Special Report: Search Engine Marketing

3. Select the Best Possible Bidding Procedures

On Google, the order of pay-per-click search ads is based on cost-per-click and the ad’s clickthrough rate — the number of clicks divided by the number of impressions, Fischer says. Let’s say Cataloger A bids on “men’s dress shirts” at $1 per click and Cataloger B bids on the same key phrase at $0.50 per click. If Cataloger B’s clickthrough ad rate is more than twice the rate of Cataloger A’s, the $0.50-per-click ad will get ranked higher on Google.