If you have just gotten started with search marketing or you’ve been doing it a while but don’t have the time to spend researching this media and figuring out what you need to do to improve your campaign results, here are five quick things you can do to bring an immediate lift to your search advertising performance.
Start with Google – Because Google has the majority share (around 70%) of the search market, it is best to start by launching your campaign on the Google platform first, learn from the results and then expand your search marketing to other search engines (Yahoo, MSN etc). If you already have campaigns on Yahoo or MSN, test out new copy and keywords on Google first, see what works well and then apply to the other search engines.
Turn Off Networks – An easy way to create instant impact and improve your search campaign is to turn off the search and content networks. Simply go into “edit campaign settings” and Networks select only “Google Search” (de-select search network and content network). This is especially helpful if you are a business to business marketer where search only almost always performs better than the networks.
Optimize for Time of Day – You can do the same with time of day. Go into Edit Campaigns / Advance Search Options and look at “Ad Scheduling” to select the days of week and hours in the day that you would like your ad to be shown. Again, this is especially helpful for business to business marketers who’s customers are usually online Monday to Friday and during regular office hours, say 6:00 am to 7:00 pm.
Tailor Message and Test Copy – Make sure your copy matches with the keyword either by using the keyword insert tool or by choosing words that match-up. Also, provide at least two copy versions for every ad group and test them to see which performs.
Conversion Tracking – If you are not already doing conversion tracking then a great way to truly get an idea of ROI. Looking at click-through-rate will only tell you so much when converting a customer to actually buy or ‘sign up’ is what really matters. Simply place the code provided by the search engine onto the conversion landing page (e.g. Thank you page or page that follows after a person signs up or buys a product etc).
These are just five of a long list of things you can do to improve your SEM campaign performance, there is much that you can do by monitoring keyword performance and testing copy on an ongoing basis. Give it a try or, if you are too busy running your company to get it all done, give us a call and we would be happy to help you. Still want to learn more? Check out the search engine marketing links listed on my website or call today for a free, no obligation assessment of your search marketing program.
Carmen Arnevik
Freelance Marketing Consultant
(206) 612 – 2723
