What is search engine advertising?

Search Engine Advertising (SEA) is the second pillar of search engine marketing alongside search engine optimization (SEO). Advertisements are purchased from Google, Bing or other search engines. The aim of this advertising in search engines is to improve visibility in the search results.

Search engine advertising can be booked in different formats. In addition to the original text formats, which consisted of headline, short description and text link, product advertising (shopping ads) is also possible. In addition, there are various additions, for example the display of telephone numbers and address data, unique selling points and the delivery of display ads in advertising networks. However, such display ads only appear on third-party websites, but not in search engine results.

Search engine ads are delivered according to an auction model. An auction is held in the background for each advertising space that is to be filled with advertisements as part of search entries. Those ads that have the highest bid and the highest quality score are delivered.

Search engine advertising is now considered a costly variant. It is therefore primarily used when other traffic channels are exhausted. It has proven to be a worthwhile strategy to run SEA campaigns and SEO measures in parallel, because both take place in the same medium and thus symbiotic effects result in optimization.