Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is a digital marketing strategy that uses paid advertising on search engines to increase exposure for a product or brand.

With billions of people searching every day, it’s important for your business to get exposure on search engines like Google. However, for new businesses and websites, it can be hard to rank naturally in the top search results. That’s where search engine marketing (SEM) comes in. This guide provides the basic knowledge and actionable insights to help you succeed with your SEM campaigns and achieve your marketing goals.

What is Search Engine Marketing (SEM)?

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is a digital marketing strategy that uses paid advertising to increase a website’s visibility in search engines. The goal is to appear in paid search results when people search for terms related to your business, product, or service.

For example, let’s say you sell sports equipment online and want to promote sales of tennis shoes. There are two main ways to reach potential customers through search engines:

1. Run ads to promote your product pages in paid search results (SEM)
2. Optimize your product pages to rank higher in organic search results (SEO)

Results in the green box are paid ads, and results below that are organic search results. SEM allows you to advertise your brand in paid results areas.

SEM vs. SEO

Both search engine marketing (SEM) and search engine optimization (SEO) aim to increase a website's visibility in search engines.

The goal of SEM is clear, but experts disagree about its scope. Some believe that SEM includes both paid and organic search, while others think that SEM is only related to paid search.

For example, Ishaan Shakunt , founder of performance marketing and SEO agency Spear Growth , believes SEM encompasses both organic and paid search strategies.

“ISEO is not the name of the channel, organic search is the channel,” says Ishaan. “SEO is what we do to improve organic search. Similarly, PPC is not a channel, paid search is the channel. PPC is just one way to bid on various advertising channels, including paid search.

“So search engine marketing should be a combination of paid search and organic search. These two teams should work together because they are two different ways to appear on the same search engine.”

On the other hand, Kamel Ben Yacoub , founder and CEO of PPC agency Getuplead , believes SEM is primarily associated with paid search.

“I think SEM clearly stands for paid search, and organic search has its own term called SEO,” says Kamel. “There was no confusion 12 years ago when I started in digital marketing!”

Here's a quick summary of the differences between SEO and SEM:

The main difference between SEM and SEO is that SEM drives traffic through paid advertising, whereas SEO optimizes your website to increase organic search traffic.

SEM allows you to pay for your ads and get them on Google search results pages immediately. SEO, on the other hand, can take months (or even years) for your website to appear in the top organic search results. It takes time to build your website’s authority and improve your rankings.

SEM results will vary depending on your advertising budget and campaign duration. If you stop advertising, your traffic will stop. However, SEO can continue to drive traffic for years after your initial efforts.

A comprehensive digital marketing strategy requires both SEO and SEM. While SEM can drive traffic and conversions quickly, SEO provides a strong foundation for building long-term online exposure and authority.

Why is search engine marketing important?

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) or paid search increases your online presence and drives targeted traffic to your website. Here’s why SEM is important:

• SEO Complement: While SEO builds your organic presence, paid search helps build your brand’s initial momentum and immediate visibility. This is especially important when launching a product, launching a promotional event, or entering a new market.
• Target Reach: SEM allows you to target users based on specific demographics, geographic location, and search behavior. For example, if you sell winter sports equipment, you can target your ads to users in colder regions or to users who search for keywords related to winter sports.
• Measurable Results: Measure every aspect of your paid advertising campaigns. With a data-driven approach like impressions, clicks, conversions, and ROI, you can continuously optimize your campaigns for better results.
• Cost Control: SEM operates on a pay-per-click (PPC) model, meaning you only pay when someone clicks on your ad. This gives you more control over your advertising costs and the results of your campaign budget.

How does search engine marketing work?

Here are the key components and processes that work together to create an effective advertising campaign:

Setting up your Google Ads account and campaigns

Setting up your Google Ads account and campaigns Before you can run ads, you need to set up your Google Ads account and campaigns. This process typically involves:

1. Sign up for Google Ads and set up your billing information.
2. Define your campaign goals (e.g. website traffic, lead generation, brand awareness).
3. Select a campaign type (e.g. Search Network, Display Network).
4. Organize keywords into ad groups based on common themes.
5. Write compelling ad copy that includes your target keywords and a clear call-to-action (CTA).

Keywords

Google Ads uses keywords to match your ads to search queries when users search for information related to your product, service, or business. If you bid on specific keywords in a query, your ads will appear on search engine results pages (SERPs).

You can choose from three keyword types:

• Exact match: Your ad will only appear when the search query matches the exact keyword. For example, the exact match keyword “tennis shoes” will only show your ad when a user searches for “tennis shoes” or “tennis shoe.”
• Phrase match: Triggers ads for queries that contain close variations of your keyword. For example, the phrase match keyword “tennis shoes” might show ads for searches like “buy tennis shoes online” or “best tennis shoes.”
• Broad match: Shows your ads for broad search queries related to your target keyword. For example, the broad match keyword “tennis shoes” may trigger your ads for queries like “athletic footwear” or “sports shoes.”

Riley Adams , Founder and CEO of WealthUp , says:

“Broad match can cause your ads to bid on a lot (really a lot) of irrelevant keywords. If you choose to bid on ‘broad’ keyword match, it’s important to be vigilant about negative keywords. You want to avoid bidding on irrelevant keywords in order to get your ad impressions and clicks.”

Therefore, you need to set queries for which you do not want your ads to appear by adding “negative keywords”.

For example, you can add “free tennis shoes” or “cheap tennis shoes” as negative keywords to prevent your ads from showing for those queries.

Advertising Auction

When a search query includes keywords from an advertising campaign, the search engine conducts a real-time auction to determine which ads will be displayed and in what order. However, the highest bidder does not necessarily win the auction and the advertising space.

For example, Google Ads considers your ad's quality score , ranking criteria , context, geographic targeting, and other settings in addition to your bid amount. Here are some of the main factors it uses to calculate your ad's quality score:

• Expected Click-Through Rate (CTR): How likely is it that a user will click on your ad when shown to them?
• Ad relevance: How well does your ad match the intent of a particular search?
• Landing page experience: How useful is the landing page after a user clicks on your ad?

The higher your ad quality score, the lower your cost per click.

As a result, the advertiser's primary job is to create compelling ad copy and landing pages to achieve high quality scores (and low cost-per-click).

Ad placement

If you win the ad auction, your ad will appear in the paid search results section of the SERP, usually labeled “Ad” or “Sponsor.” The position of your ad (how high it appears) will depend on its Ad Rank compared to other bidders.

Google Ads charges for the number of times you click on your ads, which is why this advertising model is called pay-per-click (PPC) marketing.

Campaign Tracking and Optimization

After your ad campaign is up and running, you need to track its performance. Monitor key performance indicators such as click-through rate (CTR), conversion rate, cost per conversion, and return on ad spend (ROAS).

Based on this data, you can optimize your campaigns to improve their performance. This may include adjusting bids, modifying ad copy, or changing target keywords.

8 Tips for Successful SEM

1. Consider other factors besides your target audience's demographics.
2. Simplify your Google Ads account and campaign structure
3. Increase conversion rates by leveraging long-tail keywords
4. Focus on improving your ad quality score
5. Prevent unnecessary searches by adding negative keywords
6. Optimize your advertising budget for maximum impact
7. Align your ad copy and landing page with user intent
8. Continuously test, analyze, and optimize your SEM campaigns

1. Consider other factors besides demographic information.

How well you understand your customers has a huge impact on the results of your marketing campaigns—whether through organic or paid channels.

Therefore, in-depth customer research is the first and most important step in creating targeted and relevant advertising campaigns.

According to Radulescu Stefan Valentin , Paid Advertising Manager at Irresistible Me , customer analytics is more than just knowing demographic information.

“Knowing your customers goes beyond age or location,” he says. “It’s important to understand what they like, what they do, what they search for online. Tailor your advertising based on those insights.”

Therefore, it would be a good idea to delve deeper into the following:

• Behavioral: Analyze how your audience interacts with your website—what types of content they consume, which pages they visit most often, their purchasing patterns, and more.
• Psychographics: Understand your customers’ values, attitudes, and lifestyles. This will help you create more personalized and engaging advertising messages.
• Socioeconomic information: Find out about your customers' education level, occupation, income level, spending habits, average household size, etc.

This data can be obtained through tools such as Google Analytics , Semrush , and SparkToro .

To gain even more insight into your customers, you can take it a step further. You can combine the information you’ve collected above with your own research. This includes reaching out to your existing customers directly through surveys, interviews, focus groups, etc. Talking directly to your customers is one of the most effective ways to understand them.

“While your target audience research approach may vary depending on your industry, one thing remains the same: your existing customers are your best research tool,” says Dean Rowe , Shopify’s director of paid search. “Talk to them, engage in sales and customer support calls, and really learn what motivates them and what matters most to them. For example, when your ad emphasizes price, quality and trustworthiness may be a bigger motivator.” He says.

After you’ve collected all your data, create detailed buyer personas that include demographic, behavioral, psychographic, and socioeconomic data. You can use these personas to guide your paid search strategies and campaigns. A typical buyer persona might look like this:

2. Simplify your Google Ads account and campaign structure

A simple, well-organized Google Ads account helps you effectively display relevant ads to the right audience. It also makes it easier to manage, track, and optimize.

First, start by creating ad groups and campaigns with a clear theme. Create ad groups to group related ads and keywords together. Then, when people type in search queries that include your target keywords, relevant ads will appear.

“A well-structured account mirrors the structure of your website, making it easier to manage and optimize your ads,” says Will Yang , Head of Growth and Marketing at Instrumentl . “This makes it easier to track performance and provides a clearer picture of budget allocation.” He says.

For example, if you sell electronics online, a simplified Google Ads account and campaign structure like this might be right for your business:

3. Increase conversion rates by using long-tail keywords

Increase conversions by targeting high-intent long-tail keywords Long-tail keywords are more specific and often indicate higher purchase intent. For example, keywords like “best tennis shoes size 10 for narrow feet” or “Asics tennis shoe coupon code” indicate more specificity and higher purchase intent than the query “tennis shoes.”

“Choosing the right keywords is the most basic yet most important part of SEM,” says Matt Calik , CEO of Delante . “Identify high-intent keywords in your specific industry. Don’t just pick words that seem reasonable; look at the keywords that your customers actually use when making a purchasing decision. Don’t be fooled by your intuition.”

“If you don’t have much experience in this area, I recommend using Google Keyword Planner to get some insights. You can use it to check search volume and competition.”

Google Keyword Planner is a free keyword research tool available to anyone with a Google Ads account.

With Google Keyword Planner, you can:

• Generate keyword ideas
• Create a keyword list
• Research keyword data such as monthly search volume and trends
• Performance prediction for keywords

Learn how to use Google Keyword Planner effectively by reading the following guide.

Additionally, keywords with high commercial intent often have high cost-per-click (CPC) rates. This can increase the cost of customer acquisition, which can be especially challenging for small businesses.

However, PPC consultant Sarah Atkinson advises experimenting with alternative keywords that have the same intent as your target keyword to reduce your CPC.

“Testing new keyword variations can help you reduce your cost per click. Your competitors are likely bidding on the same keywords, which can increase your costs. Regularly looking at alternative keywords that your competitors aren’t targeting can help you increase traffic and conversions at a lower cost.” She says.

Similarly, Kamel suggests bidding on product use cases as keywords instead of product category keywords to lower your CPCs and maintain profitability.

“Focus on product action keywords instead of category keywords. These keywords represent actions people want to take. They typically have lower CPCs. For example, ‘how to record screen with sound’ is a task keyword. The product category version would be ‘video creation tools.’” She says.

With a little creativity and ingenuity, you can target keywords with high commercial intent while still managing your PPC costs.

4. Focus on improving your ad quality score

A high ad quality score can lead to better ad placements and lower CPCs, so maintaining a high ad quality score should be one of your top priorities (or key performance indicators) for your SEM campaigns.

“A Quality Score of 8 or higher is great, but every paid search professional should aim for 10/10,” Dean adds. “This requires a logical account structure and strong keyword relevance across targeting, ads, and landing pages.”

To improve your ad quality score, you can improve the following:

• Ad Relevance: Make sure your ads are highly relevant to the keywords and search queries you are targeting. Use clear and precise ad copy that matches the user’s intent.
• Click-Through Rate (CTR): Improve your CTR by optimizing your headline and ad copy, using visual elements, including a clear call to action (CTA), and adding negative keywords.
• Landing page experience: Make sure your landing page is user-friendly, loads quickly, and contains relevant content that matches the promise of your ad.

The best way to achieve this is to “become a buyer yourself,” Dean adds. “Take time each week to review keywords with low quality scores and follow the flow from the search engine results page all the way to the landing page. Most of the time, the changes that need to be made will be obvious.”

5. Prevent unnecessary searches by adding negative keywords

PPC keyword research is as important as finding the right keywords, it’s also important to know which keywords to avoid. That’s why it’s a good idea to create a list of keywords for which you don’t want your ads to appear. These are called negative keywords.

Adding negative keywords not only helps you reduce spend on irrelevant searches, but it also helps improve the relevance of your SEM campaigns, says Brittany Serrano, VP and head of paid media at Sosemo .

“Add negative keywords to filter out irrelevant searches and improve your ad targeting. By excluding irrelevant keywords, you can improve the relevance and quality score of your ads, and reduce waste on irrelevant clicks.” She says.

For example, if you only sell premium brand tennis shoes, you can add negative keywords like “cheap” or “budget.” This way, your ads won’t show when budget-conscious shoppers type in search queries like “cheap tennis shoes.”

This will give you the following benefits:

• Improved targeting: Your ads will be shown to users who are more likely to be interested in your products.
• Reduce wasted spending: Save money on irrelevant searches and spend it on more relevant clicks.
• Increased click-through rate (CTR): By filtering out irrelevant searches, your ads will receive more clicks from users who are truly interested in them.
• Increased conversion rates: More relevant ad impressions increase the likelihood of conversion.

6. Optimize your advertising budget for maximum impact

Successful SEM campaigns are built around the user’s search intent, so make sure your target keywords, ad copy, and landing page align with that search intent.

First, find answers to two important questions:

1. What are your potential customers searching for?
2. How close are they to buying?

A simple way to answer this question is to “map your customer’s typical buying journey,” says Ishaan. “Imagine your audience’s natural buying journey, where they are, when you’re not around, solving their problem. Now, look at the different search terms they’re searching for at each stage. It’s important to align your messaging with the intent at that stage of the buying journey.”

For example, the search query “top tennis coaches in new york” means that the user may later purchase tennis shoes, but their primary intent is to find a coach.

On the other hand, the search term “best tennis shoes for clay courts” indicates that the searcher is much closer to making a purchase. Because of the specificity of the search, these ads are shown:

Here, searchers are more likely to click on “Asics” or “Tennis Express” ads because these ads better match their search query.

Specifically, the “Asics” ad shows an image of tennis shoes being used on a clay court, and the title of the “Tennis Express” ad, “Clay Court Tennis Shoes,” is very relevant.

Marketing professionals often make mistakes here, says Casey Meraz , founder of Juris Digital, a marketing agency specializing in law firms. “An often overlooked aspect of ad copy and landing page optimization is message alignment. Your ad copy needs to seamlessly connect with your landing page content. Any discrepancies can result in lower conversion rates and higher bounce rates.”

Therefore, it is important to ensure alignment between search intent, ad copy, and landing page. This alignment can improve user experience and conversion rates.

7. Align your ad copy and landing page with user intent

To make the most of your advertising budget, you need to manage your Google Ads budget closely. Consider allocating your budget based on the performance of your advertising campaigns.

“It’s important to set a realistic budget based on your advertising goals and expected ROI,” says Brittany . “It’s helpful to start with a conservative budget and adjust as you gather data and optimize your campaigns.”

If you're new to SEM, it's a good idea to start with a conservative advertising budget and adjust your strategy based on performance data.

• Analyze whether your budget allocation matches your campaign goals and performance data. Allocate more budget to high-performing keywords and ad groups.
• Adjust your bids based on keyword performance, competition, and conversion rates. Increase bids for high-performing keywords and reduce or pause low-performing keywords.
• Monitor your daily advertising spend carefully to avoid overspending and ensure your budget is used efficiently.

8. Continuously test, analyze, and optimize your SEM campaigns.

SEM, like any other marketing campaign, requires continuous testing and optimization. Experiment with your Google Ads strategies and campaigns, analyze performance data, and continually make adjustments to improve results.

You can try the following:

• A/B test different elements of your ad (e.g. headline, description, CTA) to see which ones work best.
• Track key metrics like impressions, clicks, and conversions using the built-in analytics tools in Google Analytics and Google Ads.
• Optimize your campaigns based on performance data. This may include adjusting bids, segmenting keywords, and revising your ad copy.

When is SEM right for your business?

The following two factors can help you understand if SEM is right for your business:

1. Once you have found product-market fit and message-market fit,

Quality Score determines how much you should pay per click. A good Quality Score depends on your ad copy resonating with your target searcher.

To be successful in SEM, you need to understand who your market is (product-market fit) and what message they respond to ( message-market fit ). If you don’t get these factors right, Google may give you a low Quality Score, which will make your advertising more expensive and less successful.

2. If you are capturing categories rather than creating them

SEM is based on high-intent searches, so people must be searching for your type of product or service.

For example, if you sell tennis shoes, that’s no problem. There are over 90,000 searches for “tennis shoes” in the United States each month.

If your product is creating a new category, like hybrid tennis shoes/cozy slippers, you'll have a hard time finding specific keywords because people aren't searching for it yet.

In such cases, it is better to first increase category awareness through other types of marketing, and then run a search engine marketing campaign after the market has become more aware of your product.

Search Engine Marketing to Maximize Your Revenue

Search engine marketing is one of the most powerful forms of advertising. There’s a reason advertisers will spend$237.38 billion on Google ads in 2023.

Whether it’s organic or paid search, Google has always put the user experience first, so the key to success in SEM is ensuring that your ads and landing pages perfectly align with your audience’s search intent.

Follow the tips and insights above to create SEM campaigns to drive sales and maximize your return on investment.

Search Engine Marketing FAQs