EMS, what is it? Advertise your business in search engines –

Hosting Mautic QuickStart -50% with support in Spanish
24 hours and free training

Send up to 1,000,000 emails/year. Mautic Support in Spanish 24 hours, 365 days

When we talk about digital marketing in search engines, we differentiate between two possible options: organic results and sponsored ads or paid advertising.

Thus, SEO, or organic positioning optimization, would be responsible for ensuring that a web page obtains a good position for the searches carried out by users, depending on the query made and the relevance of the content of that page to serve it.

For his part, paid ads, usually called “SEM”are expressly created by website owners so that it is precisely that text, or image, that appears on the screen, and not what Google decides (as is the case with organic results).

But it is not only the operation that differentiates paid advertising with respect to SEO, nor is the creation and management of ad campaigns its main characteristic, but they also vary both in the scope and focus of their strategies.

In this article we will see what is paid advertisingwhat does it contribute with respect to traditional SEO and what considerations should we have when designing SEM campaigns to prevent them from being a money drain with no return on investment.

What is SEM and what does it consist of?

In the introduction we have used the terms “sponsored ads” (or paid advertising) and “SEM” interchangeably. However, if we stick to , this equation is not completely true.

Although the management of paid or sponsored ad campaigns is often referred to as SEM, if we stick to the meaning of its acronym (“Search Engine Marketing”, Search Engine Marketing), this term would include both SEO and paid ads.

That is to say, the SEM, in its definition, includes all those actions that we can carry out to appear on the search pages (SERP’s), either in good positions in the organic results, or featured with ads designed on purpose for that purpose. .

For its part, this (SERP’s) is not the only possible scope or means of dissemination of paid advertising, but rather it can extend beyond search results.

In the case of Google, paid ads can also reach your , which consists of millions of websites that reserve space on their web pages to display ads that are relevant to their users.

In the following video we are going to see what the scope of SEM is and where sponsored ads can appear:

Being purists, the paid advertising on the display network it would not fit within the original concept of SEM, since its objective is not the search results pages, but independent websites.

However, it makes sense to consider them together because the way to design and manage sponsored ads campaigns in Google hardly differs between those that are directed only to the Search network (that is, search engines) with respect to those that are also directed to the search network. display network.

On the other hand, if we wanted to be purists, we would also have to include SEO as part of SEM, and this is not the current consideration of both concepts.

What is EMS used for?

Now that we know where SEM campaign ads can appear, the next question we need to ask ourselves is what can we use these ads for and what can we achieve with them:

• Contextual advertising. As explained in the previous video, showing one or the other ad is not limited only to its greater or lesser agreement with the search text used by the user, but other factors such as the user’s browsing profile, their preferences search and personalization or the theme of the web page where the ad is located, among others.
• Seasonal or time-limited campaigns. Paid ad campaigns are especially relevant to promote products or services during a limited period of time, such as Christmas or sporting events, being operational from the first day to the last (as long as it is correctly dimensioned in budget and amount of the campaign). bid).
• Increase the number of qualified visits. The advertiser expressly chooses the message that he wants to send to the user, either through text or images (on the Display network). If you have identified the profile of your target user, who is really interested in your products or services, you can go directly to him to attract him to your website if you know how to design the right message for him.
• Increase the number of conversions. As a consequence of the increase in the number of qualified visits, if in addition to a good advertisement there is a , these visits will complete a transaction on the website (convert).
• Limit the budget invested. Among the configuration and management parameters of an ad campaign, you can establish the amount of the budget that you want to invest each day. In this way, we can know in advance how much a campaign can cost us at most while it is active (not necessarily all the available budget will be consumed each day).
• Remarketing possibilities. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of paid ads, related to the user’s browsing and purchasing behavior. When a user has already shown an interest in our products or services (for example, by visiting the website multiple times), our ads will be shown to them when they browse other websites on the Display network.
• Analyze the effectiveness of ad campaigns. Fundamental to optimize both the format and the content of the ad. In real time we have information on the performance of the campaign, such as the number of ad impressions, the number of clicks or the number of conversions, to evaluate its return on investment and, if necessary, adopt corrective measures or even cancel the campaign.

How are SEM campaigns paid for?

Until now we have talked about ads or paid advertising, implying that, unlike organic positioning, its use entails some type of economic cost for the advertiser.

In reality, organic results are not “free” either. Google may not charge a website owner for displaying links to their web pages, but they do have the associated positioning optimization costeither on the owner’s own time or on the bill of an SEO expert.

In the case of paid ads, in addition to the cost of creating and managing the campaign (usually hiring an expert in this field), you must add the amount that Google charges for that ad.

A priori we cannot know how much Google will charge us for each of our ads, although we should not worry that our spending will skyrocket. Google allows us set a maximum budget to our campaigns so that, once reached, they stop.

The calculation of the cost of an ad depends on several factors, especially the level of competition to place that ad. That is, the number of competitors and how much they are willing to pay for their ad to be displayed in a certain space of the SERPs or the Display network.

When evaluating the cost of an advertisement, we must take into account the following concepts:

• Cost per click (CPC). The price Google charges when a user clicks on an ad and visits the landing page. In this case, the advertiser pays nothing for each viewable impression of the ad (that is, each time it is shown to a user). It is important, therefore, to reach the user with a message so that they only click when they are really interested in converting.
• Cost per thousand viewable impressions (vCPM). Only available for the Display network, it is the price paid for every thousand times that the ad is displayed visibly on the web page. In this case, the conversion is not so important, but getting a greater presence of our brand.
• Maximum bid. The maximum amount an advertiser is willing to pay for an ad, either CPC or vCPM. The value of the maximum bid influences, together with the quality level, to determine if an ad is shown in a certain area of ​​the SERPs and in what position. In general, the higher your bid, the more likely your ad will appear.
• Quality level. This factor does not affect the cost of an ad quantitatively, but qualitatively. You could define how the probability that an ad meets the needs of a user and Google evaluates it based on multiple metrics, such as CTR, bounce rate or content of the landing page (Landing Page). In general, between two ads with the same bid, Google will show the one with the highest quality.

How much to bid for a sponsored ad?

In view of these concepts, one might think that setting a high enough maximum bid is enough for our ads to appear. And it is true… but not necessarily good.

Given that most of the time we will opt for the CPC modality (the only one available on the Search network), a high maximum bid can ensure that we always appear but also that, every time someone clicks on our ad, we have to pay a price more expensive.

If the conversion rate is low, there will not be enough return on investment and we will be losing money, with many potentially qualified visits that do not convert because we have not optimized the ad, its message or the Landing Page.

The quality score, precisely, measures the degree of optimization of all the elements that affect the suitability of an ad.

Therefore, work on improve ad quality score can suppose, almost from the first moment of existence of the campaign, a substantial saving of costs, to the maximize return on investment for a given budget.

That being said, how do you calculate the “ideal” maximum bid value for an ad? For now, it must be clarified that there is no such thing as an “ideal bid”, since it depends on several factors, such as:

• The type of campaign.
• The level of competition.
• The difficulty of the keywords.
• The profit margin.

In the case of Google AdWords (now Google Ads), we can use the bid suggested by the :

Automatic bid strategies

Another possibility is to activate the automatic bids (“Smart Bidding”) provided by AdWords, choosing one of the 7 available strategies:

• Maximize number of clicks, to increase website visits. It is essential to have a Landing Page highly optimized for conversion and to establish a bid limit, since each visit means paying a CPC and the investment can skyrocket. It is usually the preferred option in the early stages of a campaign.
• Maximize conversions, Also another of the preferred strategies, which prioritizes the increase in conversions within…