SEM Interview Questions and Answers for 2025

Google AdWords is an online advertising platform developed by Google to help businesses reach online target markets through its search engine platform like Google Search and on non-search websites, mobile apps, and videos. The partner or third-party sites place a text ad or an image or video ad that appears on the page once a searcher/user searches for keywords (or phrases) related to a business and its products or services. Through Google Ads, a business can reach its target audience whenever and wherever the business wants to share and promote its products/services. 

The advertising services are offered under a pay-per-click (PPC) pricing model. Google AdWords is Google’s “Pay Per Click” or PPC advertising platform and the main source of revenue for Google. 

Google AdWords allows advertisers to place bids on keywords and then display their ads using the selected keywords to the audience conducting searches on the Google search page. It is like a digital online auction marketplace where people bid for clicks. Though it is not that always the highest bidder wins. Because, apart from money, Google considers the quality score to ensure that the people clicking on the ads have the best possible experience. 

After a successful win, the ads will be automatically displayed on search results pages or the pages with those keywords. As far as the types of Google ads go, there are four different categories - display, video, search, and app. 

With a Pay Per Click (PPC) model of Google AdWords advertising, advertisers pay only when a person clicks on the ad, and it leads the clicker to their website or desired goal. The advertiser pays Google (the host or the publishing platform), which facilitates the ad placement. Such an advertising model is an effective option if a business wants to reach specific people who are actively searching for terms related to the business. 

For creating a PPC campaign, the budget will be determined by the target audience, the competition to rank for the keyword(s), and the types of products/services a company wishes to drive awareness of. 

Talking about why to use Google Ads there are many advantages.

First, the traffic that comes from Google ads behaves a little differently from those coming from Google surfing. Because the traffic coming from searching or surfing often visits the website for information or further details. The traffic via pay-per-click, on the other hand, knows what they are clicking on and what they want to buy. In other words, they are highly focused, and their numbers are obviously lesser than the visitors who keep surfing wildly and are yet to know what they want and act on them, or they are general compared to the focused traffic coming via PPC.

Second, because Google Ads works for all types of businesses – big and small, it’s a very affordable form of advertising that can target qualified, highly focused prospects when managed correctly.

Third, small businesses can start with small capital and make necessary adjustments based on the results obtained and then can double up if ad campaigns are found to generate profitable sales or the desired outcome.

The full form of PPC is pay-per-click, which is a model of digital advertising where an advertiser company pays a fee each time one of its ads is clicked. Essentially it is a payment we pay for targeted visits to a company’s website (or landing page or app).

If a PPC is made to work correctly, the fee is trivial because the click worth is more than what an advertiser pays for it. For example, the advertiser pays $3 for a click, but the click results in a $300 sale. Here the advertiser makes a huge profit out of almost nothing.

PPC ads have various shapes and sizes. They can be framed out of text, images, videos, or a combination and can appear on search engines, websites, social media platforms, and more, depending on where the advertising company wants to use them.

Paid search or search engine advertising, or search engine marketing, is one of the most popular forms of PPC. Advertisers can bid for ad placement in a search engine's sponsored links, and they can be seen when someone performs a search related to one’s business offerings.

For example, the company Wordstream wants to market its service “Stop wasting money in Google Ads” and designs its ad campaign for that purpose. Say, it bids and wins for the keyword “google ads audit.” This ad may appear on the SERP for anyone making such type of search or a related search.

Talking of how PPC advertising works, it varies and looks different from platform to platform. In general, the steps involve choosing a campaign type based on its objective, then refining the settings and targeting (audiences, devices, locations, schedule, etc.), providing the budget and bidding strategy, providing the destination URL (landing page) and building the ad.

A must-know for anyone looking to prepare for sem interviews, this is one of the frequent questions asked to SEM managers.

A. Search Ads and their character count

Search ads are the most common format of Google ads that we often see. Such a type of ad can consist of up to three headlines, two descriptions and ad extensions.

The character limits are:

One can add up to 30 characters per headline for an expanded text ad, and they will appear next to each other, separated by a vertical line (|). For the two description fields, the character limit is 90. The display URL path (up to 2) of 15 characters.

B. Responsive Search Ads and their Character Count

Here the option to add multiple headlines and descriptions is there. Using machine learning Google will then automatically mix and match them to make the best ad it thinks will perform at that moment. The advantage is instead of creating multiple text ads, and an advertiser just needs to create one single responsive search ad and let Google automatically produce variations.

Responsive search ads allow multiple headlines and descriptions at once, which the Google algorithm mix-matches to reach more potential customers by matching the ads with more queries. The ads are highly adaptive and can fit easily into different device widths without truncating anything, thus giving more room to communicate the exact message to the audience.

For a single responsive search ad, Google allows users to add up to fifteen headline variations of 30 characters each. For descriptions, up to four variations of 90 characters each and up to two display URL paths of fifteen characters each. Google will show users up to 3 headlines and two descriptions in different combinations or orders for any responsive search ad. Time-saving is the greatest advantage of responsive ads

C. Google Call-Only Ads and their Character Count

Google call-only ads generate phone calls to a business and not clicks to the website. These appear on mobile devices. Searchers can connect to a business on call instead of going to its website. Such an ad consists of a headline, description, and phone number.

For a call ad, up to two headlines of 30 characters each, a business name of 25, and up to two descriptions of 90 characters each are allowed. Google call-only ads can also add ad extensions as well which are additional pieces of information that can be included in the ad to help searchers with more information about the advertising business.

These extensions can be site links, callouts, structured snippets, locations, call buttons, etc. Since such extensions are not a part of the description character limit, businesses can freely use them.

The character limit for the headline is 30, and for the description, it is 25 for a site link ad extension. Whereas for a callout ad extension, the character limit is 25, and for a structured snippet ad extension, the character count is also 25.

D. YouTube Ads Character Count

YouTube instream ads are shown at the beginning, in the middle or at the end of an ongoing YouTube video, and viewers can choose to skip the ad after five seconds. Such ads when non-skippable. The user must see the entire ad before watching a video.

Instream ads consist of a headline with 15 characters or 90 for a long headline, a description with 70 characters, a display URL of 15 characters, a call-to-action of 10 characters and a companion banner.

E. Google Display Ads Character Count

Such visual ads appear on different websites, apps and Google-owned platforms like YouTube and Gmail. The character limit for the headline is 30, the description 90 and for the business name 25.

F. Google Performance Max Ads Character Limit

Companies use Google’s Performance Max goal-based campaign using Google’s smart bidding and automation technology. Designed to complement keyword-based search campaigns, the advertisers get access to all of Google ads inventory from a single campaign to find leads with the facility of optimizing ad performance in real-time for better conversions. It allows up to 5 headlines of 40 characters, up to 5 descriptions of 90 characters and a business name of 25 characters.

G. Discovery Ads Character

YouTube, Google, or Gmail apps show such visually appealing Google Discovery ads. The headline number is up to 5 with 40 characters, up to 5 descriptions with 90 characters and a business name with 25 characters.

Google Ads extensions extend a company’s ad with information that helps searchers make decisions and bring the highest quality audience experience possible. These are additional resources applied in real-time to a company’s Search Ad placements as they appear in search result pages. 

These are free and can be applied to all Search ads within an account, campaign, or ad group though not guaranteed to show every time an ad appears to a viewer. When to show and not to is determined by Google’s algorithm, depending on various factors. 

There are many benefits of using them: 

• They help to provide more information to the audience building up a stronger case for why they should be clicking on the ad. 
• Increase a company’s visibility on search engine ranking pages or SERPs.  
• Help to increase clickthrough rate (CTR) significantly. 
• Help in improving lead quality by self-disqualifying poor-quality leads and thus reducing irrelevant clicks. Because visitors clicking on the ad are more likely to take the desired action intended by the advertising company. 
• As extensions provide Google with additional information, Google can offer a better variety of ad formats. As a result, the company gets better ad ranking as Google uses various factors like ad position, CTR, relevance, and experience. 
• Optimization of the PPC budget. As CTR improves due to ad extensions, this helps lower the cost-per-click (CPC,) which means a company gets more out of its ad spend. 

A total of nineteen extensions are available; eight are dynamic, and eleven are to be set up manually. Some of the very common extensions are Sitelink extensions, callout extensions, structured snippets, Call extensions and more. 

Don't be surprised if this question pops up as one of the top sem interview questions in your next interview.

The full form of CTR is the click-through rate. It is a measuring metric to measure the number of clicks advertisers get on their ads per number of impressions. CTR is the percentage of people who view an ad impression versus those who actually go on to click the ad. The formula for calculating CTR is: 

CTR= (Total clicks on Ad) / (Total ad impressions) 

Click-through rate matters because for a PPC success, a high click-through rate is required, as a high CTR means that a good percentage of people are seeing the ad and clicking it, which in turn means a higher quality score. CTR directly influences both quality score and ad spend or the money spent each time someone clicks the ad. 

In other words, a high CTR leads to a high-quality score, and a high-quality score leads to improving or maintaining ad position at lower costs or lesser ad spending or more savings. 

A high CTR could be bad in certain cases, like if a keyword is not relevant to the business concerned or is not generating sales, leads, branding gains or other objectives of the ad. The reason is loss of money as the business is paying for the clicks and lots of clicks mean lots of ad-spend. Besides, the purpose behind the ad remains unfulfilled or brings any additional business. Additionally, if very high-priced keywords are used, then to it will fail to generate profit because of the price even if they convert. 

The method of marketing a business by using paid advertisements that appear on search engine results in pages or SERPs is known as Search Engine Marketing. Advertising companies bid on keywords that visitors use in the search pages of services like Google, Bing, Yahoo or others when looking for certain products or services. The advertisers get to know what the visitors might be looking for, and it gives them the opportunity for their ads to appear alongside the search results for those search queries. Typically known as pay-per-click ads, they come in various formats like texts, product listing ads/shopping ads and product-based visual ads that allow the visitors to see handy information, such as price, reviews etc., at a glance.

The importance of SEM lies in the fact that it allows advertisers to bring their ads in front of motivated customers who have already made up their minds to make a purchase just at the right moment when they are ready to buy. No other advertising medium can give this opportunity to the advertisers, which is why search engine marketing is so popular and effective and is an immensely powerful way to grow a business.

Google search results contain both paid search results and unpaid or organic search results. Both SEM and SEO have ‘SE’ in common, which stands for Search Engine.

In the case of SEO, O stands for optimization, which is the process adapted to improve the ranking of a website or any online content for high search results on Google or higher ranking on the result page so that it can be found easily or first by the visitors to click. It is a method to attract traffic organically. That is, without making any payment, a business gets visitors, clicks, leads etc.

For example, if someone is looking to know about Spirulina and types the word, Google flashes some paid ads but also some articles/blogs, which could be hundreds, but only a few stand out at the top and are more likely to get clicks as against the rest. Therefore those sites are getting visitors and may be getting further objectives fulfilled as well as the visitors clicking on their sites. This is SEO, where some sites rank higher than others without having to spend anything for it.

On the other hand, in SEM, marketing stands for the M, and it is paid marketing and refers to a number of different paid search advertising models like pay-per-click (PPC) to gain increased visibility in the SERPs.

My keyword price, or cost-per-click (CPC), will be determined by a combination of factors like my bidding strategy, keyword competition, Quality Score and a handful of other factors. 

My keyword bidding strategy: Since all search engines utilize a maximum CPC bid model for calculating ad position and, thereby, my final cost-per-click if I bid low, my keyword price will be low, and it will increase if I bid high. Therefore, I will focus on the right keywords not bidding too high or low, look at the competition volume, look for other relevant keywords etc. 

• Competition factors: I will consider this since the ever changing-presence of competitors will affect my bidding strategy, ad position and cost per click. Here I will need to consider the seasonal factors as well. 
•  Quality score: If I get a good quality score, then my cost per conversion will be low. That is, Google will say that my PPC ad meets the potential customers’ needs, and Google will charge me less for the ad click. 

Expect to come across this important search engine marketing question in your next interviews.

While bidding on a keyword in a PPC campaign, we need to choose a keyword match type that tells Google how aggressively or restrictively we want it to match our advertisements to user or visitor queries. 

Keyword match types fall under four categories. 

• Broad match: is the default match that reaches the widest audience. If a user’s search query has any word in the key phrase, irrespective of its placement order, or any word that relates to that keyword, the ad will appear.

For example, if I use broad match on “sports car,” my ad might appear if a user types “sports cars,” “fast cars,” “luxury cars,” “speedy cars,” as well as “expensive vehicles.”  

• Phrase match: here, my ad will appear on searches that include the implied meaning of the keyword. For example, for the keyword lawn mowing service, the phrase match types could be lawn mowing services near me, hire a company to mow lawn, landscaping service to cut grass, and the Ad will be shown for those searches.
• Exact match: it is quite a tight match. For example, for the keyword lawn mowing service, the ads will be shown for searches like lawn mowing service and grass cutting service.

Google KPI key performance indicator that is a measurable and transparent performance indicator that is used to monitor, analyze and optimize the performance of selected strategies and measures related to SEM. Google KPI list includes: 

•  Click-Through-Rate (CTR): How attractive do the ads look? 
•  Quality Score: How relevant are they? 
•  Cost-per-Click (CPC): How much does an ad-click cost? 
•  Ad Position: How the ad position affects the CTR? 
•  Conversion Rate: Which are the campaigns that convert the best? 
•  Cost per Conversion: Which are the most effective? 
•  Budget Attainment: How is the budgeting strategy implemented? 
•  Cost per Mille (CPM): How costly is the CPM for specific placements? 
•  Impression Share: How well do the ads perform? 
•  View-Through-Conversions: How often do the visitors convert without clicking?

A common and most common sem question for interview, don't miss this one.

CPC is a pre-set price that Google charges an advertiser each time someone clicks on the company’s posted ad. For example, if Google charges .25 cents per click and a total of 10,000 people click on the ad, then the advertising company will have to pay .25 x 10,000 = $2,500 to Google. More than 10,000 people might see the ad, but the advertiser will only be charged if someone clicks on the ad. 

 CPM stands for cost per million. It is the model that offers a pre-set price for every 1,000 impressions made, and the number of impressions to be made is up to the advertiser.  

For example, if Google charges $5 per 1,000 impressions. 

• Total campaign cost = Total Impressions / 1000 x CPM 
• Total Impressions = Campaign cost / CPM x 1000 
• CPM = Campaign cost / Total impressions / 1000 
• CPC is better as it gives a greater ROI than CPM, as the advertiser pays only for the clicks made on the ad and not otherwise. 

Google AdWords helps advertisers to drive as many conversions as possible by bidding on keywords. In other words, by defining bids at the keyword level, companies can achieve conversions at a specified or below Cost-Per-Conversion or cost-per-action or CPA.

If a company specifies a relatively low target Cost-Per-Conversion for a campaign, Google Conversion Optimizer will bid on only those keywords that it thinks are a sure probability to convert, thus resulting in cheaper conversions.

On The other hand, if a business opts for a high target CPA, the conversion optimizer will bid more aggressively, competing for higher ad positions on broader keyword terms. This probably will bring more conversions but at a higher price.

I know that the success of a marketing campaign does not come from flashy ads or funny or creative commercials. But it depends on keeping track of measurable indicators of a campaign and following a process.

• Audience Identification

Identifying the audience, checking the demographic and psychographic characteristics of the buying decision-makers, geographical factors and much more get into this process.

• Budgeting

Setting up a monthly/annual budget depending on the business size, industry, and what stage a business is in.

• Developing the message.

A clear and impactful message has the potential to get a higher response rate,e and it must address three things:

1. using testimonials
2. emphasizing how a product/service will benefit the audience
3. evoking emotional response

• Setting a social media strategy.

Since marketing is incomplete without involving social media, the interaction with social media helps in creating more awareness, and generating sales and revenue if done rightly choosing the appropriate medium.

• Implementing the strategy.

It also involves scheduling the right time, proper coordination between all team members and also the activities needed to launch the campaign.

• Result in analysis

The success of any campaign, if all other things go right, will depend on proper tracking, analysis and optimization as per the feedback received. Even if a campaign is successful, constant work is needed to make it better and extend its reach.

1. Launch campaigns

 Very popular with startups. Such campaigns could be: 

• Blog post was written by stakeholders. 
• Syndicated content on LinkedIn or Medium 
• Advertising campaigns on social platforms 
• Influencer or network support 

2. Sales promotion campaigns

Useful in getting more sales by reducing the price of service for a limited time or product upgradation etc. 

Such campaigns could be done by: 

• Promotional Email communication  
• Blog post (depending on the duration of the campaign). 
• Shareable social media assets 

3. Event promotion campaigns

Useful for a webinar, buying tickets to the upcoming conference or event etc. It could be done by Emails, a landing page with a registration form, and shareable social posts. 

There could be other types of campaigns like: 

•  Re-Engagement marketing campaigns -to bring back old or dormant customers.  
•  Product or service-specific campaigns -to promote an existing product or service that needs re-marketing. 
•  Rebranding campaigns- in case a company’s product/service goes rebranding, such campaigns are useful. 

The Old Spice "The Man Your Man Can Smell Like" campaign. 

It was a massive success because of the hilarious and clever ads that were created for the campaign. From this very successful campaign, Old Spice continued to produce new and fresh ads, each outwitting the last. 

Some popular ads of the campaign, like "The Man Your Man Could Smell Like," "The man your man could become if he used Old Spice," "Old Spice Swagger," and "I'm on a horse!" were hugely successful and won awards including a Grand Prix Award at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival. 

Absolut Vodka: "The Bottle" Campaign 

The brand is famous for its creative ad campaigns, and one of the most well-known as "The Bottle" campaign. Here Absolut Vodka creatively featured a series of print ads showing people doing things with vodka bottles that were impossible with any other bottle. The ads received a lot of attention because of their creativity, and it was a huge success and made Absolut Vodka one of the most popular vodka brands in the world.

The stages of a sales funnel can vary dramatically, but typically, it captures the process of awareness, interest and evaluation (or consideration), desire, action, and re-engagement or advocacy.

A sales funnel helps to understand the prospective customers/buyers and at which stage they are in their buying journey. Such insight helps to invest in the right marketing activities and marketing channels and create the most effective content/copy/message for each stage. This, in turn, helps in turning more leads into paying customers.

I create a sales funnel in seven stages: 

• Defining the problem or the pain point that my product or service will solve for the customers. 
• Defining the goals like more leads, product demos, e-newsletter sign-ups, or purchases. 
• Create a preliminary lead generation offer to attract the leads, such as a free trial or an ebook in exchange for contact info. 
• Qualify leads to confirm interest in the product- Not all leads are equal or a good fit for my company. So, I determine what a qualified lead looks like, then follow up with only those who meet my criteria.  
•  Nurture the qualified leads- sometimes a simple email drip campaign or using social media or paid retargeting and lull them with an offer such as an extended trial or special discount to bring them closer to deciding. 
• Close the deal – at this stage, a lead has either become a customer or decided not to make the purchase, but in any case, I keep the communication lines open. For customers, I shift my efforts to retention and loyalty building, and for the drop-outs, I return to nurturing strategy and reach out every few months. 
• Track the final results and analyze sales data- my sales funnel isn't set in stone. It needs constant optimization because even the most qualified leads may disappear. The best thing I do to prevent this is to look for areas for improvement or missed opportunities and fill the gaps. 

To become an expert in digital marketing, I think I will need and have the skills like: 

1. Data Analysis: that is using procedures, techniques and modern software as well for collecting various data from different online interactions in the form of content consumed, online transactions, search queries and other relevant footprints relevant to the business I am working for. It is important to analyze and arrive at relevant marketing details.
2. Content Creation: I think content is at the heart of digital. I aim to create high-quality content and SEO-friendly content and also try to implement the process of how to get audience engagement.
3. SEO & SEM: Digital marketing is not possible without adequate knowledge of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM). I may not have in-depth technical knowledge of SEO which is better handled by more technically oriented specialists, but I have a solid knowledge of the dynamics of SEO and knowledge about how to optimize the content or copy for effective marketing campaigns, paid or organic.
4. CRM or customer relationship management or involving strategies to monitor and maximize customer experience by connecting emotionally with the audience. I use skills like empathy and timely and effective communication with customers.
5. Social Media skills: No digital marketing can happen without social media in some form or the other. It is not just about daily posting but about quality posts. Engaging with the audience, timely response, and the right content to the right people are very important, I believe. Besides skills for creating posts for paid advertising, boosted posts, hashtags, and business groups with the help of tools are also needed.
6. Basic Design Skills: Creating visual content is also a must requirement. Therefore, I have gained the basic knowledge of Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, After Effects, Illustrator, InDesign), Canva and some basic video editing skills as well.

The goals keep changing and may vary from business to business depending on a company’s business objectives, but in my view, the basic goals should be new customer acquisition, better leads, and brand awareness. The goals should be achievable within time. They should be specific and measurable.

I think digital marketing challenges are both unique to every organization and also somewhat universal. Overall, I think the challenges are. 

Purchasing, integrating, and implementing the right kind of technology. 

• Getting the right talent. 
• Using and scaling marketing best practices. 
• Continuous innovation. 

Marketing automation software primarily increases return on investment, saves time and brings efficiency. It understands customers better, streamlines the process of lead management, makes marketing activities more scalable, helps brands increase their revenue and helps generate qualified leads.

Analytics and reporting, integrations, contact management, and visitor tracking should be the main features to look for.

Google DSA is Dynamic Search Ad. It offers a very unique way of lead generation by finding customers searching on Google for precisely what the advertiser offers. DSAs are a very useful advertising platform for companies with a well-developed website or a large inventory, as they use the website content to target the ads and bring them in front of the right customers. It actually fills in the gaps of traditional keyword-based campaigns.