Search engines have become users’ first resource when searching on the Internet using keywords to find the products, services and content that interest them, and that is why all brands seek to appear in the top positions. To do this, there are various online marketing strategies, among which SEM stands out, which we have already talked about previously on the blog but we will discuss in more depth today.
What is SEM
SEM is the acronym for Search Engine Marketing and consists of carrying out marketing actions through the different search engines that seek to promote websites by increasing their visibility on the results pages. In short, SEM is the insertion of paid advertising in the results of search engines or web search engines.
There are applications that allow companies the ability to display their ads in search results when a user performs a search related to our product or service, such as Google Ads, Bing Ads or Yahoo! Search Marketing, and involves activities such as keyword research, ad creation, and bid management. The way in which search engines charge companies when they use this service is known as PPC (Pay Per Click) or CPC (Cost Per Click), which is the cost for each click made on the advertisement, and its price depends on the market, the competition, and the maximum cost that the user is willing to pay.
Like any marketing strategy, to fully understand what SEM is, it is necessary to know the advantages and disadvantages of paid advertising on search engines, which we will see below.
Advantages of SEM
- Speed: in the same day you can create a campaign, launch it and receive visits.
- Allows you to quickly publicize a product on a large scale.
- It allows us to measure an immense amount of data from each campaign to help us optimize strategies.
- It allows us to test, since the positioning depends on the investment we make, which allows us to test those keywords and ads that work best.
- Gain visibility: allows us to compete with large companies in our sector.
- It gives us many segmentation possibilities:
- It allows us to bring highly segmented traffic to our website: by using keywords well, we can make our ads reach only those people who may really be interested in our products or services.
- We can choose when to appear by the day and time when we think our ad will have the best results
- Offers geographic segmentation possibilities by country, city, region, ratio, coordinates…
- We can also choose which devices we want to have more presence on: it allows us to show ourselves to a greater or lesser extent on mobile phones, tablets and computers.
Disadvantages of SEM
- It requires time and study to correctly use the tool, since the system is complex: SEM tools work through a bidding system in which different advertisers bid on the same keywords to appear highest in the search results. The quality level of the keywords, the CTR, the competition, the campaign budget are also taken into account to determine in which position the ad will appear.
- We must make a budget investment and an optimization effort, since if we do not optimize the campaign that budget will be exhausted in the first hours without the ads having really reached the target audience. In addition, it implies a higher cost in the long term, since it only works while you pay.
- The results are immediate; However, measuring results and making performance improvements can take months.
Therefore, we see that, in summary, the SEM is characterized by the following:
– Short-term results.
– High level of reach.
– Possibility of segmentation.
– High long-term economic cost.
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