor, depending on their Ad Rank (more on that below).

However, the system isn’t based just on bidding. If Google only sold its ads to the highest bidders, the SERP would be littered with poor-quality paid ads linking to completely irrelevant landing pages. This would compromise the reliability of the search engine. To improve the experience for both the users and the advertisers, Google also takes into account an advertiser’s Ad Rank.

What is Ad Rank?

Ad Rank is the PageRank equivalent for search ads in Google. It is an algorithm used to determine how highly ads rank in the sponsored results and how much the advertiser has to pay when an internet user clicks the ad.

Google has always been upfront about what advertisers should do to increase their Ad Rank and position higher in paid search. Conversely, high positioning in organic search (the good, old PageRank) has always been the holy grail of online advertising, and algorithms governing it, unlike Ad Rank, still seem obscure and dynamically changing.

The Ad Rank formula that governs the appearance of ads consists of:

• Expected click-through rate – Google’s estimation of how likely it is the ad will be clicked. This is much like a self-learning system. Google knows the click-through rates of all the ads it displays; users “upvote” ads with their clicks. Consequently, Google shows more of what they like, and estimates the rates for all future ads.
• Landing-page experience – Unsurprisingly, highly relevant landing pages get a higher Ad Rank score. This involves relevant and original content, easy navigation, and transparency.
• Ad relevance – Google analyzes the content of each ad to determine how well it relates to the query. This ensures that only the useful ads are shown. Using proper keywords is a key to reach higher ad relevance.
• Ad formats – Google also takes into account the expected impact of specific ad formats—enhancements to search-ad format with additional information. Apart from the link to the website, ads may contain valuable extensions with structured data: extra information like ratings (see image below), prices, directions, and phone numbers.

A step-by-step instruction on how to create a search add campaign:

Create a Search campaign – Google Ads Help