Search Engine Marketing – SEM

SEM is a form of publishing in the Internet with the plus of not paying a fix sum to a website for publishing in their website. In general, the major search machines, social networks and websites most visited, sell spaces within their pages so that one can publish in their websites.

The payment method of these sites is CPC (Cost per Click). That means, one only pays for the clicks which effectively landed on the published website.

The benefits given by this online marketing form are various. Firstly, the potential consumer arrives to the page of destiny after searching for the object of his desire; the chances of realizing a transaction are high. Secondly, it’s a form of bringing qualified traffic to the website within hours of having released the campaign in the platforms, which is why the short-term results throb with this method. Lastly, one controls the to be invested capital daily, so if one month we want to invest more than in another, there would be absolutely no problem.

The accuracy of measurement of the online marketing campaigns is what has revolutionized it from the other traditional communication methods. With the SEM campaigns, you can know how many people visited your website, who filled in the contact form, who the form for the newsletter and who effectively made a purchase. You can have a constant ROI (Return On Investment).

Unlike SEO (Search Engine Optimization) which often requires a reconstruction of the website an a more arduous work in its rescription, where as with SEM you only need to arm the campaign, understand how the platforms of the different search machines and social networks work and you will already be able to enjoy the obtained traffic.

Below you will find some definitions that may be helpful to understand the reports of the agencies.

CPM (Cost per Mille (thousand) Impressions): The client pays for the number of impressions his advertisement makes. In other words, the number of times his publicity pops up in a page, independent of the amount of users that click on it or not.

CPC (Cost per Click): In this model a minimum of action on behalf of the user is required. The client only has to pay for the click that effectively brings a user to his website. The traffic is inferior to that of CPM because one looks exclusively for the users that the client desires.

CPL (Cost per Lead): In this model, one pays for any action realized by potential clients in your website (the filling in of a form, registration in the website, subscribing for the newsletter, etc.). The price of these campaigns is normally much higher than that of those presented beforehand.

CPA (Cost per Acquisition): The client only pays for sales made. This model is only used by businesses with online shops.

Even though the four presented models offer different benefits for the agencies and clients, the most used is CPC, granted that it binds both parties to realize their work well and accept the costs of a web campaign. The agency would have to give its best so that the clicks that the clients pay for really come from the desired public, and the clients would have to pay a reasonable price for the clicks. Both would be realizing an inversion in order to establish a long-lasting relationship.

CTR (Click through Rate): During the development of a campaign, using whichever of the recently named methods, the client and the agency can use this indicator to see the number of clicks made in each announcement over the number of impressions it has, so being able to measure the efectivity of each and every advertisement while being allowed to optimize them daily.