search engine marketing
SEM – The spend to glory
Businesses looking to build their brand faster or to generate quick leads should opt for search engine marketing. The spend can be temporary, for a discount sale or as a shot-in-the-arm for the business. Well-to-do businesses should look at balancing SEM spend with SEO efforts for best possible results.
SEM works best!
Using search engine marketing to execute a PPC strategy is a requirement based decision. We calculate allocation of spend based on niche data analysis and expected results. SMM, by no means is a long-term solution for lead generation.
Serch engine marketing for branding!
The king of search, Google says, SEM improves brand awareness by over 80%. Clicks or no clicks, your brand appears in the top fold of keyword related search results when you maximise the bid. SMM is the only conversion-focussed digital marketing tool and is not the only reason to invest in search engine marketing.
Google AdWords display ads to over 80% of internet users, which is quite a spread. The same data proves that a business makes about 2X revenue for every $ spent on SEM. Also, over 52% of visitors who interact with PPC ads follow it up with calls to the advertisers.
SEM also makes you money in addition to creating awareness and providing a great branding spread.
Why search engine marketing?
Immediate results
Compared to other marketing processes like SEO or SMM, which could take a long time to show results, SEM is ready to deliver from day one.
Get visitors instantly
* Branding
According to Google, using search engine marketing or PPC ads through Google AdWords improves brand awareness by 80%. We bracket search engine marketing as a bottom-funnel marketing channel, however, your brand’s visibility, right on top of the organic results of a search page, makes such branding possible. Google displays it for all searchers to see, irrespective of clicks. That keywords are organic and display ads depend on them, makes it even more relevant for brand recognition.
* Instant Results
Digital marketing channels, like search engine optimization, are long-term marketing strategies, while search engine marketing brings in immediate results. It gets into action once the ad you create gets approved, which could take a maximum of one business day. Though account maintenance and ad optimization require regular attention, the clicks roll in. Clicks and sales are live now and this is the this is the fastest marketing strategy that begets results.
* More Qualified Leads
Inbound traffic is mixed, but search engine marketing brings in the right targeted traffic. Google ensures it displayed the ads on relevant searches and not strewn across the virtual space. We can define easily custom audiences easily and you can find the right visitors who are qualified to buy. Usage of negative keywords ensures filters help in choosing best conversion options.
* Practical Ads
Visitors or searchers click on top of the search results and since your PPC ads are placed right above the organic results, the chances of a click are very high. People want their queries answered quickly, and that further encourages clicks. Unlike other advertising mediums where people avoid advertisements, in case of search engine marketing it is reverse, because they serve the right purpose and save time and resources.
Relevant marketing
Unlike SEO and SMM, search engine marketing has more chances of bringing in targeted traffic faster, because of super-focused ad deliveries, regularly.
Clicks and data matter
* Fastest way to the top
PPC Ads take up prime real estate on search engine result pages. Opting for PPC ensures your place right there, at the top. Take care of the quality score (QS) and ensure that your bid is high enough to appear right on top. Being at the top converts towards more clicks and, thus, more business. Craft your SEM campaigns carefully to create that critical balance between your budget and placement. Don’t overspend to stay at the top, if it is not viable or if you are blowing up your budget quicker than planned.
* Leverage marketing data
A PPC campaign provides great insights into marketing data, especially about visitors who clicked through your ad. We can leverage this data in other digital marketing processes. Data like geo-location, time spent on pages, devices used etc. are very important insights. Data on the most popular keywords that get clicks, besides the above data can drive your SEO strategy better.
* PPC Ads help maximise ad spend
PPC ensures they charge you only when someone clicks on your ads, unlike the ‘cost per impression’ strategy. This ensures that your dollar goes a long way in getting you that click. Maximizing ad spend is a strategy that can help you get the best results for the spend, because of the amazing ROI that search engine marketing offers.
* Readymade customers
The best advantage of PPC advertising is that you get those visitors to your website who are already looking for products or services you provide. They are readymade customers waiting to buy. So, you are at the right place at the right time, every time. Here, the potential for sale is much higher compared to inbound traffic from other means. Use advanced targeting options to kill it efficiently.
No account size limitation
Search engine marketing can start with the smallest budget, it is efffective and can bring wonderful results when managed well.
Why search engine marketing?
* Smallest budgets
The critical consideration while opting for search engine marketing is the cost. Many small businesses may be of the opinion that the spend may not bring good ROI. Google says every dollar invested in Adwords has brought in twice in revenue. So, over a period, you will probably end up doubling your Adwords budgets. There is potential here, however, careful account management is the key the success. One can start as low as $5, so that is good news for small and localized businesses, and in fact it works wonders.
* Small Businesses
For small business or startups, SEM is a boon since it can help kick-start a business. All it needs is a planned spend, budget and proper monitoring. A small business may not have a big budget, however, they should invest in to pump it up, periodically. This will help them create some quick business, besides the much-needed branding and awareness in the online space.
* Local Marketing
Many visitors look to fulfilling needs in adjoining areas with searches like “eateries near me” or “home food delivery in London”. SEM is well-equipped to throw up best local results for such searches. For brick-and-mortar business marketing products in the neighbourhood, PPC advertising works great. We know that 75% of searchers tend to visit the physical store after a search.
* Consistent Traffic Source
We are sure that your business will look to create regular traffic flow to ensure sales and visibility in addition to creating a sustainable business model. Irrespective of having a good traffic flow, sometimes traffic may plummet or get spiky, ending in loss of business for which there could be myriad reasons. Search engine marketing comes to the rescue here and you can fill in those gaps. If you are already using PPC to drive traffic, you can up the budget to ensure that your business is smooth.
User intent analytics
Search engine marketing brings in good data that deals with user intent, which can for the basis of your SEO process to make it effective.
Analyse and tweak
* Importance of analytics
All business processes use data to measure. This could be anything from profitability to interest rates, and the crucial element here is data. Search engine marketing is a process that requires thorough monitoring of such data and analysis to find glitches or to measure success rates. Since SEM is a PPC activity, and involves click controlled payments, make sure that you are not leaking hard-earned $$$ and that is possible by analyzing the analytics.
* Measurable metrics
A good analytics team, like ours, can provide crucial data dealing with converting keywords, user insights, user intent, traffic patterns, geographical data, conversion rates, engagement statistics and much more. We achieve all this using the data coming from your PPC dashboard and analyzing it using artificial intelligence. We developed the AI tool we use in-house and allows us to tweak with domain specific inputs.
* Decision making
The data that we collect and analyze will help tweak your SEM for best results. On the top end, this data can also help make major business decisions and will help other areas of digital marketing, like social media marketing, or search engine optimization, in a way to tweak your posts, content and advertising. We can help you do that easily.
* Campaign management
Being a bespoke marketing agency, we do not follow generic analysis trends. Specific data is used to get specific outcomes. Analytics are used to take decisions after serious consideration of what your business intends to achieve. We tailor every process to your business. We coupled domain intelligence with your data to glean the best analytics is critical to your marketing.
Elements to keep in mind
Before you start spending...
SEM is a direct spend and thus needs proper planning and management regularly. Tweaking and experimenting works well after analysis.
The SEM strategy
* Define your strategy
Before you plan, understand your audience and ensure that you know everything – demographics, tastes, needs, etc. The next step is to relate how your service or product will best fit their needs. Next, identify the competition and your market share or position. Before you build a campaign, ensure you have specific goals in mind – traffic, sales or other metrics you want to check ROI with.
* Keyword research
This is the most important phase before you spend. Identify the right keywords by understanding how your prospects would search for you. Understanding their search jargon is highly critical to success. Interact with customers, understand them, and isolate key phrases. You can use keyword research tools to boost effectiveness.
* Website content
Make your website search engine friendly and ensure that we optimize the content for the key phrases you have chosen above. Ensure that the content is informative, crisp and clear without being Shakespearean. Tagging your landing pages and images is equally important to SEM, SMM and SEO processes.
* Bidding and relevance
Bid according to your budgets to get best results with relevant keywords. Do not overbid. Make sure that you set the metrics before deploying the campaign – monthly and daily budgets, geo-targeting and ad copies as per guidelines [AdWords/PPC]. Now measure and manage daily.
Competition data
Running an SEM campaign open up insights into competition data like keywords used, bids etc, which can be critical to strategize other marketing efforts.
Useful data
* Google Ads data
Isolate your key phrases, add some new phrases and choose the profitable ones. Now, run them through Google Auction Insights and you will get insights on which of your competitors take part in the auction, the average ad position and the impression shares of your competitors. With a little thought and analysis, you can predict the ROI and the results. Planning a new campaign will not be a challenge anymore.
* Leverage Bing Ads
After the Google Auction Insights, run the same set of keywords through the Bing Ads Campaign Planner. You will see some more data that will give you insights into industry benchmarks, competitor’s activity and their ad coverage and position for those keywords. The analysis may be identical, but the data is very useful for planning more effective campaigns.
* Choose your platform
Choosing a PPC platform is more domain and audience profile dependent, similar to the geographical or demographical filters you may create. However, choosing the right SEM platform is critical. For example, an ad about a game app is more relevant on mobiles than on desktops, so the bid will be lesser for desktops. This knowledge could be an advantage in strategy planning.
* Implement and test
Once finished with competitor analysis for SEM, build your strategy with your insights and experience and create an actionable plan. Take your time. Getting your search engine marketing right also depends on other factors that your competition may implement, paid or not. Killing the competition just got interesting.
PPC is about experimenting
PPC is an ever-changing process and experimenting is the key. Using AI, we can create thousands of ads and analyze results before deploying.
Be cutting edge
* New features
Google keeps introducing new features to better your AdWords campaigns. Keep abreast, since it is the key to be one up on your competition. Focus on optimizing audiences and adding new ad extensions. We have integrated many recent additions besides a few in beta – Promotion extensions, Lead form extensions, Gallery ads, Image extension, Associate audiences and so on.
* Varied PPC
Keep and eye out all the time for new paid advertising platforms, Google is not the end game, depending on geographies and your audience profiles, you can consider trying Bing Ads, Facebook Ads, LinkedIn audiences, Pinterest Ads, Snapchat ads and WhatsApp marketing. With PPC, try to be omnipresent for your audience.
* Customize for mobile phones
Mobile PPC ads get ignored, often. In most niches, mobile traffic has overtaken desktop traffic and, not being there, is a sin. Instead of wasting paid budgets, you can as well optimize for the mobile and improve leads and conversions. Many domains have seen over 75% clicks originating from mobile phones, get on the bandwagon.
* Use scripts
You can add scripts to your Google Ads account. Learn this. It will reduce a lot of daily repetitive tasks. You can find a lot of free scripts and templates across the internet and tweaking them to your use is no rocket science. Keep experimenting, it is about change.
Other PPC platforms
One size doesn’t fit all, so ensure that your ads are diversified enough, to be displayed on various platforms that can save you money as well as effort.
More PPC platforms
* AdRoll
One of the most preferred re-targeting networks for PPC advertisers, AdRoll comes with enhanced spread because it leverages networks like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Google, to help conversions. AdRoll has a huge ad exchange program that can help place your ads on thousands of websites. We know AdRoll for its capabilities of reaching almost every re-targetable visitor. Re-targeting is, of course, critical to PPC success.
* RevContent
Content advertising is the strength of RevContent. RevContent displays relevant content ads on its own network and that helps improve CTR and conversion rates. Presently, RevContent gets over 260 billion clicks, which sounds like crazy traffic and obviously, content based ads attract relevant and targeted traffic, thus bettering conversion rates.
* Advertise(.com)
Contextual advertising, social advertising and video advertising are the strengths of Advertise. This is an excellent platform to get tons of traffic and does not cost you the planet. Advertise is one of the oldest PPC networks and comes with a stellar reputation. If you are looking at low cost, low competition PPC, Advertise is your best option.
* AdBlade
Though lesser known of the PPC networks, AdBlade is a great option with a reach of 300+ million. AdBlade is probably the only network that offers targeting premium websites. AdBlade started in 2008, and works with many brands, agencies and direct response advertisers. Very inexpensive and effective, AdBlade can help you reach millions of visitors, quickly.
PPC works if managed well
At efficaci, we have managed multiple ad campaigns with varying budgets, right up to $300,000. We are abreast and have in-house analytical AI tools that help deliver the best Ads, automatically. A/B resting is automated and delivers wonderful results.
Talk to us today with your online advertising, PPC or search engine marketing needs to get the best bang for your buck.
The first consultation is on the house – FREE!