SEM stands for search engine marketing. This marketing strategy uses paid tactics to gain visibility on search engines. Instead of using organic strategies to improve your websites rank, SEM utilizes PPC (pay-per-click) platforms like Google Ads and Bing Ads to appear higher in the search results.
As a tactic SEM includes everything from setting up paid ads, to optimizing those ads to maximize conversions and ROI. Setting up search campaigns will usually first begin with keyword research and competitor insights. From there, you can set up targeted campaigns that place your business in front of a high intent audience.
While SEO is also important, and a good strategy, it can often take months to see results. When utilizing SEM you can drive clicks and conversions in a short amount of time. You can take control of when ads show, and who to show them to. It’s a great way for lower budget advertisers to be efficient because you’re reaching higher intent customers.
Furthermore, it’s a great way to increase traffic during quieter times or a sale.
At the end of the day both SEO and SEM are important and shouldn’t be seen as different strategies. Instead, they should be viewed as compliments to one another, as part of an overall digital strategy to drive awareness, conversions, and traffic from search engines.
A search campaign is a highly targeted campaign that serves ads to customers searching for your business. They are either searching for your brand, or for something related to your business or service.
A search campaign has many targeting capabilities, but the most important targeting capability comes from keywords. A keyword is what triggers your ad to serve on Google or Bing. It comprises of a word, multiple words, or sentences related to your business that someone might search for. For example, if you are an auto repair shop, you would want to include keywords like “auto repair near me.” That way your ad can show up for customers who search that, or a close variation of that, if they are near your shop.
After adding keywords, you can also layer on negative keywords. Negative keywords work like normal keywords; however, these are searches you don’t want to show up for. For example, if you are an auto repair shop, you might add the negative keyword “car for sale” or “auto sales,” if you don’t sell cars.
You can also add location targeting, as well as location exclusions, that way you aren’t serving an ad to someone 500 miles away. This allows you to be very targeted and efficient with your ad spend.
A search ad is served from designated keywords and targeting tactics established in a particular campaign. These ads are usually very high converting because they are reaching potential customers who are actively search for or something related to your business. These ads will show in the SERP (Search engine results page). You can tell which results are ads, because they will say “Ad” or “Sponsored” by the listing.
A display ad is an awareness ad. These ads will show up on various web pages and google partner sites. If you’ve ever seen a banner ad at the top, or on the side of a website, these are display ads. Targeting for display ads utilizes specified audiences. Google has a variety of demographic, interest based, and in-market audiences that it has created. You can also use your own audiences created from any first party data you have acquired, like customer lists, sales lists, etc.
A YouTube ad is very similar to a display ad, but instead of being a still image, it is a video ad. Like display these ads are also better for awareness and can really showcase your business if the video is made correctly. These ads will show on YouTube, and other partner Google sites, either before, during, or after a YouTube video is played.
Shopping ads are similar to search ads, however they utilize your product data to decide how and where to show your ads. The product data you submit through merchant center is used to determine which customers to serve your product to based on the relevance of their search. These ads will appear on the shopping tab on Google, next to search results (separate from search ads), and sometimes Google partner sites if included in your campaign.
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