The Complete Guide to Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and How McFarland Marketing Can Fuel Your Success
Search engine marketing (SEM) has become an indispensable strategy for businesses looking to drive qualified traffic, leads, and sales online. Implementing an effective SEM campaign requires expertise, constant optimization, and advanced tools. This complete guide will explore everything you need to know about SEM and how partnering with McFarland Marketing can set your business up for success. While we won't give you all the secrets of SEM unless you're our client, we can give you some guidelines to have a chance for success.
What is Search Engine Marketing (SEM)?
SEM refers to paid advertising campaigns on search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo. The most common SEM strategies include:
- Pay-per-click (PPC) ads - Ads displayed alongside organic search results based on keywords. You pay when someone clicks your ad.
- Display advertising - Visual banner ads targeted to specific audiences across the search engine's display network.
- Remarketing - Serving ads to previous site visitors or customers as they browse other sites and social media.
- Video ads - Video ads shown before, during or after other video content.
The goal of SEM is to increase visibility and website traffic by promoting your pages and products higher in search results.
​
By targeting keywords and search queries highly relevant to your business, SEM aims to connect your brand with consumers actively looking for your products, services and expertise.
Implemented correctly, ongoing SEM can become the driving force behind sustainable growth for your company. Benefits include:
​
- Increased website visibility - SEM makes it possible to rank highly for competitive keywords, sending more targeted organic traffic.
- Brand awareness - Well-crafted ads reinforce your brand and offerings in front of motivated searchers.
- Lead generation - SEM's pay-for-performance model means you attract and convert high-intent website visitors into leads.
- ROI accountability - Detailed analytics allow you to monitor and optimize campaigns based on key metrics like cost-per-click (CPC), conversion rate, return on ad spend (ROAS) and more.
- Flexibility - Campaigns can be adjusted to meet changing priorities and seasonal demands. Budgets and targeting can also be fine-tuned.
​
As an essential piece of a modern digital marketing strategy, SEM checked regularly provides data-driven insights that allow you to refine both your ads and website for maximum performance.
The Benefits of a Strategic SEM Campaign
9 Key SEM Campaign Components to Help You Succeed
Structuring an effective SEM strategy requires expertise and the right marketing technology stack. Here are some of the most important components:
​
1. Keyword research - Identifying high-value search queries that indicate intent helps match prospects with relevant ads.
2. Dynamic ad copy - Ad headlines, descriptions and displays should be tailored to appeal to different searcher interests and intents.
3. Landing page optimization - Pages visitors land on from ads should deliver a smooth user experience that converts visitors into leads.
4. Extensive ad network coverage - Display and video networks extend your reach and visibility across top sites.
5. Segmentation - Strategically segmenting campaigns by product line, location and other factors allows more refined targeting.
6. Remarketing - Following up with previous visitors reinforces brand recognition and brings back “warm” leads already familiar with your offerings.
7. Testing - Regular split testing of ad creative, landing pages, offers and more is crucial for continuous optimization.
8. Performance monitoring - Tools like Google Analytics provide data on volume, clicks, conversions, ROI and other KPIs to refine campaigns.
9. Flexible budgets - Automated rules for pausing/adjusting daily budgets and maximizing ROI are key for efficiency. But are they? McFarland Marketing has different opinions about the so-called best practices about this. Book a free call here to learn the bidding secrets of SEM.
​
An advanced SEM strategy requires extensive testing, data analysis, and nonstop fine-tuning. The next section explores how partnering with McFarland Marketing provides the SEM expertise and resources to drive success.
With an advanced in-house team and marketing technology stack, McFarland Marketing provides data-driven SEM management that takes the guesswork out of growth. We can't reveal all our secrets but our strategic approach includes:
​
- Collaborative goal setting - We start by learning about your business and setting key objectives around leads, sales, and ROI. KPIs are established to track performance.
- Comprehensive audits - We audit your existing digital presence, including website design and content, to identify optimization opportunities.
- Keyword research - Our team utilizes leading tools to identify high-potential search terms that align with your goals.
- Multi-channel execution - We build coordinated campaigns across Google, Bing, display ads, YouTube and more for maximum visibility.
- Extensive analytics - We utilize analytics platforms to derive insights on performance across every dimension, including devices, campaigns, keywords and more.
- Fluid budget management - We scale budgets up or down, pause poorly performing areas and maximize ROI through automation.
- Continuous optimization - Based on data and testing, we iterate on creative, copy, landing pages and more to boost KPIs week-over-week.
- Complete transparency - You have access to a client dashboard showing real-time campaign analytics and performance.
- Ongoing support - Our experts fine-tune and enhance campaigns in response to seasonal demands, new product releases, and changing goals.
​
With McFarland Marketing as your dedicated SEM partner, you leverage our proven methodology, proprietary tools, and dedicated managed services team focused on driving maximal growth through paid search. We handle the complexity of optimizing and scaling campaigns, freeing you to focus on higher priorities for your business.
The McFarland Marketing Approach to SEM
Get Started with a Free SEM Assessment
If you are looking to launch new SEM campaigns or optimize existing efforts, we provide a free assessment. Our team will evaluate your current SEM initiatives, website, and analytics to provide data-backed recommendations tailored to your goals. We will identify quick wins to boost visibility along with a strategic roadmap to build sustainable growth over the long-term. Get started now by contacting McFarland Marketing to schedule your free SEM assessment.