SEM campaigns are marketing actions on search engines, mainly on Google, a platform that allows search campaigns, among others.
Google Ads
Understanding Google Ads
One of the main advertising platforms for brands is Google. This offers different types of campaigns, ranging from Google Display, Google Shopping Ads, Google Ads Youtube or Google Ads Search, among others. The latter (Search) is the most famous and, at the same time, the most used by brands. Search campaigns are known as SEM campaigns (Search Engine Marketing) or SEA campaigns (Search Engine Advertising), which refers, as its name suggests, to marketing actions on search engines (mainly Google, although it also works with other partners).
Google Ads specialists are those people who are dedicated to working on this platform using the different strategies, tools, types of campaigns and functionalities that the platform delivers to obtain the best performance from the campaigns.
How do search campaigns work?
This type of campaign consists of text ads that are displayed in the results when users perform searches on Google. In this sense, they have the advantage of appearing when the user is demonstrating some intention about something, since, when searching on Google, there is always some intention behind it.
Therefore, Google Ads specialists, when implementing campaigns, choose a series of keywords for which to bid for the ads to be displayed. This means that depending on the content, product or service that a brand wants to advertise, the specialist chooses keywords based on previous research (keyword research), and competes because the ads are displayed when users perform searches that are related to the chosen keywords.
One of the important aspects when analyzing a campaign is the Quality Score, which refers to the level of quality, which is measured on a scale of 1 to 10 in the keywords established in the campaigns. A higher Quality Score means that the landing page and ads are more relevant to the keyword being analyzed. The quality level takes into consideration 3 elements:
- The relevance of the ad, which refers to the affinity or coincidence between the user’s intention when performing a search and the ad that was implemented by Google Ads specialists.
- Landing page experience, which refers to the relevance and experience the user has on the landing page after clicking on the ads.
- The CTR expected which refers to the existing probability that the user, when performing a certain search, will click on the ad, that is, the percentage of times that users click out of the total number of users who have seen the ad.
Audiences in Google Ads
Segmentation is one of the most important aspects to work on when planning campaigns. At Omega CRM, as paid media specialists, in addition to working with keyword-based segmentation for search campaigns, we work with audiences for different types of campaigns.
Google provides different types of audience segments that can be used in different types of campaigns, as well as different ways to use them. Some types of audience are based on habits and interests, others based on demographic data or vital events or according to purchase intention. On the other hand, audiences can be used in the sense of orientation or segmentation.
For the first case, using targeting-focused audiences means that audiences are chosen, but the campaign is not only targeted to these selected profiles but also targets a broader audience, however, data and statistics are obtained from each one of these profiles. To see the performance of these, you have the option to increase or decrease bids for those Google Ads audiences.
In the other case, choosing audiences with a segmentation approach means that the campaign will only target those profiles that were selected for the campaign. Another type of audience that an SEM agency can use in campaigns are users who have already interacted with your brand. In this sense, if you want to do remarketing in Google Ads, you can target users who have visited your website, or upload a list of clients.
KPIs en las campañas de Google Ads
Identifying the most appropriate KPIs according to the objective of each campaign is a fundamental task. Here we review the most important:
- Google Ads CTR : This metric refers to the percentage of clicks received. This means the percentage of times that users clicked on the ad, in relation to the total number of times that an ad generated an impression.
- Google Ads CPC: This is a metric that indicates how much it costs for each click received. Specialists can use this indicator to see the CPC of different variables. For example, they can see the cpc value for a whole campaign or just for a specific keyword within a SEM campaign, or the CPC for an age range, for a specific audience, for a particular ad, for a time zone, a device, a location or a device, among others.
- Conversions: Conversions are valuable actions that users perform from campaigns carried out on the platform. Each brand, or each campaign, can establish what it means by conversion, depending on the objective it wants to achieve from the campaigns. In this sense, a conversion will vary depending on what is established. Some examples can be sending forms, a phone call, sending messages, online shopping or others.
- Cost per conversion or acquisition (CPA) : As the name implies, it refers to the economic cost of achieving a conversion for the brand. As in the case of CPC, the cost per conversion is a metric that consultants can evaluate in different variables (keywords, ads, audiences, devices, etc.).
As Google is a very important platform to contribute to the objectives of brands, and it has such a variety of campaigns and functionalities, nowadays you can find different advertising agencies on Google that collaborate with brands. to achieve the objectives. From Omega, we are delighted to be able to collaborate in the planning, optimization and measurement of your different types of campaigns in Google Ads.
