How to do search engine marketing (SEM) well?

This time I will share a bigger topic, how to do a good job in search engine marketing (SEM). In fact, this question is difficult to answer because there are too many factors that affect the results of SEM. In addition to the strength of the SEMer, the competitiveness of the product, and the company brand, it is also related. Putting all that aside, today we will mainly share how to use delivery strategies and techniques to do a good job in search engine marketing.

This article is based on the author's 10 years of experience in SEM delivery. It is all practical and useful. If you think it is helpful to you, please give me a thumbs up. Your support is my motivation for writing. Now let's get into the topic - how to do a good job in search engine marketing (SEM) delivery:

1. Fully understand the product, make good budget allocation, and clearly define the target of the product.

To operate a project, before setting SEM marketing goals, as an advertiser, you must have a clear understanding of your brand, products, and services, such as which groups of people it is suitable for, audience portraits, market capacity, market location and other attributes.

At the same time, we should understand the business forms of the markets where our products are located, analyze the markets, and have a clear understanding of market development trends. To put it bluntly, we need to understand the pros and cons of our products, who our competitors are, how strong our company is, and how strong our competitors are. This strength includes brand influence and competitiveness.

After determining this, we will plan the product's distribution dimensions such as keywords, regions, time periods, etc. based on our strengths.

Of course, the most critical point is that our delivery goals must be clear. Delivery target analysis is the primary task of search engine marketing (SEM). The analysis of delivery targets is the premise of all marketing activities. Only by setting accurate goals, understanding the audience and gaining insight into the market situation can we develop targeted delivery plans. For example, the following delivery targets:

1) After the launch, what marketing goals does the company hope to achieve and what is the ideal expected value?

2) The company’s previous SEM delivery results and KPI indicators, including the company’s requirements for these KPIs.

2. Understand the industry attributes, crowd attributes, and target crowd search behavior attributes

Understand the general situation of the industry in which the company is located and whether there are peak and off-peak seasons. The target group’s education background, search habits, age, gender, region and education level, etc. Is there any difference between working days and non-working days, working hours and non-working hours? Are the search habits mainly based on computers or mobile phones? These data are critical and can provide us with guidance for setting the delivery time period, region, population, etc.

3. Simple, reasonable and easy to manage account structure

The foundation of good search engine marketing starts with the account structure. I believe that the account structure is related to the attributes of the promotion project, as shown below:

Most of the accounts I come into contact with have the structure of general accounts. For example, the medical industry plans are divided into regions + projects, and then the plans are divided into promotion units. The promotion units are subdivided into brand words, competitor words, symptom words, treatment words, general words, cost words, word-of-mouth words, etc.

The account I am working on now is a complex account. The plan division is built according to project + city + deployment equipment, as follows:

This type of project is very detailed because each city needs to set up a separate landing page, delivery time period and bid, which has a lot to do with the project attributes.

4. Complete data reports, including various dimensions

Before doing data analysis, you first need to obtain data. For specific reports that need to be made, please see this article:

We do not make reports to submit to leaders for review, but to find problems in the delivery through data reports, then solve them, and make adjustments to improve the delivery effect of the account.

SEM makes decisions through data analysis, so data must be organized carefully. If the data is wrong, the consequences of the adjustment can be imagined.

5. Accurate data analysis, determine optimization strategies and implement them, and monitor optimization results

The account optimization process is the process of finding problems in the delivery by continuously analyzing the delivery data. First of all, we need to compare the daily statements. For a stable old account, the data fluctuation will not be too large, and there is no need for frequent large adjustments. For a new account, it is a process of comparing and optimizing the data step by step. So how do we analyze the data? We can analyze and adjust through the following dimensions.

1) Time period

When the project goes online, we need to make a time table to determine the consumption in each time period and the lead collection situation in the current time period. One day's data is meaningless. We insist on doing it for 1 to 2 weeks, and we can basically determine that the delivery effect is good in that time period. Then we focus on the ranking of the time period with good results and allocate more budget. The time period with poor results can be closed or the budget can be reduced. In this way, a lot of costs can be reduced.

In addition to the daily time periods, we also need to analyze the delivery effect data on weekdays and non-working days, as well as the delivery data during working hours and non-working hours, to compare whether there are obvious differences. Some industries have better results during working hours, while some industries have better results during non-working hours. We allocate the budget based on the data during this time period. When it is good, we spend more to make it better, and when it is not good, we spend less to reduce costs.

2) Region

Pay attention to the regional report of the delivery, and then determine the following data based on data conversion

Regional lead volume and conversion report

1. Regions with large volumes and high costs

2. Regions with large volumes and low costs

3. Small volume, high cost areas

4. Small volume, low-cost region

5. Unlimited area

Divide the regions according to the above 5 types, and then adjust according to the following strategies

1. For regions with large volumes and high costs, the budget can be increased, but the reasons for the high costs need to be analyzed and adjustments made.

2. Increase budget in regions with large volume and low cost, compete for rankings and traffic, and then continue to follow up on the results.

3. In regions with low volume and high costs, reduce the budget, lower the keyword ranking, only invest in good time periods and keywords, and follow up on the results

4. In low-cost regions with small volumes, increase the budget and compete for rankings to see if it can increase the volume. It may also just increase the cost. Continue to follow up

5. If there is no volume and the region is purely for spending money, then it is necessary to evaluate and consider the characteristics of the industry and the product. Some products are not suitable for first-tier cities and some are not suitable for third-tier cities. If you really can't handle it, stop and don't run away to avoid wasting money.

3) Keywords/search terms

Keywords and search terms are the core of data analysis and account adjustment. The data must be detailed. It is best to monitor the consumption and conversion of each keyword and determine the cost of acquiring a single lead for the keyword (consumption/lead volume).

Keyword cost and conversion report

The adjustment of keywords is more complicated. The author divides keywords into the following categories based on the consumption and conversion of keywords:

Keyword screening model

Keyword adjustment strategy

High business opportunities and low transaction word matching method, price reduction, lower ranking

High business opportunities and high transaction words guarantee ranking, grab traffic and guarantee clicks

Low business opportunity and high transaction words guarantee ranking, grab traffic and guarantee click volume

Low business opportunities and low transaction words guarantee ranking

High business opportunities without transaction words reduce price or do not invest

Low business opportunities, no deal, price reduction or no bid

No business opportunity words will not be submitted

4) Source channels

During the delivery process, we will set parameters for channels from different sources to facilitate differentiation, or use different landing pages for delivery. In short, we need data to determine the effects of the following sources, for example:

1. PC traffic and mobile traffic

2. Conversion comparison of different types of keywords

3. Conversion volume comparison of online customer service/form/400

4. Comparison of SEO/SEM traffic

Based on the above data comparison, we can determine the proportion of PC mobile, which is convenient for allocating budget and determining the direction of delivery. Then determine adjustments other than the SEM account based on the comparison. For example, whether the customer acquisition page is mainly based on forms or online customer service, which types of keywords should be paid more attention to, etc.

5) Refined operations

Every SEMer has his own understanding of refined operations. In my mind, refined operations refer to operating in different time periods, cutting costs, grasping results, and starting from the morning to ensure that the most perfect input-output ratio that can be achieved is achieved every day. A review is done every day to count how much money is consumed by the end of the day, how much is converted, where there are problems, and where adjustments need to be made. Search term report includes daily negative and positive terms. In this way, the weekly and monthly summaries will definitely be the best results that SEM can achieve. Data analysis is important, but execution is more important!

The above is what our star optimizer-tengfeifox shared with you this time.

Author: Aiqi SEM

Source: Aichi SEM (CMOcollege)