How to use your SEM campaign as a long term sales tool

The common misconception is that once the Search Engine Marketing (SEM) campaign is set up it can run itself. Even if your campaign is going great in the first month, you need to develop and fine-tune all campaign elements over the next 4-5 months. We at Trendhaus know that the longer you run SEM campaigns and “tweak” them, the more successful they become (for the same amounts of media budget). So, over the next six months, invest some time in your campaign performance. Follow these steps consistently and turn your SEM campaign into a long term sales engine! Insert your tracking code If you haven’t already inserted a conversion tracking code in the trial period, now is the time to insert it! Decide what you want people to ultimately do on your site i.e. purchase online, enquire or sign up and then place the code behind this ‘goal’ HTML page. The code will then track exactly how many purchases, enquiries or sign ups occurred as a result of your SEM campaign. You can then filter these results to see which keywords and text ads convert for you and really generate sales. Use analytics and reporting tools Google offers an analytics tool which allows users to learn more about who their visitors are, where they come from and how they interact on your site. The analytics function gives statistics on not only your SEM campaigns but other marketing initiatives as well so you can compare what is working for you. Other search engines also offer reporting tools which return important data on the effectiveness of your text ads and keywords. Regularly running these reporting tools will enable you to write better text ads and strengthen your marketing activities. Pause ineffective keywords Three months into the campaign, you should analyze the performance of you various key words and pause words which are not performing in regards to clicks and conversion data. We have clients who run their entire campaign with 10 key words only. These “golden nugget” words generate significant amounts of new client leads and/or online sales for them. Pausing ‘ineffective’ words will enable you to allocate your budget more effectively to better performing words. Amend text ads for relevancy Relevancy is a big thing in search engine marketing. There is nothing worse than seeing an ad that does not speak to the end consumer. For example: a business that is advertising their services in purely functional terms will run the risk of performing poorly, simply due to inappropriate copy writing for the web. If copy writing isn’t your strength outsource this part of your campaign to a specialist. It can make a world of difference to your campaign performance and in the end to your sales. Also, amend text ads for location and keyword relevancy. Putting the suburb in the title will help deter wasteful clicks and save budget. For example: if a user is searching for a service in “Cronulla” and your ad shows with “Sydney CBD” in the title, they are less likely to click on it as it is not relevant to them. This increases your click through rate and saves the budget for people that are looking for products or services in your location. Bidding strategy Imagine the search engine market as something like the stock exchange. Competitors are constantly entering and exiting the market, driving the ‘market price’ for popular key words up and sometimes down. If you don’t consistently monitor and amend your bids you will soon find yourself on page three of the sponsored links. Coupled with the so-called ‘quality score’ for your text ads, search engines pretty much place the highest bidder for a particular keyword on position one. Understandably, this is where everyone wants to be because you will get the most traffic to your website. However, you have to remember that just like the stock exchange there are small and large players in SEM. Some companies have a lot of budget to spend when you may not. Be smart with your bidding! Don’t bid $10 on one word when you only have a daily budget of $30. In this case you should either reconsider your budget or look for another, more cost-effective type of marketing for your business. Monitor best click days After running your campaign for at least four months, you will begin to see clear trends in click patterns. Determine the days in which your campaign receives the most clicks as well as conversions. After four months, many of my clients move the budget from the least performing days and shift it to the best performing days only. Start off by eliminating one day and then over time you can refine your campaign in a way that will enable you to forecast results. The one thing I have learnt about search engine marketing is that it’s not rocket science. However, it is time consuming and it needs 100% dedication. You need to allocate at least 3-4 hours per week to refine and analyze your campaign to make it work for you. Understandably, for anybody trying to run a business, 3-5 hours a week is a big ask especially when business is booming from the SEM campaign. If you cannot dedicate this time away from your business, sometimes it is best to enlist the help of a good agency or dedicated professional. That way, you can focus on your core business and let the experts do what they are best at – generating leads and sales for you.