Search engine marketing (SEM) is a powerful way to reach your target audience online, but it can also be challenging to optimize your budget across different campaigns and platforms. How can you allocate your SEM budget effectively and efficiently? Here are some tips to help you plan and execute your SEM strategy.
Before you start spending money on SEM, you need to have a clear idea of what you want to achieve and how you will measure your success. Do you want to increase traffic, conversions, leads, sales, or brand awareness? What are the key performance indicators (KPIs) that reflect your goals, such as click-through rate, cost per acquisition, return on ad spend, or impression share? Having SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound) goals and KPIs will help you align your budget with your desired outcomes and track your progress.
You need to establish business goals first. From there you can break down the goals for campaigns or campaign groups to measurable KPIs (some may be traffic, others may be conversions/leads or sales, depending on the business goals. For each you need to set up a budget and from there build out campaigns, their KPIs and optimization. When working on multiple search engines this can become more complex, but understanding reach/share of each engine along with their expected return you can establish a wholistic SEM strategy.
Simplify Simplify Simplify. ALWAYS translate back to Nr. 1 below if you are in the C-suite and want to be taken seriously as a CMO/marketeer. 1. Business goals. Simply stated either, Volume, Turnover or Margin 2. Marketing goals, simply stated the ones above leads, traffic, sales, brand awareness etc. 3. SEM goals, simply stated, ROAS, CPL, CPC, Cost per Conversion etc.
Another essential step in SEM budget allocation is to understand your market and your keywords. You need to know who your target audience is, what their needs and pain points are, what keywords they use to search for your products or services, and how competitive those keywords are. You can use tools like Google Keyword Planner, Google Trends, or SEMrush to conduct keyword research and find out the search volume, cost per click, and difficulty of your target keywords. This will help you identify the most relevant and profitable keywords for your campaigns and platforms.
Depending on your goals, market, and keywords, you may want to use different platforms and channels for your SEM campaigns. The most popular platforms are Google Ads and Bing Ads, which allow you to bid on keywords and display your ads on the search engine results pages (SERPs) or on partner websites. You can also use other channels like social media ads, display ads, video ads, or remarketing ads to complement your search ads and reach your audience across different stages of the buyer's journey. You should allocate your budget according to the performance and potential of each platform and channel, as well as the preferences and behavior of your audience.
Once you have launched your SEM campaigns, you need to monitor and analyze their results and make adjustments as needed. You should use tools like Google Analytics, Google Ads Manager, or Bing Ads Manager to track your KPIs and see how your campaigns are performing on each platform and channel. You should also run A/B tests to compare different versions of your ads, landing pages, keywords, bids, or targeting options and see which ones generate the best results. By testing and optimizing your campaigns regularly, you can improve your return on investment and allocate your budget more efficiently.
Finally, you should review and revise your SEM budget periodically to ensure that it is aligned with your goals and market conditions. You may need to increase or decrease your budget depending on the seasonality, demand, competition, or performance of your campaigns. You may also need to reallocate your budget across different platforms and channels based on the changes in your audience's behavior, preferences, or needs. By reviewing and revising your budget, you can stay ahead of the curve and maximize your SEM results.