UNDERSTANDING SEM

While SEO is the cornerstone of a good marketing strategy, SEM turbocharges your online presence by featuring prominent paid ads. SEM dramatically boosts your site’s conversion rate because the paid ads direct leads straight to specific service pages and inventory listings, where they can begin the shopping process in earnest.

In addition to making your brand more prominent in SERPs, SEM brings your message to multiple platforms to create a well-rounded marketing campaign and reach shoppers wherever they’re looking. Here are the prominent SEM ad types:

Pay-Per-Click Ads

Pay-per-click (PPC) are the paid ads featured in search results and are one of the most popular SEM tools. PPC gives businesses of all sizes the opportunity to reach a greater number of qualified leads with a targeted message, such as store promotions and new inventory arrivals. You can tailor your PPC ads to your budget by presetting your ad spend, and you only pay when a user clicks to your site.

Geo Targeting

As a local business (even if you run multiple stores), your brand can benefit from geo targeting. This SEM strategy targets a specified location to advertise to local searchers, especially those performing “near me” searches. You can also draw a digital circumference around a certain area if you want to reach consumers who are attending an auto show or shopping at a competing store.

Dynamic Remarketing Ads

Most shoppers won’t convert to a sale the first time they visit your website, especially if they’re still in the research phase. You can re-engage bounced leads by continuing to reach them on other areas of the internet as they continue their search. Show them ads based on their past inventory searches to direct them back to your website. Since leads undergo a lot of comparison shopping in the early stages of their search, remarketing ads will keep your brand top of mind until they’re ready to make a decision. You can include incentives such as special deals and encourage them to connect with your team to keep them in the sales funnel.

SEO (or unpaid search) is the foundation of maintaining an effective online presence, but it is a long-term strategy that grows richer over time, and you won’t see results right away. SEM (or paid search) makes your brand visible now so that you can connect with qualified leads and stay in front of them.