How to setup a successful SEM or PPC Campaign ?

In the last post I mentioned about what is SEO and how to make SEO work, usually setting up a SEO and making it work is a time consuming process and takes time, typically around 3 months of effort at least to start of and may be few years to get a decent outcome. Unfortunately not always a business can afford to wait this long in order to make this happen, the only way to take this forward is perhaps the paid search option or PPC(Pay Per Click).

The PPC has the following elements:

1. Account Setup in Google AdWords, Bing Ads others
2. Keyword selection
3. Campaign architecture
4. Search term bandwidth
5. Ad Copy
6. Landing Page
7. Setting targets – time and duration, location, language, device
8. Setting budgets
9. Bidding
10. Scheduling
11.  Quality and conversion tracking.
12. Analysis and Iteration

   For any search operation the user journey, starts with a “Search”, then “Click” (on a search), next “Browse” or purchase and the exit is “Signup or leave”. At the beginning the “Goal setting” for PPC needs to be done.  The goals are usually similar outcomes as SEO focusing on increasing brand reputation and increased business, however based on the budget there is usually a time period defined for PPC.

  Next comes the keyword research and campaign setup. In Keyword research we identify the search word, which we want to target. Based on this we start Campaign Setup. Setting up a campaign with Google AdWords is easy. We create various AdGroups under the main Campaign by subject areas and search terms specifying exact match, phrase match or broad match and then setup various Ads under the AdGroups. The AdCopy or actual text for these Ads needs to be clear and concise, attractive and compelling enough, A/B testing can be performed using various versions of these Ads and based on the customer response these can be optimized accordingly.

  A good landing page is vital for setting up the ad campaign. This should contain relevant contents to search, your product and service details, visible images and clear CTA with minimal clicks. The budget comes next based on expected clicks and ad delivery. Based on the priority of the business it needs to be defined which keywords to bid. Also based on the most active time of your customers, the target time and duration of the ad campaign need to be defined.

   Once the Ad is all set and live, next starts the analysis and iteration phase. Daily and weekly monitoring report needs to be monitored to track the conversion rates, CTR (Click Through Rate).  Tools similar to Google AdWords analysis tool can be used to track the finer details of customer engagement like purchases, enquiries downloads etc., analyze the results for the KPIs and optimize your campaign accordingly.