What is Search Engine Marketing?
Search engine marketing is a component of digital advertising where brands bid on paid ad spots that appear near the top of search results. The ad spots guarantee product and service visibility by showcasing your listing before Organic listings on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).
SEM ads usually have a much higher conversion rate because they actively target users who are in the process of searching for goods or services to buy. With the right targeting and bidding strategy, paid search ads can successfully find your customers at the exact right moment during the buying process to influence a sale.
While this doesn’t replace other marketing channels like Organic, it is a crucial part of digital marketing that helps to guide users through the purchasing journey to a conversion.
Paid search works for businesses who:
- Want to improve visibility around their brand name
- Want to promote new products and services
- Want to get a step ahead of, or stay in line with, key competitors
- Are struggling to rank for competitive organic search terms
- Want to solidify first page visibility with both paid and organic results
The SteadyRain Paid Search Marketing Edge
So why choose SteadyRain over other SEM agencies in St. Louis? Simple.
- We know how to win
- We do the heavy lifting, but you’re always in control
SteadyRain is a Google certified partner and Bing Ads accredited agency. We specialize in helping brands like yours create text ad campaigns in search engines that grow visibility and revenue.
We create highly targeted, flexible SEM campaigns designed around your business goals. To us, paid search is just one component to your overall marketing plan.
We use paid search to complement and mirror existing efforts and messaging in your organic, social, email and traditional campaigns. We get to know your target audience and your brand to develop campaigns that meet your overall business goals.
SteadyRain believes in transparent paid search management. We separate ourselves from other St. Louis agencies in our fee structure. Our paid search management services are billed at a flat hourly rate.
This means we have no incentive to ask you to increase your media spend and can provide unbiased media spend recommendations. It also means that we always manage your campaigns in a way that benefits you, not us.
How Our SEM Services Work
We start with a consulting phase, getting to know your business, audiences, goals, and opportunities for growth. Our SEM services consists of four crucial components that work together to produce real, measurable results for your business:
- Campaign Planning
- Ad Creation
- Campaign Management
- Reporting and Campaign Adjustment
SEM Campaign Planning
It's easy to get started with Google Ads. However, we find clients have the most success when we work together to develop a strategy before launch.
Before you receive your first impression, we start with an in-depth consultation period to understand your campaign objectives. Here, we get to know your target audience, understand your existing digital marketing efforts and develop a keyword and campaign strategy. This period is critical in establishing a foundation for your campaigns.
During the consulting period, we work with clients to develop:
- Relevant calls-to-action and brand differentiators
- Intent-driven keyword lists and campaign structure recommendations
- Proactive negative keywords to control spend
- Location targeting recommendations - down to target zip codes
- Data-driven device targeting recommendations
- Recommendations for remarketing lists
- Comprehensive ad extension recommendations and development
- Landing page recommendations & development, if necessary
- An understanding of competitor success and shortcomings
Through proper planning, we can help clients mitigate risks and control costs from the moment we click "activate."
Ad Creation
Our digital marketing experts have over half a century of combined experience in paid search. We know a thing or two about what it takes to create paid search ads that drive greater revenue. We write your brand standards, incorporating target keywords, calls-to-actions, benefits, and brand differentiators that speak to your customers.
We are constantly testing different ad variations to determine what works best for our clients.
SteadyRain does not push copy live without client approval, so you always have a say in which ads are displayed.
Ongoing Campaign Management
Many agencies treat paid search as a set it and forget it channel. As a result, those agencies cost their clients much more money as they are constantly in an uphill battle during the bidding process for ads that generate only a handful of clicks.
SteadyRain knows the currents of paid advertising can change moment to moment. That's why we monitor your campaign's spend and performance daily. Some of the metrics we watch closely include conversions, cost-per-click, search impression share, click-through rate, and media spend.
Transparent Reporting
The difference between good paid search advertising and great search advertising is how performance data is used.
When managing campaigns, we pay attention to our clients' return on ad spend and overall investment. We set internal performance benchmarks based on your business goals, and tweak campaigns so they are always striving to meet them.
By building campaigns around data-driven insights, we can ensure all ads are performing to their fullest potential and generating the most revenue they can.
But best of all, we put you in the driver's seat. You’ll receive monthly reports where we break down the data so you understand exactly how you’re performing. No jargon. No nonsense. Just facts.
Within our reports, we provide:
- A complete breakdown of campaign performance
- Trending performance of key campaign metrics
- Detailed cause/effect-based analysis
- Next steps and action plans
Get Discovered with Paid Search Help from SteadyRain
Paid search provides tremendous upside for both established and up-and-coming businesses. We love paid search because it is fast to deploy, effective, and provides measurable results. Plus, you only pay when users click your ad.
Whether you’re a business of five employees or a thousand, SteadyRain can help you unlock limitless growth potential through curated, data-driven search engine marketing initiatives.
Learn why SteadyRain is a leading provider of SEM services in St. Louis. Contact our team to get started today.