Search engine advertising (SEA) is a form of online marketing in which companies place paid adverts in search engine results.
The adverts are displayed above or next to the organic search results and are often labelled "Ad" or "Advertisement". By paying per click (pay-per-click), companies are only charged when users click on their adverts. The advertising materials range from text adverts to visual adverts and videos. Companies can target their adverts according to their target group.
An example of search engine advertising is when a user searches for "buy running shoes" on Google and paid adverts are published at the top of the page, presenting relevant running shoe offers from various companies. The companies bid for these placements and are only charged when the user clicks on their advert.
Frequently used search engines are Google, Bing or Yahoo.