Digital Advertising (Including PPC)
Digital Advertising (Including PPC) tests paid search and paid media fundamentals: campaign structure, targeting, bids, creative, landing pages, and measurement. Expect math on CTR, CPC, CPA, and ROAS, plus judgment on match types and optimization.
Core rules and concepts
- Structure by goal and control: separate campaigns by budget, geography, product line, or bidding strategy so performance is readable.
- Search match types differ: exact is tightest, phrase adds close variants, broad reaches related queries. Use negative keywords and search-term reviews to control waste.
- Quality Score in Google Ads reflects expected CTR, ad relevance, and landing page experience; it influences cost and eligibility.
- Align ad promise with landing page. Message mismatch raises bounce and lowers conversion.
- Choose bidding by constraint: maximize conversions with a CPA target, maximize conversion value with ROAS, or manual/portfolio strategies when data is thin.
Worked example
An ad campaign gets 100,000 impressions and a 2% CTR: 2,000 clicks. At $1.00 CPC, spend is $2,000. A 5% conversion rate yields 100 conversions. CPA is $2,000/100 = $20. If average order value is $80, revenue is $8,000 and ROAS is $8,000/$2,000 = 4.0. The reasoning: keep denominators consistent and compare CPA with acceptable acquisition cost, not with CPC alone.
Traps that cost marks
Scaling broad match without negatives; optimizing CTR while conversions fall; ignoring search terms and placement reports; sending traffic to a generic homepage; and treating ROAS as profit without margin.