What do you do if your search engine marketing campaign is not reaching the right audience?

1 Check your keywords

One of the most important factors in SEM is choosing the right keywords for your campaign. Keywords are the words and phrases that users type into search engines to find what they are looking for. You want to bid on keywords that are relevant, specific, and profitable for your business. However, you also want to avoid keywords that are too broad, too competitive, or too unrelated to your offer. For example, if you sell organic coffee beans, you don't want to bid on keywords like "coffee", "organic", or "beans", as they are too vague and will attract users who are not interested in your product. Instead, you want to bid on keywords like "organic coffee beans online", "best organic coffee beans", or "organic coffee beans delivery", as they are more descriptive and targeted to your niche.

To check your keywords, you can use tools like Google Ads Keyword Planner, Google Search Console, or SEMrush. These tools can help you find new keyword ideas, analyze the performance of your existing keywords, and identify negative keywords that you should exclude from your campaign. Negative keywords are words that you don't want your ads to show up for, as they are irrelevant or harmful to your campaign. For example, if you sell organic coffee beans, you might want to add negative keywords like "free", "cheap", or "reviews", as they are likely to attract users who are not ready to buy or who are looking for a different type of information.

By checking your keywords regularly, you can optimize your SEM campaign and reach the right audience with the right message.

2 Segment your audience

Another way to improve your SEM campaign is to segment your audience based on their characteristics, behaviors, and needs. Audience segmentation is the process of dividing your target market into smaller groups that share common traits or interests. By segmenting your audience, you can tailor your ads and landing pages to each group and increase your relevance, engagement, and conversions.

To segment your audience, you can use different criteria, such as location, language, device, age, gender, income, interests, search intent, or stage in the buyer's journey. For example, if you sell organic coffee beans, you might want to segment your audience by location and search intent. You can create different ads and landing pages for users who are searching for organic coffee beans in different cities or regions, and for users who are searching for different types of organic coffee beans, such as light roast, dark roast, or decaf.

By segmenting your audience, you can create more personalized and effective SEM campaigns that reach the right audience at the right time.

3 Test and optimize your ads and landing pages

A third way to improve your SEM campaign is to test and optimize your ads and landing pages. Testing and optimization are the processes of experimenting with different elements of your campaign, such as headlines, images, copy, calls to action, or layout, and measuring their impact on your performance metrics, such as click-through rate, conversion rate, or return on investment. By testing and optimizing your ads and landing pages, you can find out what works best for your audience and improve your campaign results.

To test and optimize your ads and landing pages, you can use tools like Google Ads, Google Optimize, or Unbounce. These tools can help you create and run different versions of your ads and landing pages, and compare their performance using statistical analysis. You can use different types of testing methods, such as A/B testing, multivariate testing, or split testing, depending on your goals and resources. For example, if you want to test the impact of a single element, such as a headline, you can use A/B testing, which compares two versions of your ad or landing page with only one difference. If you want to test the impact of multiple elements, such as a headline and an image, you can use multivariate testing, which compares several versions of your ad or landing page with different combinations of elements.

By testing and optimizing your ads and landing pages, you can enhance your SEM campaign and reach the right audience with the right offer.

4 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?