PPC Interview Questions for freshers and experienced :-
1. What is PPC marketing?
PPC means Pay Per Click. It’s a marketing strategy to drive traffic to our website via search engines and partner sites. Advertiser will only pay if he receives the visit click on his ads.
2. What is meant by Campaign Management?
Campaign management is a process of creating and managing an advertising campaign for a company on Google AdWords. In this we have to divide the campaign based on AdGroups and select relevant keywords for each adgroups. Manage the ad formats and bidding for keywords etc. Campaign manager overall responsibility is to manage the campaign and provide a Positive ROI.
3. What is DFA ?
Double Click for Advertisers. DFA is an ad server which is used to track impressions and clicks for your creatives on various networks. You can’t buy inventory through DFA. You can only track the performance of your campaigns. Main functions of DFA is ad trafficking and reporting.
4. What is DBM?
DBM (DoubleClick Bid Manager) is a demand-side platform (DSP) from Google. This helps in buying display media ads using programmatic strategy.
5. What is Ad Trafficking?
Ad trafficking is a process of setting up an ad campaign from a technical aspect. Which means Setting up the campaign, tracking links, the creatives etc… It is usually performed using an ad server or an advertising platform. For example Ad Trafficking is used in DFA/DFP.
6. Do you think DFA is an ad exchange?
No DFA is a not an ad exchange. The purpose of DFA is to track and analyze the impressions/clicks received on the ad creatives.
7. What is Click Tag?
Click tags are used to track the number of clicks on the link from different sources.
8. What is Google Publisher Tags?
GPT is an ad tagging library to dynamically build ad requests. GPT takes key details from you such as ad unit code, ad size, and key-values, builds the request, and displays the ad on web pages or mobile apps. Its is used for tracking purpose.
9. What is difference between direct marketing and branding ?
In a direct marketing campaign the advertiser is interested to target the audience who are most relevant to the business. The major metric to consider in this type is conversion rate, which explains about ROI. Most common campaign types are Search Network Only, Shopping Campaigns, Dynamic Search Ads etc.
In Branding campaign an advertiser needs exposure of his brand on major sites and applications. The most popular methods are Display Ads, Remarketing, Youtube Ads and custom ads target.
10. Which settings cannot be changed after the AdWords account is created ?
Time Zone and Currency cannot be changed after account creation.
11. What is Google AdWords Double Serving policy?
It means that an advertiser cannot advertise for same keywords/websites from multiple accounts. The purpose of this policy is to avoid showing ads of same companies or companies with common ownership. So the users can see the the ads from different providers. Read more about this here
12. What do understand by Quality Score?
Quality Score is a metric which is calculated for each keyword between 1 to 10. The QS defines the quality of keyword compared with Ads and Landing Page. This metric is used to calculate the AdRank, which is used to calculate the ad position.
13. What is the impact of Quality score on CPC and Ad Position ?
- Quality Score is inversely proportional to CPC and Directly proportional to Ad Position.
- That means higher QS means lower cost and higher position.
14. What is Actual CPC ?
The actual cost of a click for an advertiser in an auction. The actual CPC is calculated in realtime and we cannot know the Actual CPC, but we can see Avg. CPC.
Actual CPC = (AdRank to Beat/QS)+$0.01
15. What Kind of Quality Score you can achieve for keywords ?
In my past campaigns I achieved the QS of 7 – 10. I can improve the quality score by using optimization techniques in campaign.
16. What are the Factors which affect Quality Score ?
Quality Score depends on the following metrics
- CTR of the Keyword
- Relevance of Keywords and Ads
- Landing Page Quality
- Historic Account Data
17. How can you Improve Conversion Rates ?
By creating ads which match perfectly with keywords and creating tightly themed ad groups so we can get targeted users to best landing page. Also by improving the Landing Page quality we can improve the conversions.
18. Is PPC Advertisement effect ranking of websites on search engines ?
Never, Search Engine don’t mix them. Google and other search engines rank both organic and ppc results separately
19. Can you tell me limit of character used for PPC Ads ?
Different Search Engines have different Limit on ads character as for Google you can put maximum 25 for headline and 70 for description 1 and 2 combined.
20. What is Invalid Click and How Google determines the invalid clicks
Invalid clicks are the fake clicks, unintentional and malicious software clicks. Google has a sophisticated mechanism and algorithms to automatically detect and filter the invalid clicks from user account. Invalid clicks in AdWords
21. What are PLA Ads?
PLA stands for product listing ads. This ad strategy is used to advertise products ads on Google search and partners. This campaign is also called as Shopping campaign mostly used by E-commerce websites.
22. What is DFP ?
DFP stands for Double Click for Publishers. If the publisher prefers to manage themselves the ads which will be broadcasted on their websites, they use DFP. For example most of the public sites like way2sms.com, w3schools.com etc use DFP for ads.
23. What do you understand by AdWords?
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.
24. Why are we using Google AdWords?
The traffic that comes via Google AdWords or ‘Pay per Click’ is dealt differently. The organic traffic often visits the website for information, whereas the traffic through PPC ads knows what they are clicking on and what they want to buy. Therefore, few visitors coming via AdWords might be more valuable than the organic traffic.
25. Explain the working of AdWords.
Google AdWords work on the basis of a bidding system. For instance, if the bidding price is 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.
26. What is the meaning of Ad Rank?
Ad Rank decides the ad position on Google page. This is determined by your bid for that quality score and keyword.
27. What is the possible impact of Ad Rank on Cost per Click?
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.
28. Explain the working of Google auction.
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.
29. What is Quality Score in Google AdWords?
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.
30. Do you know what an ad group is in Google AdWords?
Ad group is a container of your landing pages, advertisements, and keywords. Google rewards advertisers who prepare AdWord 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.
31. What is the role of conversion optimizer in AdWords?
Conversion optimizer is a tool used by Google AdWords for bid manipulation and decides which clicks on the ad will be valuable. This helps you to return maximum on your investment.
32. Name some of Google AdWord Ad Extensions.
There are different ad extensions to boost the traffic. Some of the common ad extensions
are:
- Social Annotations
- Local Extensions
- Call Extensions
- Offer ads
- Mobile app extensions
- Seller ratings
- Image and drop down navigation Ad extension
- Review extension
- Communication Ad
33. How can you improve conversion rates?
To target users to the campaign for boosting conversions, one has to create ads that match properly with keywords and create tightly themed ad groups.
34. What is the limit set for the characters or number for AdWords ad?
In AdWords, the limit for
- Description line 1: 25 characters
- Description line 2: 35 characters
- Description URL: 1024 characters
35. What is CTR and how one can calculate it?
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.
36. What types of keywords are there?
here 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
37. What do you understand by Google Ad API? What are the uses of Google Ad API?
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.
38. Why is Search Engine Marketing important?
You are there for the Search Engine Marketing job but if you don’t know the why of SEM then you lost it. 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. 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.
39. How do I determine if search engine marketing is right for my company?
Since the whole world is on the internet nowadays, it is very unlikely that you don’t need search engine marketing to survive and grow in the market. Regardless of whether you are interested in generating leads, sales, investors, strategic partners, new recruits, and awareness, SEM offers an opportunity to improve your bottom line.A quick assessment by professionals will help clarify the need and fit.
40. How do we measure the success of SEM efforts?
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.
41. If I plan to expand my business to Singapore, is there a need to get listed on local search engines and directories?
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.
42. What are the hallmarks of a good PPC landing page?
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.
43. Other than CPC, what are the other two options for bidding?
The two options for bidding are:
- CPM – Cost per Thousand
- CPA – Cost per Action
44. How to track conversions in Google AdWords?
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.
45. How many keywords should I have per ad group?
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.
46. What factors affect Quality Score?
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
47. What could be done to reduce the costs for paid media campaigns without losing traffic tomorrow?
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.
48. Let’s say I represent the competitor who is buying the same trademarked keyword owned by your department. Despite a polite email, I have refused to stop bidding on your trademark term. What possible ways will you adopt?
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.
49. Who are our competitors? What PPC strategies are adopted by them?
You have to be prepared for this question. 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.
50. According to you, which paid media platforms would work well for our business and why?
Again, the best thing you could do is research. The interviewer yet again wants to know if you have done your homework. You need to consider which is the best-paid media platform for the company and how effectively they are using these platforms.
Think about different aims of the business in terms of objectives, KPIs, and keywords. Also, think realistically about which platforms would help them to achieve their goals. You can also go an extra mile by researching any new platforms and how it could help the company meeting their objectives.
51. How many types of targeting in video and display network campaigns?
There are mainly 5 types of targeting we use in these networks
- Demographics
- Keywords
- Topic
- Interest & Remarketing
- Placements
52. What is the meaning of Ad Rotation?
If you have multiple ads within an ad group, your ads will rotate because no more than one ad from your account can show at a time.
- Optimize for clicks (default)
- Optimize for conversions
- Rotate evenly
- Rotate indefinitely
53. what are the other two options for bidding other than C-P-C?
CPC the other two options are CPM (Cost per Thousand Impression) and CPA (Cost Per Action).
54. How many types of Keyword Match Type in Google Adwords?
There are 5 types of keyword Match Type
- Broad Match
- Broad Match Modifier
- Pharse Match
- Exact Match
- Negative keywords
55. Mention in google Adwords that options can’t be changed after creating an account?
After creating account Currency and Time Zone, cannot be changed.
56. Do Product Listing Ads work?
Tremendously well. If you’re not utilizing these and you do e-commerce, you are missing out on a lot of revenue every single day.
57. Should I bid on competitor’s brand names?
CTR and Quality Score will be low on these terms but they do typically convert pretty well, so my answer is yes. Make sure you don’t use dynamic keyword insertion in your ads on these campaigns or else you could violate trademark policies.
58. Should I bid on my own brand terms?
The short answer is, always. Kayla Kurtz wrote a great post explaining why.
59. Does Quality Score matter?
Sometimes. The best way to know is to see if there is a correlation between Quality Score and CPA in your account. You can do this by simply pulling a keyword report including the Quality Score, doing a pivot table with QS at the right and then a column for calculated CPA. Then do a graph with a trend line. That will show you if generally, you see better CPA on keywords with better QS.
60. What is Quality Score in Google AdWords?
Ans: 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.
61. How do I increase my Quality Score?
Increase your CTR by writing better ads, keep the number of keywords per ad group down to the ranges mentioned earlier in this post, ensure that the ad has the keywords you are bidding on in it (I am not recommending keyword stuffing, but it has to be in there somewhere to be seen as relevant),
62. The CPC on my best keywords continues to go up. Why?
This is typically caused by an increase in competition, reduction in search volume or decreasing Quality Scores. To determine if it is competition compare the Auction Insights results to a when CPC’s were lower and see if new competitors are on the list or if your metrics there have dropped. Use Google Trends to see if search volume has dropped and done a Quality Score analysis to see if that is the issue.
63. What’s the best way to decide what ad wins in a test? (What’s the best metric to use?)
I wrote on PPC Hero a few months ago about my favorite metric and it is still the one I use. It is impressions until conversions. To calculate you simply divide the number of impressions by the number of conversions. You’ll end up with some like 627. The lower the number the better the combined CTR and CR of that ad is.
64. What are Adwords?
Advertisers place bids on certain keywords which helps their advertisement to be displayed by Google. In fact, keywords are the basis of an Adwords account.
65. When Would You Pay For A Trueview In-search Advertisement?
Only if a viewer chooses to watch the video.
66. Why Should You Include A Text Ad In Your Display Network Campaign, Even If You Want To Focus On Image/video?
Not all publishers accept image/video ads, so having a text ad will ensure maximum coverage.
67. What Type Of Bidding Model Do Reservation Ads Use?
They are a fixed price, so no bidding is used.
68. Mention What Are The Type Of Keywords?
There are no specific types for Keywords however they are classified on the basis of how likely is going to be clicked by visitors
Research Keywords: It tends to contain one or two words – Tea
Consideration: It tends to contain two or three words – Green Tea.
Purchase: It must have more than three words – buy loose green tea.
Loyalty: This must be shorter- Starbucks.
69. Explain What Is Google Quality Score?
Google’s quality score determines how beneficial and relevant your ad is to the user, based primarily on your ad’s CTR, quality of your landing page and keyword relevance. Higher quality score keywords will save your money and earn better ad ranking.
70. True Or False: You Can Incorporate An Error Message Or Warning Box In Your Image Ad.?
False, this will get your ad disapproved.
71. Explain What Is The Meaning Of Ctr And How You Can Calculate?
CTR stands for Click through rate that tells the number of visitors visited on your ad on the web page. The formula for calculating CTR is Number of click / Number of impressions X 100.
These will give you an wer in percentage like what percentage of customers have viewed your ad.
72. Suppose You Have Created An Ad Group To Advertise Gourmet Chocolate, And It Includes Keywords Like “dark Chocolate” And “gourmet Chocolate Bars.” If You Opted This Particular Campaign Into The Google
Automatic placements would be used to contextually target sites that share the same themes as the keywords within your campaign.
73. Explain How You Can Track Conversions In Google Adwords?
In Google Adwords, conversion tracking can be done in following ways:
- Tracking purchases by involving basic tracking code provided by Adwords and modifying it with additional code unique to your particular e-commerce platform
- View-through conversion window options tracks when a person sees your ad but does not click it (impression)
- By enabling your ad rotation setting to optimize for clicks, meaning that Adwords will serve the ads it feels are likely to be clicked
- By accessing search funnels inside tools and analysis, you can also know when customers clicked on your ad for the first time and how frequently they saw your ad before converting.
74. What Is The Payment Model For A Youtube Homepage Masthead Advertisement?
These are sold on a fixed cost per day model.
75. Where Are Ads Using Images And Videos Shown?
They would only be shown on the Google Display Network.
76. Mention What Is The Limit Set For The Number Or Characters For Adwords Ad?
Limit for Adword is:
- Description line 1st : 25 characters
- Description line 2nd: 35 characters
- Destination URL: 1024 characters
- No images are allowed in URL.
77. Explain What Is Conversion Optimizer In Adwords?
Conversion Optimizer is a tool used by Google Adwords for bid manipulation and decides which clicks on the ad will be valuable. It can help you to return maximum on your investment.
78. Mention Some Of The Google Adword Ad Extensions?
Different ad extension can enhance the increase in traffic. Some of the common Ad extensions used in adwords are:
- Sitelinks
- Call Extensions
- Location Extensions
- Social Annotations
- Seller ratings
- Mobile app extensions
- Offer ads
- Communication Ad
- Review extension
- Image and drop down navigation Ad extension
79. Explain How Does A Google Auction Work?
Each month auction gets run billion of times, and the result are such that users find ads that are relevant to what they are looking for. The search engine processes the request and runs the auction that determines the ad positions and each advertisers CPC.
80. Which Bidding Model Allows Advertisers To Pay By The Conversion?
Cost per acquisition (CPA)
81. An Advertiser Wants To Increase The Quality Score Of A Low-performing Keyword. Which Approach Would You Recommend?
Modify the ad associated with that keyword to direct to a highly-relevant landing page.
82. Explain How You Can Improve Conversion Rates?
By creating ads that match properly with keywords and create tightly themed ad groups, you can target users to the campaign that helps in conversions.
83. Explain What Is An Ad Group In Google Adwords?
Ad group is a container of your keywords, advertisements, and landing pages. Google rewards advertisers who prepare Adword campaigns with tightly structured ad groups. Its not advisable to include all your keywords into the single ad group, but to organize keywords into themes.
84. Explain How Adwords Work?
Adwords work on bidding system if the bidding price is higher your ad will appear on top of the Google page. Adwords works on “pay per click” that me you only pay the amount you have bid if someone taps on your ad as a result of a web search.
85. Can You Use Frequency Capping On The Search Network?
No, this feature is available only for ads on the Display Network.
86. Explain What Are The Other Two Options For Bidding Other Than C-p-c?
Other than CPC the other two options are CPM (Cost per Thousand Impression) and CPA ( Cost Per Action ).
87. What Is One Reason To Consider Different Messages In Your Video Ads Than In Your Text/search Ads?
Video search behavior is different than search behavior on a traditional search engine like Google.
88. Explain What Is Adwords?
Adwords is the system that Google has designed to assist in marketing product or services in Google search engine and its affiliated sites. It will place a text ad that appears when people search for phrases associated to your offering.
89. If Your Campaign Is Opted Into Show Ads On The Google Display Network, And Your Display Network Ads Have A Lower Ctr Than Your Existing Search Ads – How Will This Impact The Quality Score Of Your Sear
Your ad performance on the Display Network does not affect your rank for search ads, so a lower CTR on the Display Network does not affect the Quality score of your ads for search.
90. What Aspect Of An Ad Would Help Set Expectations For Users In Different Stages Of The Buying Cycle?
A clear Call to Action in the text portion of a text, video, or image advertisement.
91. How Can You Optimize Your Cpc-based Campaign?
Focus on a high CTR, ad rank, and Quality Score.
92. Explain How Does Ad Rank Impact Cost-per-click?
Ad rank plays a huge role in defining the actual cost-per-click that your opponents pay, when someone clicks on their ads. Your CPC can be calculated by following way
Your Price = The ad rank of the person below you/ your quality score + $0.01
93. Explain What Is Google Ad Api?
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.
94. Explain What Is Ad Rank?
Ad rank determines your ad position on Google page, and it is determined by your bid for that keyword and quality score.
95. True Or False, You Can Use A Strobe Background In Your Display Network Ads.
False, this will get your ad disapproved.
96. Should You Use A Call To Action In The Opening Image Of A Click-to-play Video?
Yes, this is considered a best practice for this type of advertisement.
97. What Will Frequency Capping Do?
It will limit the number of times an ad appears to the same unique user on the Display Network.
98. Explain Why To Use Google Adwords?
Google Adwords behave differently to traffic that comes from Google Adwords or “Pay Per Click”. The traffic that comes through surfing often visits the website for information, whereas the traffic via pay per click knows what they are clicking on and what they want to buy. So few visitors through Adwords might be more valuable than million visitors.
99. Explain What Gets Entered Into A Google Account?
Once the advertisers determine the keywords that they want to bid on, Google will enter a keyword from your account which is most related into the auction with the maximum bid specified as well as the associated ad.
100. Which Method Would Be Recommended For An Advertiser Who Is Trying To Increase The Quality Score Of A Low-performing Keyword?
Modify the ad associated with that keyword to direct to a highly-relevant landing page.
101. What Is The Best Bidding Model To Increase Reach And Visibility?
Cost per thousand impressions (CPM)
102. For Direct Response Marketing, Which Is The Ideal Bidding Model?
Cost per click
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