Setting goals for a search engine marketing (SEM) program

Posted by: Janessa Seewald, Account Manager

Setting goals for a new search engine marketing (SEM) program and developing the strategy that will achieve them are your first steps toward high ROI. There are several important factors that arise when you go through this process, ranging from qualitative considerations such as the audience’s awareness of your brand to quantitative considerations including your initial budget.

Let’s take a look at a few of these factors more closely:

• Brand Awareness – Knowing how familiar your target audience is with your brand plays a large role in goal setting and strategy development. This will help you define what tactics to consider as part of your program and what metrics you define as important in achieving your goals. For example, contextual advertising is a great way to generate brand awareness by targeting prospects that are searching for content related to your product/service offerings. However, since this is often primarily a branding tactic, you should expect a much lower click-through rate (CTR) than you might from tactics such as email or pay-per-click (PPC) advertising.
• Budget & Seasonality – Within virtually every industry, it’s possible to pinpoint seasonal trends in the customers’ buying cycle or consumer demand. A best practice is making sure your media budget reflects this seasonality. This is particularly important to consider when setting your goals, as each should be tied to the amount of media you are spending as well as the actual length of the purchase cycle.
• Offer & Messaging – Considering these elements is important when setting goals as some offers and messaging may be geared more toward low-involvement activities while others require higher involvement. For example, if you are encouraging people to request a brochure (which is relatively low involvement), you can expect to see a much higher conversion rate than if you are urging them to take a high-involvement action such as making an actual purchase.

By considering these factors when planning a new SEM campaign, you’re ensuring a successful start, but it’s always important to remember to review your past results, making informed decisions based on what has worked and what hasn’t, and to optimize your search engine marketing program while it’s live to ensure that success is maintained.