What Are the Benefits of Search Engine Marketing?
When properly implemented, SEM strategies place ads on the search engine pages that your target audience accesses. An ad does not cost anything until a member of your target audience clicks it.
One of the most important benefits of SEM is it follows the timeless principle of “you get what you paid for.”
Here are a few more benefits:
Gets the Attention of Your Target Audience at the Right Time
SEM not only reaches your target audience, it does so right when they know what they want in a product or service. For example, a member of your target audience uses the same keywords to find a product or service that you have placed in one of your paid ads.
This means you get your paid ads in front of the highly engaged members of your target audience.
Easy Digital Marketing Strategy to Implement
Although it might take some time for you to reap the financial rewards of an SEM campaign, it should not take you much time to get one started. You can make changes on the fly to ensure you target your keywords to the right marketing segment.
You Can Quantify SEM
SEM gives you the tools to measure the success of your campaign. Simply conduct an in-depth analysis of your campaign to improve your mix of keywords. Tracking the performance of your SEM campaign allows you to spend your digital marketing dollars wisely.
You can determine how much business you are attracting by using SEM.
Increase Brand Awareness
SEM does much more than attract potential customers to your business. It also can boost your brand awareness. Because SEM is used to improve the rankings of your products and services, you should attract more consumers to your business website.
As time passes for your SEM campaign, you should notice the keywords used by your customer prospects becoming more connected to your brand.
SEM vs. SEO vs. PPC
Here we have three common acronyms. Now, let’s see how they differ.
SEM
SEM uses strategically placed ads on search engine results pages to attract interest from your target audience. The goal of SEM is to get your products and services to appear more often in consumer searches.
SEO
Search engine optimization (SEO) uses the best practices for getting high-ranked organic search results. SEO is about implementing digital marketing tactics that do not require spending any money.
PPC
As a paid marketing strategy, Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising is a component of SEM. PPC ads do not target searches, Instead, they land on digital advertising platforms such as Google Ads and Facebook Ads.
What is SEM Targeting?
When you target keywords, you are telling a search engine platform such as Google when to display your ads. By implementing additional SEM targeting, you tell Google when to display your ads and who should see the ads.
Location Targeting
By displaying ads to potential customers that are located in a specific zip code or a designated geographic area, you narrow the scope of your SEM marketing campaign.
Date and Time Targeting
Your online ads display only on certain days and at certain times. For example, if you own a restaurant that offers brunch, you can display SEM ads on Saturday nights and Sunday mornings to reach potential customers that want to find a great spot for brunch.
Device Targeting
As a recently introduced tool, device targeting allows you to display your ads on certain devices. With a growing number of consumers making purchases via mobile devices, targeting your ads by a device can deliver a high rate of return.
Demographic Targeting
Based mostly on age and gender, demographic targeting is an effective way to reach your target audience.
Learn more about the benefits of implementing an SEM strategy, as well as how to leverage this type of digital marketing strategy for your business. Schedule a free consultation today with one of the digital marketing experts at WSI.
