Have you ever wondered that why even after creating an amazing ad you still don’t see your ad on first position? What are your competitors doing that you aren’t, that is giving them an edge over you? If you have all of these questions in your mind, then it is high time that you invest in Search Engine Marketing. This article will give a brief description of how you can get yourself seen by displaying ads.
What is Search Engine Marketing?
There are millions of brands that provide the same service as your brand does. So what extra efforts you can put in to get yourself seen by customers?
One solution to this problem is creating ads so that you get seen by your customers. Also creating an optimized website ensures that you get traffic on your website. SEM is an umbrella term that helps in making your business seen by customers through SEO and advertising. In this particular article we will be mainly focusing on creating ads to get seen by audience. The ads also can be paid or unpaid depending upon the needs of marketers. The process for creating ads is same. The only difference is that for the paid ones you have to pay certain amount for them to rank higher.
Google wants the best for their customers and takes a strategic approach to solve this problem. It creates an auction. In this auction, you bid for your ad to be seen. This bid amount is the maximum amount that you are willing to pay every time a customer clicks on your ad. This isn’t the actual amount, but the maximum amount you are willing to pay. But things aren’t as simple as they seem. Bidding solely cannot get your ad a higher rank. Other factors include your ad’s quality factor and ad format. Let's take a look at each one of these.
Quality Factor- The quality factor is determined by three main factors. They are page landing experience, CTR, and relevancy of your ad. Page landing experience is all about good speed. The page should load in less than a half second after customer clicks on your ad. Your CTR should be high. CTR determines how often your ads will get clicked when a search query is made by the customer. Also, your ad should be very much relevant to the search query made by the customer.
Bidding- Bidding amount is the maximum amount that you are willing to pay when a customer clicks on your ad. You don’t actually pay this amount, but pay a little less than this. Setting an optimal bidding amount is necessary to get a higher rank, not the highest bidding amount.
Ad format-Google follows certain policies according to which there is a particular format for the ad. It shows only those ads which are in this format. The ad should have a catchy, short yet descriptive headline. It should also have a URL which will take the customer to the desired page. Also a description should be provided which gives a brief description of the services. To be approved by Google, an ad has to be in this proper format.
So now you can clearly make out that setting the highest bid isn’t necessary for your ad to get a higher rank. These factors together are responsible for your ad’s position.
How much does an ad actually cost?
In Google’s auction, you don’t actually pay your bid amount. You always pay a little less than it. Your actual amount is determined by the formula-
Your price= (Ad rank of the person below you/Your Quality score) + $0.01
So if your bid amount is $4 and your quality score is 10 then your rank is 40. The advertiser below you has an ad rank 16; his bid amount is $8 and a quality score of 2. Then the amount that you will have to pay is-
Your price= (16/10) + $0.01=$1.61
This is how you calculate your actual amount, which is always less than the bid amount.
Understanding your goal.
Before bidding you should be very clear with your goal. Then you should bid accordingly on what you value the most. If you want to drive traffic to your site then you should bid on CPC. If you want conversions on your site then you should bid of CPA. Your aim is to create brand awareness then you should bid on CPM. Having a clear and focused idea of what you want for your brand can help you in getting desired results.
Decide your bidding strategy
Bidding can be done it two ways. It can be done manually or in an automated manner. Manual bidding is for those who want to set individual bids for individual keywords. It gives you 100% control over your views, clicks, and conversions. Automated bidding is for those who are very clear with their performance goals and want to save time. Though not a minimum criterion, but the recommended amount of clicks and conversion you should have is 15 per month, to get started with this type of bidding.
This was all about what Search Engine Marketing is. If you genuinely want your ads to be on the first rank then you should keep in mind all the important factors, and then accordingly give importance to all of them. An optimal bidding strategy can help your ads in getting seen by most of the customers.
Also Read: SEM trends to look out for in 2018!