Jewelry ECOMM Tech
Beginner’s Crash Course: What Is SEM? October 05, 2018 (0 comments)
Put simply, SEM (Search Engine Marketing) consists of increasing a website’s visibility on search engine result pages (SERPs) through paid advertising.
In longer form, it is an excellent medium for reaching both “hot and qualified” leads because it allows a business to reach a consumer at the very same moment in which that consumer is searching for a service or product provided by that business. Although we are firm believers in utilizing the full media mix within your allotted budget, in order to reach consumers at different touch points and stages within the buying cycle; not many other mediums can claim the ad relevancy that SEM brings to the table.
With a traditional SEM campaign, businesses capitalize on their ad spend by only paying when consumers take action by clicking on their ad or any number of ad extensions. No clicks means no money spent. We focus on running SEM campaigns primarily within the GSN (Google Search Network) and its respective search partners due to a very lopsided demand for searches in comparison to other networks. Through these SEM campaigns we also track conversions, such as phone calls, shopping cart activity and eventual online purchases driven directly from search ads.
So what does it take to launch and effectively manage an SEM campaign? As you can imagine, quite a bit!
Here are a few points for starters:
- Define your campaign – take the time to research what relevant revenue streams you want to focus on, and use those to build out your ad groups
- Target the right customers for your product by using the full range of Google’s capabilities (remarketing lists, affinity audiences, the list goes on)
- Use the right keywords – get specific with brand names, relevant search locations and different match types
- Write clear, concise, engaging and appealing ads
- Be hands on – Monitor your campaign as much as possible!
- Allow a minimum 30-90 day launch window for optimizations to take full effect
- Sync as many Google platforms as possible (Analytics, My Business, Merchant Center) in order to take full advantage of Google’s conversion tracking and extension capabilities
- A/B test different bidding strategies, ad copy and keyword targeting to ensure your campaign is always progressing!