Capture high-intent prospects actively searching for solutions by bidding on relevant keywords and appearing in search engine results.
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Paid search often shortened to PPC (pay-per-click) is the practice of buying ads that appear in a search engine’s results when someone types a query relevant to your product or service. You bid on keywords; the platform shows your text ad, shopping card or call-only unit; and you pay only when a user clicks. CPC (cost per click) is the fee you pay for each of those clicks. Think of PPC as renting pole-position on Google, Bing or any other search engine so your offer surfaces precisely when a prospect is asking for it.
Although Google Ads dominates share of wallet, paid search is not a Google monopoly. Microsoft Ads (formerly Bing Ads) delivers surprisingly strong ROI in certain B2B niches legal, manufacturing, senior decision-makers because its audience skews older and desktop-heavy. Emerging engines such as DuckDuckGo and privacy-first platforms run smaller but often cheaper auctions. The unifying trait is intent: unlike paid social, where you interrupt scrolling users, paid search answers an expressed question (“best B2B CRM pricing” or “cyber-security audit UK”).
I built my first Google Ads account in 2010 back when exact-match meant exact and Quality Score felt like magic. Fifteen years and countless campaigns later, the core formula still thrills me: right message, right keyword, profitable click. Platforms have matured AI bidding, audience layering, RSA copy rules but the marketer’s job is unchanged: translate customer pain into keywords, craft compelling copy, and structure campaigns so data teaches what to keep and what to cull.
Paid search matters because it captures prospects at the precise moment they're actively seeking solutions peak buying intent that other channels struggle to match. Unlike outbound tactics that interrupt people, or content marketing that waits for organic discovery, paid search meets prospects exactly when and where they're researching. This intent-driven nature produces conversion rates 3-5× higher than display advertising or social media, making paid search especially valuable for B2B offerings where deal values justify higher acquisition costs. The channel also provides immediate results: launch a campaign this morning, see leads this afternoon, unlike SEO or content marketing that require months of compound effort. This makes paid search ideal for testing messaging, offers, and market demand before committing to longer-term investments. The ability to target exact keywords also enables precise audience segmentation: bid aggressively on high-value terms like "enterprise marketing platform," whilst capturing informational traffic cheaply with "what is marketing automation." For businesses in competitive markets, paid search ensures visibility even when organic rankings lag competitors. The measurability is also unmatched every click, conversion, and pound of cost is tracked, enabling constant optimisation and clear ROI calculation. However, paid search comes with challenges: costs have risen steadily as competition intensifies, Quality Scores require constant attention to maintain ad positions without escalating bids, and traffic stops instantly when budget runs out. Organisations that succeed with paid search treat it as a continuous optimisation game rather than set-and-forget advertising, regularly testing ad copy, refining keyword targeting, and improving landing page conversion to maintain profitable cost-per-acquisition as competition increases.
List the jobs-to-be-done your solution tackles, then translate each job into questions a prospect would search. “Automate SOC 2 reports” or “B2B podcast agency pricing.” Group by similarity; those clusters form ad groups. Intent first, syntax second.
A clean hierarchy prevents “garbage in, garbage out” reporting. If 50 keywords share one ad, you never learn which query resonates.
Manual CPC still has a place for low-volume, high-value keywords give algorithms data they can learn from; hand-adjust the rest.
Layer remarketing lists or customer match to raise bids for previous site visitors and idle SQLs paid search becomes a BoFu accelerant, not just ToFu.
Winning B2B teams run both: paid search captures demand today; SEO builds a moat for tomorrow.
Use paid social to create demand (new pain awareness) and paid search to harvest that demand when prospects Google for a solution.
Brand-bidding can work if your product offers a strong differentiator and the CPC is reasonable. Expect lower Quality Score and watch for legal restrictions on trademarks.
Enough to reach statistical significance. For low-volume niches that might be £500 a month; for broader markets, £2 – 3 k is a realistic floor to gather meaningful data within six weeks.
With modern AI-driven matching, broad can unlock hidden terms but pair it with smart bidding and negative-keyword discipline. I start with phrase/exact for control, then layer broad once conversion data guides the algorithm.
Most engines auto-filter obvious fraud. Third-party tools monitor suspicious IPs, but focus first on Quality Score and keyword intent; wasted spend from poor structure dwarfs fraud in 90 % of accounts I audit.
Paid search is intent-driven advertising: you pay only when someone clicks an ad tailored to the words they typed. Its power lies in immediacy, scalability and data fidelity. Mastery comes from mapping jobs-to-be-done into keyword clusters, structuring campaigns for clarity, and layering audiences and bidding strategies to match funnel stage. Combine it with SEO for compounding reach and with paid social for demand creation, and you have a full-spectrum growth engine that has served me and dozens of B2B teams profitably since 2010.
Build your channel strategy and optimise each channel, so you grow traffic strategically without burning budget.
Pipeline doesn't fill itself. These tools help you identify who to target, reach them at scale, and create content that earns attention in crowded markets.
Demographics don't determine what message resonates. Belief stage does. Map what people need to believe at each stage and your campaigns will resonate instead of falling flat.
Spreading budget across every channel guarantees mediocrity. Focus on the channels where your buyers actually spend attention and scale what works before expanding.
Most teams waste ad spend testing randomly. A structured approach to creative testing compounds your learnings so every campaign performs better than the last.
Gabriel Weinberg
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A method to discover your best channel. Prioritise, test and focus resources where traction is most likely.
Russel Brunson
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A broad look at audience building. Useful ideas for content, partnerships and email that compound over time.
Measure what percentage of cold emails get responses to evaluate message quality and list targeting rather than sending more emails to poor prospects.
Schedule focused work sessions in your calendar to protect concentration and ensure important tasks don't get crowded out by meetings and interruptions.
The percentage of impressions that result in a click to your website or landing page.
Create comprehensive hub pages on core topics that link to related subtopic content to establish topical authority and improve rankings across topic clusters.
Fix site infrastructure issues that prevent search engines from crawling and indexing pages properly to ensure content can rank regardless of quality.
Track emails that fail delivery to maintain sender reputation and avoid being marked as spam by continuing to email invalid addresses that hurt deliverability.
Target prospects based on demographic, firmographic, and behavioural data, interrupting their social feeds with relevant offers and content.
Identify search terms your customers use to create content that ranks organically and bid on paid terms that drive qualified traffic at profitable costs.
The total number of times your brand appears in front of potential customers across all channels.
Reach prospects who don't know you by sending personalised outreach that offers value and starts conversations rather than pitching products immediately.
Optimise individual pages for target keywords by improving titles, headings, content, and internal links to help search engines understand topic relevance.
Create focused standalone pages for paid campaigns that remove distractions and guide visitors toward one specific action to improve conversion rates.
Build cumulative site-wide ranking power through quality backlinks and strong content so new pages rank faster than competitors starting from scratch.
Build relationships and demonstrate expertise on social platforms to generate inbound interest rather than interrupting buyers with cold outreach.
Process email to empty daily by deciding whether to act, defer, delegate, or delete each message rather than leaving unread items as false to-do lists.
Evaluate email content and sending practices to identify elements that trigger spam filters before sending campaigns that might damage deliverability.
Ensure emails reach inboxes rather than spam folders by maintaining sender reputation, authenticating properly, and following anti-spam best practices consistently.
Calculate what you pay each time someone clicks your ad to evaluate channel efficiency and determine if paid traffic costs justify the leads generated.
Gradually increase sending volume from new domains to build reputation with inbox providers and avoid being marked as spam when scaling outreach quickly.
Connect related pages through contextual links to help search engines understand site structure and spread authority whilst improving user navigation.