SEM Management

Search Engine Marketing San Antonio | Gray Digital Group

Search Engine Marketing Management

SEM or “Search Engine Marketing,” is the process of purchasing ads online to increase the leads to your website. It sounds simple, but there’s a lot more to it than you may think. The costs of these ads relate to specific search data, like keywords. Once you get started, the ads in your campaign will show based on how well our research, strategy, and ad writing tie into what’s your target audience is looking for online.

Why make Paid Search part of your digital marketing strategy?

Paid Search has many advantages for any business:

  • Rank top in the search engines: Paid search helps gains exposure for a business by positioning the business website at the top of search engines and on relevant websites. This helps generate fast leads for a business.
  • Track success instantly: Paid search campaigns let us track your progress right away. There’s no second-guessing. If an ad isn’t performing we instantly re-strategize for better results.
  • Target your ideal customer: The best part about paid search is reaching exactly who you want, exactly where you want. We are able control who views an ad, down to the very keywords they search and the zip code they’re in. With control over target location, demographics, and search terms you can increase the percentage of conversions for a website.
  • You only pay for potential leads: Paid search is a great way to gain exposure for a site without wasting any money. With pay-per-click you do just that, only pay for each click on an ad. With a well-structured campaign, all the clicks you get will be from your ideal customer looking for your service or item.
  • Increase conversions: Our SEM management includes landing page design for your paid search campaign. Landing pages give you the flexibility to create a custom message for your campaign’s users and ultimately drive qualified leads.
  • PPC enhances SEO efforts: If you are just starting an SEO campaign we advise you to couple it with a paid search campaign. While one part of your business is working to reach the top of search engines for keywords, another part will be focused on getting you guaranteed exposure through paid search.

Paid Search Process

PPC Client Onboarding

The onboarding process allows us to better understand the client’s overall goals for their campaign including keywords, locations, demographics, goals, competitors, budget, and any other information we may need to begin the campaign.

PPC Research & Set Up

We focus on 5 objectives before kicking off your paid search campaign:

  • Demographic research: We discover your target audience by looking at the buyer personas along with any other demographics who have an interest in your business. If you haven’t started collecting digital data yet, we set out to change that using secondary target audience research, location-based research, campaign goal review, and an analysis of your current clientele.
  • Define clear measurements: We begin your paid search campaign by defining how and what we will measure. Each factor we analyze must correlate to a different goal.
  • Keyword strategy: Our SEM strategy team will conduct research on the keywords and phrases that will work best for your campaign. The final list will determine, not only the keywords we bid, but also your impressions and keyword competition.
  • Competitor research: Our team runs a competitor analysis on 1 to 3 competitors to discover your best keyword, landing page and ad copy strategy.
  • Account strategy: With all the research analyzed and all the pieces in place, our team will nail down the best campaign structure and set up to get your business its best results.

Paid Search Campaign Setup

Once we have a campaign strategy, we setup reporting for the future, organize paid search on all platforms, and ensure all analytics link to Adwords for capturing and ongoing analysis.

Setup Includes:

  • Set up campaigns
  • Optimize types of ads utilized
  • Set up target locations
  • Optimize devices
  • Optimize ad schedule
  • Set Up ad groups
  • Create & implement ad copy
  • Create landing page(s)
  • Design display ads
  • Optimize keyword lists
  • Set up bid strategy
  • Set up ad extensions
  • Connect Google Analytics to Adwords
  • Setup SEM platform dashboards
  • Setup call tracking (highly recommended)

Ad Design & Copy

Depending on the type of paid search campaign best suites the business goals, the client will receive optimized copy from our in house SEM & SEO specialist along with optimized ad designs from our in-house production team. These two campaign components are extremely important to the success of any paid search campaign. With a small amount of space and characters for each ad, it is crucial to make the most of each character and display space. All ad copy and designs are included in our monthly management from experts in SEM campaigns and award-winning creative production team.

Ongoing Management

After we set up the campaign we continually manage and monitor it to maximize potential leads.

Ongoing Management Includes:

  • Campaign monitoring
  • Viewing analytics
  • A & B testing
  • Change or approve ad copy
  • Create new display ads
  • Adjust biddings
  • Adjust geo-targeting (if needed)
  • Fix errors
  • Monthly recommendations

More Info

Monthly Reporting

Each month we send you a campaign report to help you track success, and gain insight into our future recommendations for the campaign.

Monthly PPC Report Includes:

  • Impressions
  • Clicks
  • Cost
  • CTR statistics
  • Top performing keywords
  • Top performing ads
  • Conversions
  • Recommendations

Types of Paid Ads

Paid ads come in many shapes and character limits. Some of the most common digital ads are:

Search Campaign

A Search Campaign ad is just another name for a PPC (Pay-per-Click) campaign ad. These ads allow you to target specific audiences based on their keyword searches and are usually built specifically for lead generation. Search Campaign ads usually show at the top or on the side of a search results page.

Display Campaign

A display campaign uses banner ads to target users by website content. If you know your users are sports fans, you can choose to target them on specific websites, like ESPN, or all sports websites within the search engines network.

Unlike the search campaigns, these campaigns are less focused on lead generation and more focused on increasing brand recognition and brand awareness.

Retargeting Campaign

Retargeting campaigns use banner ads to specifically target users who have already visited your website. When retargeting users you can choose to retarget all users or only users who have viewed a specific page or section of your site. This gives you the ability to serve up a very specific message to your visitors. This is also a great way to reach back out to users who you know are interested in your products or services.

Email Newsletter Campaign

Email newsletter campaigns allow you to keep interested prospects up to date with your company activities. Email newsletters are famous for promotions for already loyal members. This keeps your company top of mind for everyone on your newsletter list while also giving you the opportunity to grow your social channels.

YouTube Campaign

YouTube campaigns show video ads before and during YouTube videos. You can target a specific audience by demographics, topics, interests, placements, remarketing lists and keywords. These targeting techniques give you the ability to break down your target market and reach out to them with the specific message of your choice.

Facebook Ads

Facebook Advertising allows brands to develop and distribute highly focused ad messaging based on target audience. These ads are measured by various metrics, including but not limited to boosted page post engagement, video views and website clicks.

PPC Management for Nonprofits

Google Ad Grants Management

Gray Digital Group specializes in non-profit Google Grant management. We help all of our nonprofit clients through the Google Grant process, from applying for the grants to setting up and optimizing the resulting campaign. Receiving Google Grants can help your nonprofit increase donations, volunteers, and the overall awareness of your mission.