Search Campaign Execution

With an in-depth understanding of the basic concepts and terminologies of a search campaign, we would now study the key steps of search campaign execution by dividing them into three key stages:

1. Pre-campaign launch: involves the set of activities which need to be carried out before the search campaign begins. In the earlier section titled ‘Search Campaign Planning Basics,’ we laid out the key planning activities for SEM execution including needs and objectives establishment, competitive analysis, target audience definition, keyword research, bid and budget planning, and campaign goals definition. Once all these strategic elements have been decided, the following elements need to be put in place before initiating the campaign:
   • Develop base metrics for website: Before marketers run a search marketing campaign, they should extract present reports for their website and key landing pages on the type of web traffic, visitor types, their key actions, present conversion rates, etc., to baseline present data which can then be compared with post campaign data to understand the success/RoI behind the campaigns.
   • Create account and keyword strategy: It is crucial to have a clarified understanding and kind of account, campaign, ad groups and keyword sets, the marketer would want to develop to create a successful campaign.
   • Setting an SEM Budget: Investors for SEM, be it corporate driven or SMBs (Small and Medium Businesses), should have a clear idea of the kind of investment they would like to put in this channel and a strategy for bidding across large sets of keywords.
2. Campaign launch: This stage includes all the activities from developing an AdWords account (for Google SEM campaigns), creating targeted campaigns and ads, executing pre-decided bids and budget strategies to monitoring and optimizing campaigns. Following are the key steps for each of these activities:
   • Developing Google AdWords account: Involves creation of Google AdWords account and understanding the key elements to be populated to initiate the first campaign
   • Creating targeted campaigns: Google AdWords typically supports creation of two types of campaigns:
     • Standard campaigns: Involves selecting from the following three basic types of campaigns supported by AdWordsSearch network only: Keyword-targeted ads are shown only on Google search results.Display network only: Placement of ads targeted only across Google Display Network sites (earlier known as Google AdSense) where ads are matched with websites when keywords are related to a site’s content or the interests of a user browsing the site. Marketers can also choose to target specific pages, topics, demographic groups, etc.Search network with display select: This involves targeting for search results on the search network and relevant placements within the Display Network
     • Specialized campaigns: Google AdWords offer additional campaign sub-types which can help marketers with advanced targeting options:Dynamic search ads: In this type ads use the content of marketer’s website (not keywords) to target searches.Mobile apps: Image and text ads shown on the Google Display Network and AdMob network in mobile applications.Remarketing: Text, image, or video ads show people who have already visited marketer’s website when they browse other sites on the Google Display Network.Engagement: Engagement ads are a suite of interactive, rich media ad formats that show on the Google Display Network.
   • Developing ad groups and keywords: It involves deciding on the number and nature of ad groups to be developed for each of the varied campaigns created in the last stage and the keyword list to be developed for each of the specific ad groups finalized. Typically, an initial keyword list is generated based on advertiser’s specific context and a more competent and complete list of further keywords is added with the help of tools like Google’s Keyword Planner and Display Planner.
   • Deciding device type: Next, the marketer selects the type of devices where he wants the ads to appear. Google AdWords by default targets all types of devices including desktop computers, tablets, and mobile phones. However, it provides options for optimizing specific ads or ad extensions (a feature that shows extra business information with an ad, like an address, phone number, store rating, or more webpage links) to be shown on mobile phones and tablets. It provides options to adjust bids for different device types.
   • Specifying locations: The next selection parameter is location wherein marketers can select the geographic locations where they want their ads to be targeted. Multiple options are available for targeting Google AdWords, including countries, areas within a country, a radius around a location or location groups (helps reach customers based on the types of places they visit and demographic information based on their location).
   • Deciding target languages: It involves deciding the language of the sites where ads will appear. Based on the language(s) selected, Google AdWords will target customers who use Google products (Search, Gmail, etc.) or visit sites on the Google Display Network in the same language.
   • Choosing bid strategy and budget: Marketers can choose between mainly three types of bids in AdWords—clicks-based (CPC), impressions-based (CPM), and conversions based (CPA), depending on their campaign requirements. As discussed earlier, bid amount is the most which a marketer wants to pay for a particular campaign and also influences the AdRank. Budget is the daily average amount the marketer wants to pay for all his campaigns. Typically, once the average daily budget is spent, the ads may stop showing. If traffic is higher on a particular day, AdWords allows a spend 20 per cent more than the daily amount for continuity.
   • Developing ads and campaign go-live: Once the bids and budgets have been set up, the marketer finally creates ads specific to each ad group and can also provide ad extensions like a business address or product images for higher impact. Once all of the campaign set-up details have been furnished, marketer can set the campaign status live in the system and start monitoring each of the ad groups based on campaign objectives and daily/weekly targets.
3. Post-campaign launch: involves all activities related to making sure that AdWords SEM campaigns are meeting the desired results within target budget spend and supporting brand and conversion objectives as per business requirements.
   • Monitoring metrics and conversion tracking: Once Google AdWords campaign is set, it needs regular monitoring of key reporting parameters like clicks, impressions, click-through-rates, average cost per click, cost, etc., for the marketer to keep a track of under performing campaigns. Options like AdWords conversion tracking tools are also available which provide data on what a searcher does after clicking on an ad, which helps understand cost per conversion, conversion rate, total conversions, etc.
   • Optimizing under-performing campaigns: For campaigns and ads which are under performing, there are multiple areas to scan for optimization and address-impending issues like focusing on keyword mix, changing campaign types, altering geo locations, paying attention to Quality Scores, reviewing device-type performance, evaluating landing pages, assessing remarketing options, taking advantage of ad extensions, among others. We will cover the impact of some of these options in the following section to help marketers revise their campaign strategies for optimal performance.
   • Measuring overall campaign RoI: Finally, campaigns are also measured at an aggregate level by multinational firms across their various business divisions and countries to understand their ads and search conversion strategies across various products and derive synergies from their global campaigns.