Be there the moment customers search for what you sell.

Paid search is advertising that appears in search engine results when people search for particular words or phrases. The most common platforms are Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising. Advertisers bid on keywords and pay when someone clicks, which is why it is often called pay-per-click or PPC. Because ads are triggered by what people are actively looking for, paid search reaches customers at the moment of intent. It covers text ads, Shopping ads with product images and prices, and automated campaign types such as Performance Max.

A paid search agency plans, builds and manages your search advertising. At Vertical that includes keyword research, account structure, ad copy, product feed optimisation, bidding strategy, budget management, conversion tracking, landing page recommendations, testing and reporting. We manage accounts daily, removing wasted spend and scaling what works. Because we also run SEO, paid social, email and website projects, we can connect paid search with the rest of your marketing rather than treating it as a separate channel with its own goals and reporting.

There is no fixed price. You set your own budget and pay for clicks, and the cost of each click depends on competition for the keywords, the quality of your ads and landing pages, and your bidding strategy. Highly competitive categories cost more per click than niche ones. The more useful question is what you can afford to pay for a customer or lead. We work from your margins and goals to recommend a budget that gives campaigns enough data to perform, then adjust as results come in.

Performance Max is a Google Ads campaign type that uses automation to show ads across Search, Shopping, YouTube, Display, Gmail and Discover from a single campaign. It can work very well, particularly for ecommerce brands with good product feeds and conversion data. It also gives less visibility and control than traditional campaigns, and it can take credit for brand searches you would have won anyway. We use it where it suits your goals, set it up carefully and monitor it closely alongside standard Search and Shopping campaigns.

Shopping performance starts with the product feed. We improve product titles, descriptions, categories, attributes and images, so products appear for the right searches and stand out in the results. We then structure campaigns around margin, best sellers and priority ranges, so budget goes where it earns most. We monitor search terms, add negatives, test promotions and keep feeds accurate on price and availability. A well-managed feed often makes more difference to Shopping results than any bidding change, which is why we give it so much attention.

Usually, yes, but it depends on your situation. Bidding on your brand protects you when competitors bid on your name, lets you control the message and takes up more space in the results. Brand clicks are typically cheap and convert well. The risk is that brand campaigns can make paid search look more effective than it is, because many of those customers would have found you anyway. We report brand and non-brand performance separately, so you can see the true value of new demand.

We set up accurate conversion tracking, including enhanced conversions and offline conversions where relevant, and connect Google Ads with your analytics. We then report on the metrics that matter commercially, such as revenue, profit, cost per acquisition and return on ad spend, split between brand and non-brand activity. We also compare platform figures with your own sales data, because platforms can overstate their contribution. Reports explain what changed, why it happened and what we are doing next, in plain language you can share with your team.

Paid search can start driving traffic and sales as soon as campaigns go live, which makes it one of the quicker channels. Performance usually improves over the first few months as we gather data on search terms, refine keywords, add negatives, test ads and let bidding strategies learn. New accounts and new campaign types need a learning period before results settle. We agree clear goals at the start and report regularly, so you can see how performance develops week by week.

They answer the same searches in different ways, so planning them together saves money and finds more customers. Paid search can cover terms where you do not yet rank organically, test which messages and keywords convert before investing in content, and protect key terms from competitors. SEO builds visibility that does not depend on ongoing spend. Search term data from paid campaigns also informs content plans. Because Vertical runs both, we can manage the balance and avoid paying for clicks you would win anyway.

Yes. Microsoft Advertising shows ads on Bing and partner sites, and its audience can differ from Google's, often skewing towards desktop users and certain professional and older demographics. Costs per click are frequently lower because there is less competition. We usually import and adapt successful Google campaigns, then optimise them separately based on how Microsoft users behave. For many brands it is a useful source of additional customers at a reasonable cost alongside Google Ads, and it takes relatively little extra effort to run well.

We use AI agents to analyse search terms, spot wasted spend, find negative keyword opportunities, draft ad copy variations and suggest feed and bid changes. They monitor accounts around the clock and flag unusual movements in costs or conversions quickly. Every recommendation is reviewed by our paid search specialists before anything changes in your account. Platform automation and our own agents both need human guidance, so experienced people stay responsible for every decision about your budget, your ads and your brand.