Week 14 - MKTG 3349: Creating a Successful Google Ad Campaign

In review, a Google ad campaign is a paid system of advertising that aims at getting your business result appear first. From a business standpoint, it is essential to have a clear goal with specified achievements. With that, it is also important to post accurate content at all times. If you post false news, then your credibility and reputation will suffer and severely impact performance of your ads. In addition, you have to have the mindset of the user and question things. Accessibility on multiple platforms is highly beneficial and such an advantage over those that lack the capability.

Ultimately, there is a learning curve when you first start a Google ad campaign. Therefore, it is to your advantage to test out new bidding strategies (as an example). Once you find the optimal plan for your business, you will see the performance rise. Always monitor new trends in hopes to gain the competitive advantage as soon as possible.

Week 15 - MKTG 3349: Review/Wrap up

I hope you all learned some valuable information from my posts and share findings that I may have not discussed. Search engine marketing is a field that was fairly new to me just a few months ago, and I feel that I have gotten a strong grip on the topic.

Search engine marketing is a business opportunity that explores increased exposure typically through paid advertising via browsers such as Google. This is not easily achieved by every business because there is always restrictions such as budgeting and ROI. Search engine results is a competitive atmosphere as all entities are trying to lead the industry by example. It is highly important to keep a close eye on the statistics to ensure the success of your search engine marketing strategy. 

I also would like to suggest that you connect with Todd Kelsey on LinkedIn if you wish to learn more about digital marketing. Lastly, I would like to wish you all good luck with future endeavors.

Week 13 - MKTG 3349: Certification Significance

Certifications are additional achievements that display you are skilled and knowledgeable of a particular software or area. If you surf the internships and job postings on LinkedIn, you will find numerous positions that require or prefer certifications. While they are not a necessity for starting a new career, they most certainly make you look like a more valuable candidate.

In my experience from internship hunting, many interviewers point out the certification and use it to generate questions. During these interviews, I would recommend stating that you are certified just in case the candidacy process is automated through keywords on resumes. Nonetheless, certifications seriously improve your chances for landing a new job and indefinitely make your LinkedIn profile stand out from the rest. I also recommend adding other information such as course history (from higher education) to your profile as I was advised by Todd Kelsey.

Week 12 - MKTG 3349: Surfing the Tsunami

Many businesses now are relying on artificial intelligence as support in the work environment as well as being implemented into new products. This is because AI is highly efficient at data gathering and processing optimal results. With AI becoming a trend, many people are going to want to finish their education in fields that have better security. Technology is constantly changing to make our lives easier and simpler, but as time passes the more vulnerable the job market becomes.

How does this relate to search engine marketing? AI could soon impact SEM because it improves the current marketing strategy in an efficient manner. From an employers standpoint, it is quickly automate processes that may take humans extended periods of time to work out. Also, it yet another way to differentiate your business model through technology of the future. It is important to keep an eye out for trends regarding AI so you have a better grasp as to what the future may hold for your career. While this is all speculation, it is hard to say what is to come for jobs in this field. I encourage better educating yourself over AI at accenture.com as it provides great insight (link at the bottom). Here are some of the most threatened jobs due to growth of artificial intelligence.

• Telemarketing 
• Couriers
• Support Specialists
• Market Analysts

https://www.accenture.com/us-en/services/digital/what-artificial-intelligence-really?c=acn_glb_artificialintelgoogle_11050550&n=psgs_1019&gclsrc=aw.ds&&gclid=Cj0KCQjwybD0BRDyARIsACyS8msEsY0Rdw_tx0wjeDHORbhstkiVpYuVQSYfcDO0iLCFHWG3WAnUYiUaAn7pEALw_wcB

Week 11 - MKTG 3349: Display Networks and Call Extensions

Call extensions are compatible with any search ad, but some restrictions remain with the display network. This is referring to the type of campaign and where it can reach an audience via apps or websites. One important thing to note is that display network call extensions will only appear on modern smartphones, excluding desktops and old cellular technology.

When implementing call extensions to your search ad campaign, you want to make sure that you are allowing your reach to appear on the display network via smartphones, tablets, and laptops. Also, you can create your ad to appear as a quick dial button during business hours versus a number for information purposes. This is a really neat tool I suggest using because it provides users with an ease of access to seek for your services/products. Also, through search ad call extensions you can turn on call reporting which returns detailed data regarding conversions.

Week 9 - MKTG 3349: Presence

One of the key ways to build presence on engines is ranking and bidding. These are because both focus on getting users attention since most people click on the first few links in a search result. Also, it is important to provide links to social media, websites and other useful links to get users to become fans. Exposure is the first step of the process, and then we hope that users attempt to learn more about the brand.

What is search engine presence? This is the visibility, reputation and awareness of a business on browsers such as Google. For example, businesses that show up late in search results have a low presence. While this partially depends on keywords, using Google analytics can be useful to judge what your presence is. Here are some general tips to create a stronger presence on search engines.

• Master SEO 
• Build an email list
• Competitive products/content
• Personalization

Week 8 - MKTG 3349: Optimization

An optimization score is a prediction of how well your ad may perform. In order to receive a strong optimization score, your search engine ads will have to align with trends and remain relatable to the audience. Google ads data can help provide recommendations to help uplift your score. These suggestions are based off ad history, trends, search volume etc.

Why are these recommendations helpful? First of all, they can help your ad get more of an impact on your budget. There is a quick apply tool that analyzes better keywords for your advertisements and applies Google recommendations. Similarly, if it contradicts your search engine marketing plans, there is an option to dismiss. These are some of the key points in generating higher optimization, and it is in your control so take advantage!

Week 7 - MKTG 3349: Search Audiences

Today I will be defining and discussing the significance of search audiences for search engine marketing. This is a targeted area of customers that is based off of your own data logging and some of Google's insights (if used through Google Analytics). The basic idea of this is that it allows marketers to focus on the "right" consumers easily and effectively. 

Google is constantly tracking analytics of consumer behavior and catching on to tendencies or trends. Therefore, identifying a search audience is significant being that it helps marketers get a wide reach to customers that have great potential. Being aware of your search audiences' characteristics can help businesses get a better understanding and further connect with the community. Some of these identifiable characteristics are...

• Prior site behavior
• Demographics 
• Similarity to current user base
• Offline behavior

Week 6 - MKTG 3349: Automated Bidding

What exactly is automated bidding? This is a strategy that automatically sets the bid for your ads based on its likelihood of activity. The key idea of implementing this into your search engine marketing strategy is that it takes some of the stress off the process. After setting performance goals, the automatic bid process does the hard work in order to meet them. Therefore, there it is not necessary for you to manually reset bids!

Why is this important? There are many factors that play into the success of online marketing, and the ability to have one less focal point allows creators to put a better effort into other areas. For example, if a creator is struggling with planning next quarters budget for marketing and bid prices, using a automated bid would allow the creator to put more time into producing a budget that will succeed.

After all, the more responsibilities taken incurs more chance for error. So take advantage of unique tools such as automated bidding!

Week 5 - MKTG 3349: Ad Extensions

What are ad extensions? They allow advertisers to display additional information along with a running ad. The purpose of doing this is to make the ad more relevant to viewers while also aiming at grabbing attention. Note that there are many different kinds of ad extensions. Below are some examples.

• Location Extensions
• Call Extensions
• Social Extensions
• Product Extensions
• Seller Ratings
• Sitelinks
• Offer Extensions

More often than not, ad performance increases when extensions are used. Why not take advantage of this simple input since it is free to utilize! Using an ad extension for running advertisements is another simple way to maximize your potential return. Although, there is a charge on clicks for extensions excluding seller ratings extensions. 

Make sure that the budget set for search engine marketing is estimating potential costs from every area! 

Week 4 - MKTG 3349: Google Ads Auction

Today I will be discussing how the Google ads auction works and its benefits. How an ad shows up from search results is based off of a quality, relevance and bid price. The bid price is the maximum amount that an advertiser is willing to pay for ad clicks. This can be a huge factor for determining the order in which ads appear. Also, note that the bid price is not typically the true price paid as it is often less. One huge benefit of using this is that advertisers can modify their bid price at any time of their marketing plan. Below is a simplified table showing the main three factors in an auction and the expected outcomes.

Google ads closely examines relevance and overall functionality of the add to determine the quality of the ad. Advertisers can track this assessment in the quality score under the account. It is a great advantage to be able to access information like this as you are able to make decisions to help improve the impact and quality of your advertisement. Another aspect that Google ads assesses is the potential of extensions. For example, if an ad has an extension in smaller font towards the very bottom, then it will be less likely that the audience will notice the extension. Therefore, if the impact of an extension is projected to be low, advertisers will have a difficult time in achieving a better position in the ad auction.

Week 3 - MKTG 3349: AdWords and Keywords

Google AdWords was one of Google's largest advancements as a company. How so? AdWords is Google's ad creation that allows you preview how your content would appear in the search engine and even track the effectiveness. This is a great outlet for business to utilize as its fairly simple to run an ad. Also, more people are abandoning old forms of advertising such as newspapers or magazines simply because our generation is more concerned with technology. This is not just an advertising trend, but a multi-industry trend.

After creating the advertisement, Google allows you to enter some keywords. These are guesses of popular searches closely related to your ad. For example, if I searched for baseball bats, it would be likely to see and ad from a company such as Easton. Tracking performance is a huge concept in search engine marketing because we want to prevent continuous declines. Identifying what area(s) may have caused a downfall and actively looking for ways to improve the results is the best way to sustain success. 

Week 2 - MKTG 3349: Fundamentals of Online Marketing

How do you budget for search engine marketing? First of all, there are three common cost structures for online marketing. Cost-per-click is the most popular model being used nowadays and it is setup for advertisers to pay for each time their ad is clicked on or viewed. This does not include the ad appearing on the browser but only if the user clicks on the ad to view more info on the company website. Another structure is the cost-per-action model. This model focuses on activity produced from the paid advertisement such as purchasing a product or completing a survey. This is a safer alternative to cost-per-click due to click fraud.

Also, cost-per-impression(CPM) is the last common model which is the traditional option. CPM is based on the number of appearances in a search result. This model differs from the others because users may not even see the ad but the company will owe that cost regardless of influence. Therefore, CPM is typically easier to budget for where CPC and CPA models can be more unpredictable. Overall, these are the basic cost models used for search engine marketing so it is important to track performance so that the budget is met!

Week 1 - MKTG 3349: Intro to Search Engine Marketing

Throughout this blog I will be sharing my ideas covering multiple areas in the field of search engine marketing. Before I get into that I would like to share a little bit of my background. I am a Student-Athlete at Benedictine University where I am studying business management and organizational behavior. Baseball has always been one of my passions and I am truly blessed to have come this far. I am in my junior year and plan to graduate on time next year!

On another note, what exactly is search engine marketing? This is the strategy where businesses will pay for their advertisements to appear at the top of searches based on keywords. Engines like Google is the perfect example because most people have experienced a search with a sponsored advertisement or some form of paid advertisement. These ads are often called PPC ads(pay-per-click ads) which actually can differ by appearance. There are many different ways to market your ads. Here are a few examples:

• Product Listing Ad
• Display Ad
• Video Ad
• Informative Ad