A GUIDE TO

SEARCH ENGINE
MARKETING (SEM)
C A M P A I G N
Tips to improve your search engine marketing

BY ARSLAN HABIB
 introduction

Search engine marketing is like one of those recipes that

l ook si mpl e e noug h , u n t i l yo u act u al l y co o k i t . By
de f initio n, it’s simply using paid advertisements that
appear on search engine results. The process of creating
and optimizing a paid ad to beat the competition and
get in front of motivated customers, is where all the
headache starts.

On top of this, as a manager, you need to be able to

justify the cost you will be investing in this initiative. And
paid search can be a great way to lose money. Keywords,
which can account for 61 percent of your ad spend, can
suck your budget dry if they’re useless.

Of course, the operative word there is “useless”. If you

don’t pick the right ingredients and prepare them the
right way, you won’t achieve SEM success.

Step by Step Guide to Start an SEM Campaign Without Losing Money 02

 While paid search is easier to run and implement
compared to other tactics that rely on organic traffic,
optimizing its different elements is what truly makes a
difference. On the other hand, this fact makes it a
double edged sword.

SEM’s effectivity has been up for debate. According to

the 2015 Content Marketing Trends by CMI, survey
respondents indicated that search engine marketing is
the most effect strategy for lead generation. While in the
2016 State of Inbound by Hubspot, survey respondents
said it is highly overrated.

One thing is true though: SEM is what you

make it. If it brings leads profitably, why
wouldn’t you use it?

In this eBook, we will introduce you to the world of

search engine marketing, how its elements work together,
and help you find out if search engine marketing is right
for your B2B business.

Step by Step Guide to Start an SEM Campaign Without Losing Money 03

Chapter 1:
search engine marketing 101

Th e va r io us eleme nts of se arc h e ngi ne m arke t i n g are

s traig htf o r w ar d, but each of them has a big impact on
the overall marketing campaign. Paid search is more
than just placing the right ad with the right keywords
at the right place. From platforms to processes, we will
discuss the nuts and bolts of search engine marketing.

Step by Step Guide to Start an SEM Campaign Without Losing Money

 I. platforms
We already know that Google has the highest market
share among search engines. The word “Google” has
become a verb synonymous to “search” and “find”. As
of Dec. 2016, Google has 77.82% of the global desktop
market share and 93.76% of the global mobile + tablet
market share.

So it ’s a no brainer for businesses to flock towards

Google AdWords. You’re probably already aware of this
advertising platform. You can build a search ad with the
help of its keyword planner, target specific types of
users, test and tweak ad campaigns, allocate budget,
and access reports.

Since AdWords is the paid advertising platform of

most businesses, it’s worth remembering that this leads
to plenty of competitors. The increasing competition for
natural search rankings and top paid search positions –
plus keyword price inflation – makes it a big challenge
for marketers.

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 The other two alternatives would be:

bing ads
&
yahoo gemini

Microsoft exclusively sells advertising through Bing Ads

but Yahoo can now serve search ads for up to half of its
desktop traffic using its in-house platform Gemini (it will
still serve Bing ads for a majority of its desktop search
traffic).

Both offer the same capabilities as Google AdWords.

There are plenty of opinions on what makes one
different from the other. In terms of reaching a bigger
chunk of the online audience, Google undoubtedly
comes in first.

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 ii. sem vs. seo
SEO and SEM are closely related to each other and their
end goals are the same, which makes separating the two
concepts a bit confusing. Here are key takeaways to
differentiate both.

search engine marketing

Search engine marketing is an umbrella term used to

encompass both paid advertising and SEO. Over time,
SEM became referred to as paid search.

Not to be confused with PPC which is one of the pricing

models in paid search:

ppc (pay-per-click)
PPC (pay-per-call) – ads served to mobile search
users can be charged by the number of clicks
that resulted in a direct call from a smartphone

cpc (cost-per-click)

cpm (cost-per-thousand impressions)

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 seM is ideal if you need:

immediate results
Once your campaign is approved-granted that
your bids are high enough to get priority
placement - yo u r ads wi l l be i m m e di at e l y
dis playe d. It’s the quickest way to promote
your business. It’s also suitable for time-sensitive
offers like product launches and holiday sales
because they provide instant traffic.

highly targeted campaigns

PPC platforms enable advertisers to launch
targe te d cam pai g n s t h ro u g h g e o g raph i c,
de mo graphic, and intent-based targeting(using
actual user search query), ensuring that your ad is
served to the right customers. More importantly,
the data collected from your campaigns reveal
signals to know what your customers want and
improve future search ads.

Dominate the search results for a keyword

category. As you may have noticed by now,
PPC results are displayed above organic search
results. A prominent position gives you the
visibility for a high search traffic.

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 search engine optimization

Search engine optimization is a classification of techniques

that aim to place a website in the first page of search
engines. There are plenty of tactics and techniques that
you can use but they all depend on what factors search
engines consider in determining the rank of a website in
SERPs (search engine results pages). For example apart
from keywords, Google considers different “signals”
such as social shares, bounce rate, and link popularity of a
page to determine its relevance for a particular query.

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 seo is ideal if you need:

Consistent long-term
results is required
SEO requires a long gestation period. No one
knows exactly when search engines indexes
websites and depending on the competition,
it could take months before you get to the first
page. However once you do secure a top spot,
your website will receive sustained and long
term traffic granted that it’s consistently updated.

Authority site
Securing the top spot in search engines places
you as a “go to” website for a particular niche.

Increase the website’s value

If you want to sell your website for a premium
pri c e you ’ll n e e d t o i n cre ase i t s v al u e . T h e
val u e of a we bsi t e i s base d o n i t s o n l i n e
pre s e nce , performance, and authority, all of
which are related to SEO.

In short, SEM is paid while SEO is free. Both are used to

generate traffic and leads to a website.

Step by Step Guide to Start an SEM Campaign Without Losing Money 06

08
 iiI. processes

a. the sem lingo

1. ad rank
as the word suggests, this is the rank of your
ad in search engines. This is determined by the
highest bid and quality score.

2. quality score
the quality score is determined by different
factors:

CLick-Through rate (ctr)

the number of clicks that your ad received
divided by the number of times your ad is
shown. Google AdWords defines this as
clicks ÷ impressions x 100%. For example, if
you have 100 clicks and 1,000 impressions,
your CTR would be 10%

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 landing page quality
si ngl e we b pag e t h at appe ars aft e r
s o m e o ne clicks a specific link. To achieve
a good quality score, your landing page
must be:

- Directly relevant to the ad and keyword

- Easy to navigate and search for the

product mentioned in the ad

- Contain relevant information about your

business

- Fast loading time

- Mobile-friendly

ad text or ad copy
text based ads that are shown above organic
results. Paid search platforms have specific
rules that advertisers need to follow in order
for their ad to be approved.

keyword relevancy
refers to how important your keywords are to a
page in your website. Search engines have their
own way of building connections between
keywords/phrases to a domain/brand name,
most likely using different data inputs.

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 3. max bid
the highest amount you’re willing to pay per
click on your search ad.

4. clicks
when someone engages with your ad by clicking
the link.

5. impressions
single display of your search ad on a web page,
regardless of whether someone clicks it or not.

6. cpc
cost per click

7. conversion
there are different definitions of what qualifies
as a conversion, generally it means a specific
action taken a by customer. For example, a
person who clicks on your search ad and fills-up
a contact form in a landing page can count as a
conversion by the said ad.

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 8. Cost per Acquisition/Install/Lead
(CPA/I/L/O) – cost of the specific
action by the customer

cost of the specific action by the customer

acquisition
a general term for actions taken by a customer
as spe ci fi e d by t h e adv e rt i se r, fo r e x am pl e
re gis tratio n or newsletter sign-up. This is also
known as cost per inquiry.

install
when a customer installs an app

lead
when a customer signs-up for an offer

order
when a customer purchases a product

inquiry
when a customer inquires on the advertiser’s
website through a form or a chat

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 9. query
these are the exact words or phrases entered
by the user in the search engine. Not to be
confused with keywords, which are the terms
nominated by an advertiser to advertise on.

Types of search queries or keywords:

long tail keywords

phrases that have low search volume
but are easy to rank for because of less
competitors.

head terms
generic terms that have high search
volume but are difficult to rank for
because of popularity.

b. how search engine

marketing works

To make it easier to understand, let’s compare search

engine marketing to traditional advertising.

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 Imagine you have a retail store in a mall that sells
mobi l e ac c e ssori e s, spe ci fi cal l y h i g h - e n d au di o
pro ducts . One day you decided to have a clearance
sale and put up a sign in your storefront to advertise
it – 70% discount Shure earphones.

The mall is the internet, the clearance sale is the

campaign, your website is the store, and the sign is the
ad text or ad copy.

As what was mentioned before, the

formula for your ad rank consists of
the maximum bid and quality score. The
smart choice would be to manage your
budget and optimize your ad.

Let ’s go back to the mall. It turns out that the mall

has a fleet of sophisticated robots designed to help
people find what they are looking for. For example,
on e te e nage r w an t s t o g e t “ affo rdabl e ce l l ph o n e
e arpho ne s ”. The robot will determine which shops
offer what the teenager wants. Since this is a paid
service, the robot will look through a number of ads
to determine which should merit the top suggestions.

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 Yes you guessed it: the robot would be the search engine,
“affordable cellphone earphones” would be the query, and
the paid service is the PPC platform (such as Google
AdWords).

Let’s pay attention to the robot. While it will consider the

bid you made it will also place importance on your ad so
that the customer gets the most relevant information. In
order to rank its suggestions, it will ask a number of
questions and use information from the mall to get
answers.

In this scenario, here’s how it will assess yours:

the ad

Does your ad have any or all of words that

the customer said?

Is your ad related or similar to what the

customer said?

Are there clear indicators that the ad is

related to the store?

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 the store

Is the store really offering what’s indicated in

the ad?

Are there clear indicators inside the store that

proved this to be true?

Is it easy to find the items offered in the ad?

Is the store organized?

Is the store easy to find?

feedback

How many people have went inside the store?

How many items was your ad suggested

before?

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 Questions under the ad relates to your keyword
relevance, the store is for the landing page, and
feedback is for the click through rate. Paid search
works similarly to advertising, except that advertisers
have more control over their marketing campaigns and
measure results through platforms that are providing
numerous metrics that allow advertisers to see what
works and what doesn’t.

c. fine-tuning your sem efforts

Now that we’re familiar with the terms and processes

of search engine marketing, we’re going to take a look
at how you can combine them all together to create a
strategy for your business.

Here are the basic core strategies:

1. establish your main goal

Establishing goals is common sense, but they
can get easily misguided without clear objectives
on what you want to get out of paid search
advertising.

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 These are the questions you need to
answer to formulate solid SEM goals:

What’s my target market?

What are my customers searching for?

What’s my offer?

What’s my budget?

What’s my time frame for each ad?

What do I want from my ad campaigns?

What do I want my customer to do?

How will I encourage my customer to

take action?

What are my competitors doing?

How am I going to measure the results of

my campaign?

Step by Step Guide to Start an SEM Campaign Without Losing Money

 2. keyword research
Now that you have clear goals in mind, you have
to find out what users search for in relation to
products/service and industry. Paid search
revolves around intent marketing, so you need
to know what your customers need to get in
front of them.

Technically, keyword research is done through

SEO and then the best keywords to bid for is
selected through SEM.

Commonly used tools:

Google Suggest/Keyword Planner

SEMRush

Ahrefs

Ubersuggest

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 SEM factors to consider when
selecting keywords:

keyword relevance

Generic terms - keywords that describe

your product or service

Related terms - terms that don’t directly

apply to your business that your audience
might search for

Brand terms - keywords containing your

brand or business name

Competitor terms - terms including

brands and names of your competitors
or business name

local search keywords

keywords that contain specific locations such as

“cheap earphones wallmart”

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A step by step guide to start a SEM campaign by Arslan Habib
 search relevance

consider the customer’s motivations/intentions

to narrow down your list: are they really looking for
what your ad offers? On what stage are they in
the buyer’s journey? Customers who are on the
path to purchase will use more specific terms
compared to another who’s just window shopping.

negative keywords

terms and phrases that you don’t want to

be associated with your ad for specificity and
brand safety.

competition and cost

how much it will cost to make your ad show up

for your chosen keywords and the competitors
who are using a similar list.

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 3. understand ad rank
While customers will ultimately decide which
ad they want to click, ad rank (or ad position)
can make you stand out from your competitors.
More importantly PPC platforms are auctions,
which means that the position of your ad changes
every time a user performs a search.

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 In Google AdWords, advertisers can
improve their rank through the quality
score which means you can pay less and
still increase your chances. The higher the
ad rank the higher the ad’s position. This
will increase CTR and in turn, positively
affect your quality score. Keep in mind that
your quality score will not increase unless
it’s higher than the expected CTR for that
ad position.

Bing Ads ’ quality score places more

importance on keyword relevance and CTR.

Yahoo Gemini uses a similar formula with

Bing but differs in broad match identifiers.
The only available information they’re willing
to share is that the modified term must be
part of the user query.

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 4. Develop a Campaign Structure
Now that you have a list of keywords and
understand how to rank your ads, you need to
develop a plan to achieve your goal.

To recap, here are the critical components you

need to create a campaign structure:

Campaigns Ad Text

Ad Groups Negative Keywords

Keywords Landing Pages

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 There is no formula for the perfect account structure,
but methods that have worked well are based on:

Structure of the website

Services/products offered

Location

5. Find out Keyword Match Types

As part of your keyword research, you need to
select the right triggers for your ads to appear.
This will help you target users that are most
likely to engage with your ad.

Broad Match – as the term suggests, your

ad can appear for anything broadly related to
your included keyword, for example: “red
earphones” can show for queries of “red
earbuds” and “red headphones”

Broad Match Modifier – (used by appending

keywords with +) allows you to append a
keyword with + to indicate a broad match
for example: +Mobile +Earphones will trigger
Google to show your ad for “buy mobile
earphones”, and “mobile earphones for
sale” (as long as both the keywords Mobile
and Earphones are within a search query
with minimal variations)

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 Phrase Match – your ad appears when
a user searches for a keyword phrase,
but may include additional words at the
beginning or end of the query. Include (“”)
when using this match type “red earphones”.

Exact Match – your ad appears when a

user searches for a specific keyword phrase
in the exact order. Include [] when using
this match type [red earphones].

6. Allocate your Budget

There is no easy answer for what is exactly the
right number when allocating your budget.
These are three key factors to consider:

Industry – the price of keywords vary

depending on your industry.

Cost per click – CPC of keywords fluctuate

depending on competition, quality score,
ad position, and geographical targeting.

Your b u s in es s – i f yo u do n ’t h av e an y
e xp e rie nce with paid search and decided
to do it on your own, it’s understandable to
start with a low budget. If you have hired
help and seen some success, you need to
invest to get workable results.

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 7. Optimize your Ad Copy
Google has recently launched expanded text ads
designed to improve the user experience with
SEM on mobile, as part of the search engines’
mobile-first initiative. Advertisers are given two
30 character headlines and one consolidated 80
character description line.

Here are best practices to maximize the potential

of the new bigger format:

Until it’s phased out, don’t pause your old

ads just yet unless they’re outperformed by
your first expanded text ads.

Include your most important message in

the headlines

Use extra characters to improve existing offers

and call to action for a more compelling ad,
instead of just adding a second headline

Write all ads that to speak to all users

across all devices – desktop, mobile, tablet

Include top keywords in path fields because

the new ads automatically pull their domain
for your display URL from your final URL

Update ad extensions for unique content

alongside your larger ads

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 8. Leverage Ad Extensions
Ad extensions enable you to add more
information about what users can expect when
they click your ad without any additional costs. It
can also improve your CTR, which as discussed,
affect your quality score and ad rank. There are
a variety of extensions including:

Sitelinks - add links below standard text ads

to promote additional/relevant landing pages

Seller Ratings - automated extensions that

add your store’s rating out of 5 according to
Google’s trusted review sources. Businesses
must accumulate at least 150 reviews with
3.5 stars and higher from the past 12 months.

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 Call-Out - add important USPs to show
alongside your main text ads

Call Extension (if relevant) – add a phone

number alongside text ads and allow users
to call your business directly from Google
search if they’re on a mobile device.

Location Extension (if relevant) – incorporate

a business address along with your phone
number

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 App Extension (if relevant) – add a link to
your app in the Google Play Store or Apple
Store below your main ad copy

Review Extensions - add third party reviews

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 New ad extensions added by Google:

Price Extensions - show pricing information

with a clickable header

Structured Snippets - add description of

features of a product or service

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A step by step guide to start a SEM campaign by Arslan Habib
 Message Extensions - enable users to text a
business directly from SERP

Affiliate Extensions (mostly US stores) - show

nearby retail chains that sell your product

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 9. Integrate AdWords with
Google Analytics
The last part would be to measure your
efforts. PPC platforms have their own reporting
features. If you’re using AdWords, you can
se t-up co n v er s io n t rac kin g . T h i s can be
added through Adwords and Google Analytics,
but Analytics has more in depth reporting
capabilities such as flexible auto-tagging and
n e w si te l i n ks re po rt t h at pro v i de s dat a fo r
actual links leading to a website visit.

10. Advanced Strategies

This guide is only meant to tackle fundamental
concepts, but here’s an overview of advanced
strategies that you’ll encounter:

Day Parting - ad scheduling; enables you to

re-allocate the budget to become more visible
during your business’ peak hours

Device or Location Bidding - adjust your bid

based on the type of device or location

Si n gl e K ey w o r d A d G r o u p s - u se o n e
k e yw o rd for your ad groups. Quality Scores,
click-through rates and average ad positions
w i l l go u p be cau se t h e ad g ro u ps are
g ranulate d and improved on relevancy

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 Keyword Expansion - simply means expanding
and updating your list to reflect changes in
user searches

A/B Test - test two variations of a landing

page/copy/messaging to assess which one
performs better

Other Strategies:

Dynamic Search Ads - Google automatically

creates a landing page and an ad based on
the content of your site without using keywords

Remarketing Lists for Search Ads - customize

search ads for users who visited your site but
did not convert, did not visit a specific page/
category, did not spend x seconds/minutes
on the site etc

SEO + SEM Together - utilize SEO tactics to help

SEM campaigns; as mentioned before keyword
research and landing page optimization falls
under SEO, which can increase you quality score

Restructuring your account - using a variety

of factors to structure your account beyond
basic elements including: user intention,
practical naming conventions, match types,
and segmenting broad and exact queries into
separate campaigns

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Chapter 2:
Is Search Engine Marketing
Right for Your Business?
Clearly SEM can be overwhelming and if you’re still reading
at this point, you’re probably asking if it’s worth it. One of
the most common mistakes in online marketing is jumping
on the latest tactic without evaluating the initiative from a
business perspective. Here are ten practical questions to
help you out.

Step by Step Guide to Start an SEM Campaign Without Losing Money

 1. Do I have S.M.A.R.T goals?
The biggest misconception in online marketing is that
being number one is everything. While it certainly does
help in being more visible to users, businesses often
forget that you have to back that up with value in order
to get tangible results. You can bid for your search term,
but overly focusing on taking that top spot can lead to
bidding wars with a competitor. You can still drive users
to your site with keywords that have acceptable search
volume with low competition at a cheaper price(CPC).

2. Do I have in-depth keyword research?

It’s not enough to choose the right keywords which best
fit your ad and has a high user search volume. You also
need to consider where your business stands in its
industry and the market as a whole. If you’re in a crowded
market with plenty of players, you’ll need precise terms
to answer specific needs to become competitive.

For example, as a retailer of cellphone earphones, using

branded terms can get you head to head with well-known
businesses who have specific product lines for mobile
devices, such as Sennheiser. Mobile brands also have
their own earphones. Using precise and compelling ads
with discounts and sales may fair better in edging out
generic rivals and attracting brand loyalty customers
looking for affordable choices. To compete with established
online stores, you can use location bidding to counter
shipping expenses.

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A step by step guide to start a SEM campaign by Arslan Habib
 3. Do I have a well-designed ad-specific
landing page?

Getting a user to click your ad is only a quarter of the

battle. The next important part is what happens after
they engage with it, especially for the fact that you
already paid for that click. If the customer doesn’t see
what they’re expecting, they will quickly move on. More
importantly, landing pages enables you to narrow down
the focus and remove clutter that may distract the user.

4. Do I have a compelling Call to Action?

What entices whom vary from one person to another,

which makes it challenging to create compelling CTAs.
The key is to create a call to action that fits your business
and inspires engagement. Also, the type of CTA can
change your KPI. For example, if you have a contact form
then your metric for goal completion would be based on
sign-ups.

5. Do I need immediate results?

SEM is fairly easy to set-up and implement, which

could give you quick traffic and boost participation for
time-sensitive offers.

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 6. Is my website mobile ready?

Google has made its mantra to have mobile first services,

as evidenced by its changes to the text ad format and
addition of message ad extension. With continuously
growing mobile users, you need your website to be
mobile friendly not just for PPC but also for customers.

7. Do I have detailed buyer personas?

For a tactic that costs per click, you need to create highly
targeted ads to have an excellent ROI. You can’t accomplish
this if you don’t know exactly who your customer is. The
more you know them, the more chances that your ad will
appear to the right user at the right time. Looking back
at our hypothetical campaign, using specific types for your
keyword phrases such as headset , in-earphones , and
wireless headphones for different ads can create targeted
campaigns.

8. Can I manage and monitor campaigns?

Just by looking at what we’ve discussed so far, SEM is
a tedious time and marketing budget consuming
initiative. You’ll need someone to constantly monitor your
keywords, manage the budget, and experiment for the
best performing strategies.

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 PPC c ampai gns o ffe r i n st an t fe e dback co l l at e d i n
analytics , which leads to plenty of data that you can
mine for insights. High quality ad copy, compelling
landing page, and persuasive CTA can generate more
leads even if AdWords has decided that you should be
in third place.

9. Can I track my results?

PPC campaigns require consistent monitoring because

of instant results. Apart from conversions you also need
to track initial goals and KPI. There are a lot of platforms
that can be used in measuring results such as Google
Analytics, AdWords dashboard, SearchForce etc.

10. Do I know how to measure success?

The obvious answer would be to calculate ROI. Here’s a

basic formula:

Acquisition Cost = =
CPC/Conversion Rate (CR)

Example: $5 CPC / 2% conversion rate

= $250 acquisition cost

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A stepby
by Step Guide
step guide to Start
to start ancampaign
a SEM SEM Campaign Without Losing Money
by Arslan Habib 41
 If the margin on your product is less than $250, you are
losing money (ignoring overhead for now). However, you
also have to take into account the lifetime value (LTV) of
the customer. On average, how many additional items
will this new customer buy? Ideally, they will become
a part of your email marketing list, and only buy when
they learn about promotions through email. However,
this rarely happens so cleanly, and you’ll find existing
customers coming through paid channels once again
(such as Remarketing), and you have to factor this in.

Thus, it’s a bit complicated, but absolutely worth the

analysis to set a target acquisition cost, and test each
strategy within SEM to see if you think you can attain
that target through optimization.

If you’re going to launch your own campaign you need

to an expert to help you. If not, you’ll need someone
to who can calculate and understand the math to help
manage marketing spend.

AStep
step by Stepguide
by step Guide to Start
to start a SEMan SEM Campaign
campaign Without Losing Money
by Arslan Habib 42
 Thank you for reading

Search engine marketing can be a great strategy to gain

visibility and grow a business, but it needs meticulous
attention from mathematically inclined brains. Typically,
there are two types of people who are interested in SEM
- those who haven’t used it before, and those who have
tried it but failed. Hopefully, this guide has given you an
idea of what to expect or which core foundations you
may have missed.

Step
A step by Step
by step guide Guide toSEM
to start a Start an SEMbyCampaign
campaign Arslan HabibWithout Losing Money 43
WANT TO GROW
YOUR BUSINESS
WITH SEM AND
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Arslan Habib
Content Writer and Digital Marketer