If you’re spending money on search engine marketing (SEM) ads, you want to know what you’re getting for the budget.
Before you can determine that, you must identify your campaign goal. Without it, you’re going to be faced with a variety of metrics that might not mean anything about the goal.
Best Practices
For B2B marketers faced with explaining how the SEM campaign is performing, follow these best practices.
- Identify how the metrics are helping the company to reach its goal. If it is not reaching the goal, be prepared to discuss the how and why.
- Present the information in terms non-marketers can understand. They want to understand what they are getting for their money. So, tell them.
- Prepare to be questioned. Know what the numbers really mean and how they impact the company’s bottom line.
- KPIs are different based on campaign goals. So, avoid the CTR, Impressions, etc. if your goal is conversions. In that case, focus on engagement, conversions, cost-per-click, cost-per-acquisition, etc.
- Identify next steps throughout the reporting period. Tell them what you’re doing to maximize their budget.
Bonus Tip
Return on ad spend (ROAS) is a good metric to track when conversions are the goal. It tells you exactly how much money your campaign has made for your business. But it’s not a readily available metric in most reporting tools. So, you have to figure it out.
The formula: Take all of the revenue generated from the campaign and divide it by the ad spend.
ROAS = Revenue / Ad Spend
For example, if you made $1000 in revenue but spend $700 on ads, your ROAS is 142%, which translates to your making more money than spending. Phew!
Metrics Watch offers this advice, “It’s also important for scaling up or down as needed. So, if things are going well and you want to increase your ad spend, then make sure it’s profitable enough for the extra dollar. If not…then don’t do it! Just because SEM is a great way to get more customers doesn’t mean that there aren’t other marketing channels (like pure SEO) worth trying out first.”
Want more SEM tips? Here are two.
- Struggling to Identify Social Media KPIs for Success?
- Download the Social Media Key Performance Indicators and When You’d Use Them
Need help with your SEM campaign? We’d love to hear from you.