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As a Search Marketer I often have to justify to our clients the amount of money that we spend on pay per click advertising- SEM and why they should consider future ad spend.
Often the number of clicks (web site visits) far outweighs the number of actual form conversions (form leads) produced by any given campaign. We do see some of our click to conversion rates as high as 30% which is nothing less than awesome.
Also as a rule we factor in the number of qualified phone calls that come through the designated SEM phone numbers and combine those calls with total form conversions to arrive at the total SEM opportunities.
Confusion arises when you take the amount of money that is spent and divide it by the number of leads received to arrive at your cost per lead.
Defining SEM ROI does not and should not stop there. It’s not quite as clear cut as buying leads and the true cost per acquisition is not so easy to nail down.
Without getting too esoteric, here are some OTHER favorable attributes gleaned from a typical SEM campaign:
Branding
Every ad view (impression) your SEM ads receive via pay per click is an opportunity. It is a virtual billboard just for you on the internet super highway. The best part about impressions is they are FREE… You don’t pay to have your ad show up next to or even above your competition. Exposing searchers to your brand is crucial to maintaining consumer “top of mind awareness”.
Our clients often say they don’t want to pay for branded (name) keyword phrases to show up on the search page.
I ask WHY?!
- The branding is free,
- Grabbing yet another spot on the search page gives you more real estate above the fold pushing the competition DOWN.
- Realistically if someone clicks on your name…it costs pennies, literally!
It’s not surprising some 80% of today’s consumers use search engines to research an upcoming purchase. These folks don’t always buy online and they may not even be buying immediately. This tire kicking by-product of search engine marketing is known as ROPO, (research online purchase offline)
ROPO gets a bad rap because it’s not so easy to tie offline sales to online advertising.
Here are just a few ways to trace offline conversions back to online origins:
- We already mentioned having a unique phone number for SEM that is accessible only to folks that initiate contact via an SEM campaign and the calls are noted as such.
- Special landing pages that are only used with SEM campaigns are another way to isolate traffic origin.
- Surveying customers by asking where they first heard about your company or product can help quantify online origination.
- Offering special rebates or coupons assigned to specific search campaigns is another great way to track online to offline sales.
Search Engine Marketing is so much more than purchasing leads…
It is a major catalyst for advertising your brand, shouting your message, besting your competitors, and setting yourself apart from the rest.
SEM is also a lot less expensive than TV, Radio, Newspaper or the Yellow Pages…
Take another look at SEM and see it for the multi facet marketing medium that it truly is.
