Marketing Definitions: Paid Search

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Welcome to the latest edition of our new weekly blog series, Marketing Definitions. Each week, we will identify an oft-used term or phrase in the marketing community and break down its use and meaning for the broader population.

Last week’s term that we defined was Conversions.

Today’s Term = Paid Search

In online marketing circles, it would not be uncommon to hear the term ‘Paid Search’ thrown about like it were a part of everyday life. But if online marketing is not your field, it can be hard to pick up on what the person using that term is referring to.

Paid search is an advertising channel, also referred to as PPC (pay per click) or SEM (search engine marketing). It is the method of advertising wherein a company will pay to have their ad displayed on the search engine results page for a particular set of keywords.

If you go to Google and search for a product, you will likely see three or four listings at the top of the results page that are marked with a small yellow “Ad”. Those are the sponsored, or paid, listings targeted to that particular keyword phrase you typed in. And below that are the natural, or organic listings.

Paid search is a very cost-effective form of online marketing, because companies are only charged when someone clicks on the ad, hence the term pay per click. It allows companies to display a hyper-relevant ad to consumers during the research and purchase stages of the buyer journey.

Google built its entire business on the revenue they collected from this type of advertising. In a lot of ways, they invented it.

So the next time you hear people talking about paid search, you will know exactly what they’re talking about.

That does it for today’s definition. Have a term you’d like defined in a future post? Email us or post it in the comments below.

Marketing Definitions: Conversions

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Welcome to the latest edition of our new weekly blog series, Marketing Definitions. Each week, we will identify an oft-used term or phrase in the marketing community and break down its use and meaning for the broader population.

Last week’s term that we defined was Search Engine Optimization.

Today’s Term = Conversions

Conversions are a common term used by marketers that may just sound like jargon to anyone outside the field. But it’s really a very simple term, used as a catch-all for an almost endless number of actions.

A conversion, at its most basic, is a completed action.

Conversions can be submitted forms, new leads, product purchases, email list signups, etc. They are events that we measure as a metric for success.

For example, if you are building a landing page on your website and its aim is to get people to sign up for your newsletter list, then a successful “conversion” will take place when someone enters their email and hits submit. In this case, we will use the term “conversions” to refer to the number of people who complete that action.

From there, we get to conversion rate. That is simply the percentage of people who visit the page and then convert. Or, conversions divided by visitors.

Since conversions is a catch-all term that can be used to refer to a large number of different events, context is important. When you hear people talking about conversions and conversion rate, they’re talking about a specific action people are taking, which they are measuring as a key indicator for success.

That does it for today’s definition. Have a term you’d like defined in a future post? Email us or post it in the comments below.