What is search engine marketing, how it works?

What is Search Engine Marketing (SEM) Definition:

    Search engine marketing or SEM is the type of digital marketing in which marketing is done by running ads using a search engine service like Google Ads or Bing Ads. In SEM a brand or company focus on generating leads and sales by spending a specific amount of budget on Ad campaigns. It is also known as paid marketing. A short-term effort to gain quick results and gain more reach. 

Search Engine Marketing.jpg

Search Engine Marketing and its types:

    Search Engine Marketing is one of the best ways to use a budget to get specific results. although it is preferred to get organic results but sometimes running ads becomes necessary for a brand. Running ads ensures a specific result for a short period of time therefore every time a brand needs to focus on quick results, they start running ad campaigns. Search engines give you an opportunity to target a large number of audiences by allowing you to run ads on Search engine result pages (SERP), Websites and other services provided by specific search engines. if you talk about google, it allows you to run ads on SERP, websites and YouTube. Only YouTube alone is used by 55% of marketers and generates a total of 8 billion in revenue by running ads. This shows the role of SEM in digital marketing. There are two main types of ads in SEM:

Pay-per-click (PPC) Ads

Product listing ads (PLA) Ads

Pay-Per- click (PPC) Ads:

    Pay-per click ads are defined by their name. As the name says in this particular type of ads, you pay for every click you get on your ad. This method optimizes your budget on ad campaign, and you only pay for the results you desire. Most of the times SEM is referred as PPC marketing as this is the main type of advertising that is done in SEM. Pay- per click strategy can be applied on every type of campaign whether you are running a brand awareness campaign or a lead generation campaign. Most of the beginners makes a mistake that brand awareness campaigns can't be done using PPC strategy, but they forget that they have a landing page, and that landing page works as their click.

Product listing ads (PLA) Ads:

    These ads are specific for E-commerce sites. As we know that ecommerce sites have products on their websites and their main focus is how to list a product highest on Google SERP. by using product listing ads, they can simply promote their products on SERP and showcase their products on the top.

Types of networks google operates on: 

    Before we understand how to create an Ad campaign in SEM, we need to understand the type of networks google operates on. There are two main networks google shows its data to. "Search network" and "Display network". Let's understand what these networks really are.

Google's Search network:

    Google Serach network is the network where google shows data to its audience on the search pages. When you go to google and search for something, that's where google search network is working and shows you all the data related to your searched keyword. In this network all the data that is shown to the users is based on the user's interest. Therefor when you run your ads on google search network, its likely for you to have more engagements on your ads. The quality of audience that you get from google search network is more likely to become your potential customers.

Google's Display network:

    Google display network is the network where google shows data to the audience on the basis of suggestions and local interests. When you search anything on google and click on a website, you would see some ads running on that website. Thats google display network showing you ads and content. In display network data is shown on the basis of interests and local trends. sometimes this data is relatable and useful for you and sometimes it is not. Therefore, when you run ads in google display network its more likely to have less engagements, that's why experts prefer to run ads in display networks when they want to get brand awareness.   

Difference between Search network and Display network:

Difference between google search network and display network.jpg  

Setting-up a PPC campaign on google:

    Looking to setup your first PPC campaign using google ads? here are few tips on how you can improve your google ads campaign. When setting up a PPC campaign you need to focus on the following points:

• Choosing the right network for your campaign.

• Choosing right audience for your campaign.

• Choosing right keywords to target.

• Not to optimize the audience too narrow to avoid getting less results.

• Setting up the right budget on right place.

How to make a PPC campaign effective:

    In order to make your PPC campaign affective you need to focus on these two main key points.

• Increasing its click through rate (CTR)
• Lowering its cost per click (CPC)

    The success of any PPC campaign depends on these two factors. If you manage these, your PPC campaign can give you a better conversion rate and generate more sales and leads by spending less budget. Here is how you can do both of these.

Make your ads and campaign relative to each other:

    When running a PPC campaign make sure that the ad you are creating is related to your campaign. Sometimes people mix up their campaign goals and forget that the ad they are creating should be related with their current campaign goals. The more aligned your goals are with your ad, the better conversion you get. 

Switch to manual bidding:

    This is one of the key factors that creates a big difference in your PPC campaign. When setting up a campaign on google ads, it suggests you automatic bidding and google choose the average CPC for your campaign depending on the best suited goals. although it's very helpful as it saves a lot of time, but it doesn't allow you to setup your own bids. Switching to manual bid allows you to bid on the keywords that has more potential to give you conversions. 

Run your campaigns via Search network only:

    Always run your PPC campaign via search network when you know that your audience will be looking for that keyword you used in your bidding in google search. When you are running a PPC campaign to drive more conversions and generate more sales and leads, then using search network should be your first choice. Placing your ad in the search result will give you better conversion and will generate more sales and leads. 

Adjust your bids on the basis of location, devices, day and time for maximum reach:

    Adjusting a bid on the basis of location, devices, days and time helps your PPC campaign to run only for those location, devices, days and times when your ad has more chances to get conversions. Imagine your Ad is running in Pakistan but the product you are trying to sell can only be delivered in India. You will see that even though your ad has a lot of views and CTR, but you won't get any conversions as no one will buy that product. Thats the same case with Days, Times and Devices. You have to optimize your PPC campaign in such a way that it runs on the best possible time for conversions, on days that brings out most sales and devices (i.e. mobile or desktop) that your potential audience uses the most.

Review your keywords and include long-tail keywords more:

   Using long tail keywords is one of the most effective ways to make a PPC campaign perform better. Long tail keywords are actually the search queries that people use to search on google and by using longtail keywords in your PPC campaign, you can directly target the potential audience that will give you conversion. Never ignore the fact that "Longtail keywords generate 80% of the organic traffic".

Common mistakes while creating a PPC campaign:

    Some common mistake that most of the people do while creating a PPC campaign are as follows:

• Creating the whole campaign on Google ads suggestions.

• Not setting up negative keywords.

• Not keeping a track of their ad campaigns.

• Creating multiple ad campaigns at the same time.  

You can simply avoid these mistakes with some pre research, and you can have better results from your PPC campaigns.

Conclusion:

    Search engine marketing is not that easy as everyone assumes about it. Running proper campaigns, spending the right budget and getting the right results from your campaign depends on how you setup that campaign in the first place. It is always recommended to conduct a pre research before you create your ad campaign.

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