So why is this? What is driving the online marketing decision makers of Britain to push their budgets in the Search Engine Marketing (SEM) direction?
- Time - SEM campaigns can be set up and results seen in a fraction of the time SEO campaigns take and therefore can lend themselves to tactical marketing campaigns as well as more strategic and brand awareness campaigns.
- Cost-effectiveness is also a factor - advertisers will only pay when someone actually clicks on their advert, not when it is merely viewed.
- Both of the above factors affect the success of SEM but, undoubtedly, the major reason for its success is measurability. It is exceptionally easy to see where money is being spent (clicks) and where money is being generated (sales) in a Search Engine Marketing campaign. Clicks, Click Through Rates (CTR) and Return on Investment (ROI) are now major measurements of Search Engine Marketing campaigns. This gives Search Engine Marketing a major advantage over other online marketing methods and more traditional methods of marketing which do not offer this level of measurability.
Clicks, and CTRs are, without question, valuable measures of Search Engine Marketing campaigns, but using them without ROI calculations only shows part of the picture. Additionally, vital information that could help campaigns run even more effectively could still be being ignored currently.
A search advert can generate an enormous number of clicks at a fantastic CTR and be deemed successful if it is measured against those metrics. However, if the audience clicking are spending only a couple of seconds on the landing page and returning to the search engine is this in fact successful? Would not having the audience read the page and understand the company and their products be equally, or even more beneficial?
The set metrics of Clicks and CTR in combination with ROI may work for a campaign but we should we be willing to explore other measures such as the time spent on the landing page when the campaign success factors call for this.
Hugues Rey of media-buying agency Initiative states:
"If we limit measurement to clicks and page views, we don't get a complete picture. Of course, I would prefer to invest in a Web site where people are taking time to read the content."
In short, SEM is becoming an even bigger player in the online marketing mix and when it comes to SEM, measurability is certainly key. But, are the traditional measures of SEM becoming dated? Is there a need for new and different measurements to judge the effectiveness of campaigns? Knowing how and what to measure in SEM could prove just as vital to the search engine professional in keeping on top of the Search Engine Marketing game.
