Intro to Search Engine Marketing (SEM), pay-per-click advertising and Google Adwords for Troy Henikoff's "Entrepreneurial Tools For Digital Marketing" course at Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management. Elan Mosbacher. VP of Marketing @ SpotHero. January 2016.
8. Google Trends: MBA vs. SEM
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Source: Google Trends https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=SEM%2C%20MBA&cmpt=q&tz=Etc%2FGMT%2B6
MBA
DEMAND
DOWN
60%
SEM
DEMAND
UP
400%
9. SEM is a major investment for most startups
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_public_corporations_by_market_capitalization
https://investor.google.com/earnings/2015/Q3_google_earnings.html
• Google is top 5 publicly traded company
• > ¾ of Google’s revenue comes directly from SEM
• After headcount, SEM is often biggest line item for startups
10. About me
• Elan Mosbacher
• Serial Startup Marketer
• >$10 Million in SEM Management
• VP Marketing @ SpotHero
• SpotHero is an on-demand parking marketplace
– Techstars Chicago
– $27M In Venture Capital
– 75 Employees
– Top 10 iOS app in iTunes Navigation Category
• Advised dozens of companies from Techstars Chicago alumni to startups
across the globe via clarity.fm/elan, a site for on-demand startup advice
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14. SEM’s Advantages
• Immediate traffic to your website
• Flexible budget
• Easy to scale
• Optimized for testing
• Measureable and data rich
• Full control over targeting & ad copy
• Capture existing demand resulting in relatively high ROI
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15. SEM/PPC 1st Digital Marketing Tactic
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18. Let’s start with Keywords
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19. Keywords
• What Keywords Are You Customers Looking For?
– Google Keyword Planner
– Google Instant / Google Suggest
– Uber Suggest
– SpyFu / SEM Rush
– SKUs, or names of products and services you sell
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25. Keywords: Match Types
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Not
Relevant
Less
Targeted
More
Targeted
Negative Match: -games
Won’t show for: parking games
Broad Match: parking
Show: parking, best place to park
Broad Match Modifier: +chicago + parking
Show: chicago monthly parking, parking in chicago
Not: Evanston parking
Phrase Match: “chicago parking”
Show: chicago parking rates, best chicago parking
Not: Chicago cubs parking
Exact Match: [chicago parking]
Show: chicago parking
Not: chicago parking rates, loop parking, parking chicago
PRO TIP: When in doubt, use a more targeted keyword match type.
26. Tip: Focus on the long tail keywords
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27. Keyword Summary
• Brainstorm keywords
• Be sure to use the right match type
• Be sure to use negative keywords
• Group them into buckets of similar themes
– Brand
– Geo
– By product or service
– By stage of the funnel (e.g. ideas vs. compare vs. buy)
• Tip 1: Use the “search query” tool to find new exact match and new negative match terms
• Tip 2: This is an ongoing process. You do it regularly, not just once.
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28. Ads & Ad Groups
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29. Ads & Ad Groups
• Themes of keywords go in a bucket called an ad group
• On the front of the bucket, you’ll have an ad
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Adgroup
1
Adgroup
2
Adgroup
3
Brand Terms Product Terms Service Terms
30. Ads & Ad Groups
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31. Ads & Ad Groups
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32. Ads & Ad Groups
• Use the keywords in your ad
• Test at least two ad copy versions
– Headlines
– Descriptions
– Display URL
– Ad Extensions
• Make sure your keyword, ad and landing page offers match
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33. Quality Score & Bidding
• Bidding
– You set a max CPC you are willing to pay
– Google looks at CPC, CTR & Quality score to determine what you pay
– Better CTR means Google makes more money
– Better CTR means higher quality score
– Example: $1 x 1M or $1M x 1
• Quality Score:
– How relevant is your ad & landing page to the search term?
– How strong is the click-through rate relative to others?
– How good is the User Experience on the landing page?
– Relevant ads are better for the user and make Google more money
• Therefore, Google reward higher quality score accounts with lower CPC
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34. Quality Score & Bidding Tips
• Quality Score Tips:
– Tight buckets of keywords themes in adgroups
– Tailor ad copy to intend of search, include keyword
– Split test ads to boost click-through-rate (CTR)
– Build landing page to meet needs to search
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36. Accounts & Campaigns
• Campaigns are where you set budget, targeting & distribution
– Product line, geo, service type, etc
– You have have multiple per product, geo, or service
• When your accounts get big enough (100ks keywords), you may open
multiple accounts with one search engine under one MCC account
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37. Ways to Measure
SEM is about balancing costs and volume
• CPM = Cost Per 1000 impressions
• CPC = Cost Per Click
• CPL = Cost Per Lead
• CPA = Cost Per Action or Acquisition
• ROAS = Return on Ad Spend
• GM = Gross Margin
• CAC:LTV = Customer Acquisition Cost : Lifetime Value
• Payback = How many months until you break even?
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38. Tips for getting started
• Ask: Is SEM right for you?
– Budget? Demand Levels? Competition? Profitability (e.g. eCommerce > social network)?
• Get Google right before you use Bing
• Be sure your web analytics and conversion tracking are set up properly
• Keywords: Avoid broad match, which is the Google default because it makes them the most money
• Ad Groups: Get a granular as possible:
– 1 keyword : 2 a/b tested ads : 1 dedicated landing page
• Bidding: Bid on:
– Your brand terms
– Long tail terms
– Terms with purchase intent (e.g. rates, compare, vs., buy)
– The specific products you sell (e.g. SKU #)
• Focus on one thing at a time
– More volume (keywords)
– Better CTR (ads)
– Better conversion rates (landing pages)
• Start small and grow slowly, or you can waste a lot of money
• Learn! Ask for help!
• Hire help!
– One-time audit > ongoing monthly retainer
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39. Additional Resources
Terms to know:
SEM
SEO
PPC
CTR
CPM
Campaign
Ad Group
Ad Copy
Keyword
Exact
Phrase
Broad
Broad Modifier
Quality Score
Where to get started
Google Adwords Certification (To learn)
Google Adwords Account (To start)
Google Keyword Planner (To build)
Google Adwords Editor (To scale)
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40. Here’s how to find me
Elan Mosbacher
elan@spothero.com / @mosbacher
clarity.fm/elan | linkedin.com/in/elanmosbacher
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Notes de l'éditeur
Google Trends is a tool that shows the relative search demand for anything.
For example, if you look for swine flu, or superbowl or presidential elections, you’ll see the spikes in demand over time.
In this instance, I compared search demand for MBA, which is the degree you are all getting, with SEM which is the topic we are discussing today.
Over the past 10 years, there has been a 60% decline in search demand for MBAs while we’ve seen a 400% increase in relative demand for SEM.
Of all the marketing skills you can learn as an MBA, this is an especially important one for two reasons
If you plan to start a company, SEM is going to be a major investment
Google isi the 5th biggest publicly traded company in the USA
¾ of their revenue in Q3 was from SEM, or ads placed on Google.com
For most startups I’ve worked with, and perhaps Troy can speak to this as well, SEM is the biggest line item outside of headcount
What is the difference between SEM and SEO?
SEO stands for search engine optimization
Creating relevant & authoritative website for people looking to find information on Google and making sure it follows Google’s best practices
SEM stands for search engine marketing, also known as pay-per-click advertising
SEM is a form of pay-per-click (PPC) advertising that enables you to target consumers on a 1:1 basis for spefici search term