One visitor, start to finish
Follow a single person from a social media ad, through an article and a related-search block, to an advertiser’s website.
One visitor, start to finish
1/7
An ad in the feed
Asha is scrolling a social app and sees an ad: “SUV lease deals compared for 2026”. The arbitrageur paid the app to show it. This is the paid traffic half of Social-to-search.
- An ad in the feed: Asha is scrolling a social app and sees an ad: “SUV lease deals compared for 2026”. The arbitrageur paid the app to show it. This is the paid traffic half of Social-to-search.
- She taps it: The tap costs the arbitrageur about $0.20 (illustrative). Asha lands on a content page: a real, readable article about leasing an SUV, on a site the arbitrageur runs.
- The article offers related searches: Inside the article sits a labelled block of related search terms such as “SUV lease deals near me”. This is Google’s RSOC unit. The page also tells Google the wording of the ad she came from (referrerAdCreative) so the terms can be checked against it.
- First click: choosing a topic: Asha taps one term. Nobody is paid for this click; it simply tells the system what she wants to search for. The share of visitors who do this is the lander CTR.
- A results page with ads: A search results page opens on the same site. Its sponsored listings are supplied by the search engine and marked as ads. Advertisers who bid on that phrase compete to appear here.
- Second click: the one that pays: Asha clicks a leasing company’s ad. The advertiser is charged, say, $1.00, and a share flows back to the arbitrageur. Two clicks, one paid: that is the two-click flow.
- The advertiser judges the result: If Asha asks for a quote, the advertiser got what it paid for: an advertiser conversion. If visitors like her rarely do, the engine learns that this traffic is worth less, and prices it down or cuts it off.
Step by step
- An ad in the feed (Step 1)Asha is scrolling a social app and sees an ad: “SUV lease deals compared for 2026”. The arbitrageur paid the app to show it. This is the paid traffic half of Social-to-search.
- She taps it (Step 2)The tap costs the arbitrageur about $0.20 (illustrative). Asha lands on a content page: a real, readable article about leasing an SUV, on a site the arbitrageur runs.
- The article offers related searches (Step 3)Inside the article sits a labelled block of related search terms such as “SUV lease deals near me”. This is Google’s RSOC unit. The page also tells Google the wording of the ad she came from (referrerAdCreative) so the terms can be checked against it.
- First click: choosing a topic (Click 1)Asha taps one term. Nobody is paid for this click; it simply tells the system what she wants to search for. The share of visitors who do this is the lander CTR.
- A results page with ads (Results)A search results page opens on the same site. Its sponsored listings are supplied by the search engine and marked as ads. Advertisers who bid on that phrase compete to appear here.
- Second click: the one that pays (Click 2)Asha clicks a leasing company’s ad. The advertiser is charged, say, $1.00, and a share flows back to the arbitrageur. Two clicks, one paid: that is the two-click flow.
- The advertiser judges the result (Outcome)If Asha asks for a quote, the advertiser got what it paid for: an advertiser conversion. If visitors like her rarely do, the engine learns that this traffic is worth less, and prices it down or cuts it off.