How To Set Up Your Search Engine Marketing Campaign

Search Engine Marketing (or Internet Marketing known to some), is rapidly breaking through as a competent and efficacious online customer acquisition channel. A significant number of companies (from the SMEs to MNCs) are now taking to this source of marketing very seriously simply because, a well-executed campaign will bring about massive returns on investment, and at the same time, it also has astounding potential for increased sales, raised brand awareness, and a boost in online visibility.

In a nut shell, SEM is not JUST about garnering traffic but also QUALITY traffic. Quality in this sense, would mean bringing you the RIGHT potential customers. I will not bore you with the technicalities of the several available tools that facilitate the building of your online advert, but instead, I will home in on Google Adwords, the way to go for creating your ads and attracting the right customers.

Why it works? Simply because you can have targeted reach, greater control of your budget to meet your marketing objectives and also measurable value- simple no minimum spending requirement or time commitment!

To kick start your own SEM campaign, it is highly advisable to go through the online tutorials readily available at the Adwords Learning Center. A series of lessons about the Google AdWords advertising program; whether you’re just getting started with AdWords, seeking to improve your ad performance, or studying for the Google Advertising Professionals exam, you’ll definitely find the lessons designed to help you learn at your own pace.

The notes are distinctly divided into 2 segments; Adwords Beginner and Adwords Expert. To give you a rough gauge of what to expect,

Adwords Beginner includes:

• Introduction to Adwords
• Getting started with Adwords
• Targeting
• Costs and billing

Adwords Experts includes:

• Tracking ad performance
• Optimizing ad performance
• The adwords toolbox
• Google analytics
• Managing multiple accounts

Each of these headers encompass comprehensive information which you would find relevant when attempting to get your ads up and running! They essentially bring you through the A-Z of search engine marketing.

Setting up your campaign - How do we go about setting up campaigns?

After providing your credit card details, you can immediately begin your SEM adventure by “creating a new campaign” via the campaign management tab. (at this point, you get on your mark, get set, and get ready to go)

This diagram fundamentally sums up whats involve in launching a campaign. Allow me to break it down further beginning from the back; the keywords. In case you havent already noticed, keywords, are imperative to Adwords success. And how do we create a keyword list?

1. Expand your keyword list to include as many relevant words as possible (terms that you think your users will most likely be using in search queries)
2. Target the keyword list by using keyword matching options (to reach your desired audiences, you can choose to designate each of your keywords as a broad, phrase, exact or negative match. Each type of match provides a varying degree of exposure)
3. Refine your keyword list (eliminate keywords you deem irrelevant)
4. Group the keywords in clusters to be paired with different ads (this is basically your Adgroups- organizing and grouping keywords is crucial because you’ll need to write an ad copy targeted to each group)

After setting up this portion of your campaign, you will then proceed on to create your ad. Creating a well-crafted ad is pivotal to your website’s success.

You need to ask yourself 3 questions:

• What product or service are you offering?
  Perhaps your store carries an imported brand of Japanese apparel, or a line of specialized orthopedic footwear. Be specific and tell your customers exactly what you have to offer, preferably in the first line of your ad.

• What is different about your product or service that makes it better than your competitors’? Do you have a special offer?
  If you’re running a sale, tell your customers that your shoes are 50% off, or that you offer free shipping on all orders over $100. (Make sure these special offers are reflected on your site.)

• What is your “call to action”, or the action that you want searchers who see your ad to perform?
  If you want searchers who see your ad to browse your product selection, then say that. Or if you want them to sign up on your mailing list to receive a coupon, mention that in your ad text.

Ads that are specific about a product or service, which never fails to mention differentiating factors, and have a strong call to action tend to perform better than ads that only use generic terms. You will need to comply with a range of editorial policies, one of which is the character limit of each line of your ad text. It is mandatory for you to follow 25 characters for the first line, 35 characters for the second and third lines of text, and 35 characters for your display URL.

The last and final step in creating your campaign is setting your daily ad expenditure (budget) and your maximum cost-per-click. After affirming these amounts, you can finally take a breather by doing a review of the “meat and potatoes” of your campaign.

Okay, actually, scratch that, the truly absolute FINAL step would be clicking save and watching your campaign go live!

Phew! We are finally done, and of course, me explaining this in layman’s terms could actually mean that attempting to do this on your own may foresee yourself engaging in this burdensome, uphill battle!

So, why dont you just leave it to US to do the work for YOU, while YOU take the back seat and see US garnering your desired traffic for you!