Infographic: How Do Google AdWords Work?

Pay the most money, and you can get your text-only ad to be number one on Google, right? The Google AdWords system is far more complicated than that.

A good “Quality Score” gives an edge to advertisers, even if they aren’t the highest bidder. “Ad Extensions” mean that ads can show pictures, maps, ratings  and more.

The infographic below from the folks at Pulpmedia illustrates some of the many moving parts like this within AdWords.

Want the infographic for yourself? You’ll find it here: How does Google AdWords really work?

Technically, having a Quality Score under 4 doesn’t mean that your ad can’t show. You’ll get a message saying the ad doesn’t trigger because of a low AdRank. But if you were to pay much more, that would boost your AdRank and let the ad appear.

Of course, it would be far better to improve your ad itself! For tips on this, see our articles below, some of which come from the Google: AdWords area of the Search Engine Land Library and some from our Paid Search column — sign-up for that, to get great tactical tips emailed to you each week.

Related Topics: Google: AdWords | Infographics


About The Author: posts interesting infographics related to search engines and search marketing from around the web. Opinions and facts shared by these infographics are those of the original authors and not by Search Engine Land. Want your infographic featured? See this page.

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Comments

3 Comments on Infographic: How Do Google AdWords Work?

Quentin Aisbett,

Love this infographic. It’s pretty hard explaining Adwords to clients but this may just help…If not it looks great.



S.T.,

I’m sorry, but the first post-it note is incorrect.

Keywords with quality scores below 4 DO get impressions, clicks and conversions.

I have mountains of data to support to this.



kpierce,

Wow S.T. you really have a lot of work to do to up your quality scores!

I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone complain that an article/infographic is wrong and cited their own inadequacies as a marketer as proof of such!



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