Why your PPC search strategy is missing valuable search users

In 1996, Canadian search engine Open Text ran the earliest documented keyword-targeted ads, and simultaneously ushered in the PPC era. Since then, search has evolved into a billion-dollar industry, and it’s projected to reach nearly $500 billion by 2032.

Over the decades, PPC teams have developed behavioural patterns that revolve around the biggest players, particularly Google and Microsoft. But rarely have PPC teams paused to consider if these advertising giants offer access to the entire spectrum of high-intent users - or whether they actually represent the total search market.

The truth is that the search industry has become precision-honed to seek and drive performance in just a small number of ecosystems. But in doing so, it risks bypassing a significant quantity of the total demand available.

Search’s transformation

Search is experiencing a metamorphosis. And the essence of it is this: search no longer represents one destination, but a variety of possibilities and potential. Overcrowding in traditional environments has led to saturated auctions in which a variety of paid placements appear against the same query. This in turn leads to increased competition, higher costs, and confusion in separating bidding pressure and genuine relevance.

It will have been lost on no one that AI now wields a huge influence over how and where consumers search. AI agents, LLMs, zero-click search and AI overviews have rapidly disrupted the space, and now people instinctively expect answers and recommendations, rather than a list of links to browse.

So much of what we know about search and PPC has changed, and that includes the industry’s inherent belief that Google and Microsoft are the only paths to reaching users. Independent search engines represent another potential source of intent and incremental value.

The myth of complete coverage

Many advertisers and PPC teams assume that simply buying into Google Search or Microsoft Advertising means they are covering off their search advertising responsibilities. But that’s not necessarily the case. Single-platform advertising offers a view of the market, but not necessarily the total market or the full spectrum of commercial interest.

Campaigns may perform well in one advertising ecosystem, but working with a small number of platforms is not enough to map the totality of search behaviour. What brands are actually doing is optimising for performance in the most familiar corners of the space.

Independent search engines offer value in different ways. They have different search indexes, users and commercial behaviour. Some combine search and browsing in a way that provides access to different audiences and behaviours.

More broadly, independent browsers, typically frequented by a free-thinking, tech-savvy user base, host hundreds of millions of users you won’t find elsewhere. For advertisers, that makes them worth considering as part of a broader search strategy.

Measure search coverage, not just search performance

For most PPC teams, performance is measured within the platforms they already buy from: impression share, CTR, CPC, conversion rate and ROAS. These are important metrics, but they tell advertisers how efficiently they are capturing demand within an ecosystem, rather than how much relevant demand exists outside it.

That’s something brands need to care about, because a campaign can perform well while still failing to capture all those users who search elsewhere. “How do I improve my Google performance?" might once have been the key strategic question. Now it’s: "How much of the relevant search market am I actually accessing?"

Advertisers can start answering that by looking at:

• Search coverage: which search environments are contributing traffic and conversions, and which aren’t represented in the current media mix?

• Incremental reach: what proportion of users reached through another search platform are genuinely new to the campaign?

• Query overlap: are different platforms delivering the same searches, or exposing different areas of demand?

• Marginal ROAS: does additional spend produce profitable incremental revenue, or simply shift existing demand?

• Customer quality: do users acquired through different search environments have comparable conversion rates, order values or lifetime value?

These metrics paint a far broader picture of search performance. Rather than simply asking whether an individual campaign is working, PPC teams can start asking whether their overall search strategy is working as hard as it could.

Think outside the box

Search advertising has traditionally been an exercise in getting better at the platforms that dominate the market. But as search fragments across different interfaces, platforms and behaviours, that approach risks becoming too narrow.

PPC teams can no longer depend on simply squeezing more performance from an existing campaign. They need a more complete view of search if they are truly going to understand where that performance is coming from, what demand they are capturing, and what they might be missing.

For advertisers, the established giants offer the scale they always did. But that doesn’t mean there is no need to test the boundaries of the existing strategy.

So what should they do? Measure search coverage alongside search performance. Look at incremental reach rather than simply platform-reported results. Test new sources of demand in a controlled way - and scale those that demonstrate genuine incremental value.