Other factors in determining your SEM success are how your SEM campaign is set up and your overall strategy for growth and sales because these will be hugely important in how well your SEM ads perform overall.
Here’s some questions every small business should ask a potential company before they hire them for their search marketing needs.
Before you begin, one rule of thumb is to have an understanding about what your budget is going to be for your online ads excluding any compulsory admin/setup fees.
No matter how small or large your business is, allocate some time to effectively understand what you want to achieve by running ads online.
Prioritise a list of short-term and long-term goals for your campaign. In some cases you may find that only some of your goals have been met as a result you may need to discuss this further with your agency or account manager.
Here’s some relevant questions you can ask your potential SEM provider.
- What is the minimum contract term for my campaign?
- What are the SEM campaign management fees?
- How much of my ad spend is actually spent on my ads?
- What is Ad Scheduling and can I request Ad Scheduling for my campaign?
- Can I review my ads before the ads go live?
- How long are my ads on each day?
- How are the keywords selected or generated and who writes the ads?
- How can I participate towards offering keywords that relate to my business or service?
- Is the consultant Google Adwords Certified?
- Will a higher product tier result in higher ranking in search results?
- Who manages my PPC campaign and will I receive a dedicated account manager?
- What reporting is available for the ad campaigns running for my business?
- Will my campaign use any negative keywords?
Ultimately you as a business owner must aim to have transparency on how your ads are served. It is also important to keep track of what you are paying in relation to your ads and management fees.
These tips will ensure you have a better grasp of your digital marketing expenditure and importantly, this level of control will give you freedom to build up your online advertising potential over time.