The Ultimate Guide to Search Engine Advertising (SEA)

More often than not, companies need an extra push to accelerate their pace to reach their marketing goals. Strategies like SEO and content marketing, while effective, will always appeal to your patience and time. Fortunately, you can turn to Search Engine Advertising (SEA) for that extra boost to reach a broader audience and drive more people to your website or landing pages.

In this guide, we’ll help you better understand this concept, the different search advertising platforms, and how to set up your first (and more advanced) campaigns.

In this article

Section 1. Introduction to Search Engine Advertising

With its ability to deliver highly relevant and measurable results, Search Engine Advertising has become an indispensable channel for businesses looking to enhance their online presence and achieve their marketing objectives.

Definition of search engine advertising (SEA)

First things first…what is SEA? Search Engine Advertising is a marketing strategy used to improve the visibility of your website in search engines such as Google, Bing, Baidu, etc. Basically, you would be paying Google to display sponsored links to your website to people searching for specific queries.

They are designed to allow you to reach a larger audience than if you were working solely with organic search.

They consist of:

• A headline with relevant and attention-grabbing keywords.
• Display URL to provide clear information about where the user is being directed.
• Description text that highlights important details about your offer (product, page, blog, etc.)
• And, ad extensions to take up more space on the results pages and increase visibility.

Importance of SEA in digital marketing

Having these types of promotions as part of your digital marketing efforts opens the doors to several benefits, including

1. It’s one of the fastest ways to increase your site’s visibility and rank in the SERPs. And, as a result, improve your website traffic and conversion rates.
2. It allows you to have ads on Google, Bing, Yahoo and other search engines.
3. Search engine ads can be highly targeted to specific audiences and demographics.
4. It allows you to measure, track and analyze the results.
5. Search ads help you increase your brand awareness and reach targeted individuals who are more likely to convert into customers.

However, if you need more proof that these actions work, just keep reading to our next section on search engine advertising effectiveness statistics.

Statistics highlighting the effectiveness of search engine advertising

Statistics are there to help us understand how things are going. In the case of search advertising, they prove that not only does it work, but that it is a common practice among organizations of all sizes and industries.

Let’s take a closer look.

Google dominates the search engine landscape with 82% of the desktop search market share. It’s followed by Bing with 10.5%, Yahoo with 2.8% and Yandex with 2.35%. The trends are very similar for mobile searches, where Google holds 96% of the market share.

80% of all trackable website visits came from organic and paid search. Of these, 27% come from paid advertising. And when compared to social media, search engines generate 300% more traffic to websites.

63% of Internet users will click on a paid search ad on Google, four times more than any other search engine.

Google ads tend to return an average of $2 for every $1 spent. Companies that invest in both SEA and SEO see an average of 25% more clicks and 27% more revenue.

So, are you ready to learn more about search advertising and how to create your first campaign?

Section 2. Understanding Search Engine Advertising Platforms

Search Engine Advertising (SEA) platforms are the digital arenas where businesses can create, manage, and optimize their paid advertisements to appear within search engine results pages (SERPs).

Overview of Google Ads (formerly Google AdWords) and Bing Ads

Let’s start by understanding the two main search advertising platforms: Google Ads (formerly known as Google AdWords) and Bing Ads.

There are a lot of similarities between the two, especially in the ad format. They both display the ad URL below the ad title. They allow you to display a description of 80 characters or less. And they both come with a keyword research tool to help you target relevant keywords.

The main differences are in the results:

• Keyword traffic volume is significantly higher on Google than on Bing, simply because they have a larger market reach.
• Bing ads tend to have a higher click-through rate and receive more engagement.
• With Bing, you can reach an audience of at least 63 million searchers who do not use Google.
• Microsoft’s search engine marketing platform allows you to reach an older and more educated audience. Nearly three-quarters of Bing’s audience is over 35 years old, and about one-third has a household income of over $100,000.
• And the average CPC for a Google Ads campaign is $20.08, while Bing costs about $7.99.

While most people see these two platforms as competitors, the truth is that you will get better results by working with both. On the one hand, Google has a larger search market, and on the other hand, Bing can help you reach a more specific audience.

Different ad formats available

Both search advertising platforms allow you to create ads in a variety of formats. However, it’s important to understand that Google has much more to offer you in terms of formats and customization.

Let’s take a closer look.

Both Bing and Google offer text, image and video ads. But the main difference is in how and where they are displayed.

Google Ads

Allows you to create two types of ad campaigns. One on the search network (targeted ads that appear on the search results pages) and the other on the display network (targeted ads that appear on various websites).

And it comes with a variety of formats:

• Will display your text ads on their search pages, or you can have Google Shopping ads there with images, pricing, and more information about your products and business.
• You can create image, banner or video ads for their display network.
• Offers video campaignads on YouTube and other partner sites.
• And gives you the ability to run an app ad to promote a mobile app across Google’s platforms.

Bing Ads

Launching a campaign on Bing Ads means that you can run your ads on multiple platforms, all of which are owned by Microsoft: Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, Xbox, and AOL. They work on a pay-per-click model where you have to bid on each keyword you want to rank for, very similar to how Google Ads works.

• Has similar text ads on their search results pages.
• Can serve image-based ads, text ads, and feed-based ads across its partner sites and apps.
• Allows you to run shopping ads with images and key information about your product.
• And run app promotion campaigns, which are very similar to text ads, but provide the user with a link to the app.

Targeting options

Both platforms allow you to target highly specific audiences based on factors such as location, gender, age and interests. It’s important to note that because Google has a larger market share, it is able to extend its reach to a greater number of countries and languages. However, Bing is a better option for targeting niche audiences, especially those related to technology and business.

As for keywords, both Bing and Google come with a keyword research tool to help you understand which keywords to use based on their difficulty level and search volume. Both platforms use keywords to trigger their ads. Yet, it’s well known that ads running on Microsoft Bing can result in a lower cost per click because there is less competition for bids.

Ad auction process and bidding strategies

Google Ads gives you several options for bidding on your ads. The difference between them is basically your goal: clicks, impressions, conversions, views. The key to success is to have a clear understanding of what you want to achieve with your ads. Is it more subscribers? Sales? Visits to your site?

Google itself is very clear about what type of ad you should use for each goal.

• Get more people to visit your site: You should create cost-per-click campaigns, where you only pay when someone clicks on your ad and visits your site.
• Increase your brand’s visibility: Work with Search Engine Network Ads and set your target impression share. That way, Google will automatically set your bids to help your ads show on the top of the page 65% of the total possible amount of times they could show.
• Target the display network: You can choose to pay only by the number of times your ad is shown. You pay for every 1,000 times it is shown.
• Convert people: Set up cost per action campaigns. You would pay for each person who clicks on your ad and converts. Of course, you will need to set up conversion tracking on your site.
• Understand how engaged users are with your video ads: You need to set up cost per view ads where you pay for views and interactions with your video content.

Now, just because you place a bid does not mean that your ad will be the first one shown to your target audience. There are other companies bidding for them as well. Google auctions 3 components to rank ads:

1. Max cost-per-click for the keyword, or how much you are willing to pay to show up for that search.
2. Quality score for that keyword, or how relevant your ad, keyword, and landing page are to the end user.
3. Ad extensions and their relevance to the keyword.

This review takes only a few minutes and will determine how your ad will rank. Please note that Bing Ads has a very similar approach to the bidding and ranking of your ads.

Section 3. Setting Up Your Search Engine Advertising Campaign

Setting up a successful Search Engine Advertising (SEA) campaign involves several key steps to ensure maximum effectiveness and return on investment.

Creating an account and setting up campaigns

Let’s say you decided to invest in Google Ads just because it’s a more popular search engine advertising platform. Pay close attention to the following steps as they are designed to help you create your account and set up your first campaign.

Steps for creating your Google Ads account

• Step 1: Go to ads.google.com and create your account. Fill in the business name and URL information as prompted.
• Step 2: Enter the payment method information you would like to use for this account. This can be a credit or debit card, PayPal, or even your bank account.
• Step 3: Click Submit to complete your account setup. Once you’re done, Google will immediately take you to the first step of setting up your campaign.

Set up your first ad campaigns in Google Ads

This is a few-step process that can be completed quickly, but it’s best to take the time to consider all the facts and pay close attention to the details.

• Step 1: Decide the goal of your campaign and how much you want to spend. We suggest you start with a budget you feel comfortable with and run it for a few weeks. Once you understand how it works you can make adjustments and increase your ad spend. Go to the Budget section, choose your currency, enter your daily spend and click Save.
• Step 2: Determine your target audience. First, go to the Locations tab and enter the exact information of the countries, cities, towns or zip codes you want to target and click Save. Remember, the more localized, the better results.
• Step 3: Decide whether you want your ads to appear in the Search Network, the Display Network, or both. Go to the Display Network tab and make sure it’s checked only where you want your ads to appear.
• Step 4: Enter the keywords that will determine when and where your ads appear. Go to the Keywords section and review the list of terms suggested by Google, and select only those that are relevant to your campaign. Then add any additional keywords and click Save.
• Step 5: Set your bid. You can either let Google manage your bids or use manual bidding. The former is the easiest way, but it does not give you any control over your spending. It’s ideal for your first campaign while you learn more about the platform and the bidding process. Go to the bidding section, select a bidding option and click save.
• Step 6: Write your ads. You will want to start with something simple like a text ad. Go to the Text Ad tab and start adding information. First, add the URL for your landing page. Then you need to write an attention-grabbing headline of up to 30 characters and a short description with a call to action. Click Save.
• Step 7: Add your billing information. Once you have finished creating your ad, click Save and Continue and you will be taken to the Billing tab. Here, make sure you add valid billing information: country of your billing address, time zone, account type, billing name and address, phone, and email. Then enter your payment method information. Agree to the terms and conditions and click Finish and Create Ad.
• Step 8: It’s your chance to review and confirm all of your campaign information. If it’s correct, simply agree to Google’s terms, click Finish and create the campaign. If not, simply click back and go to the step that needs editing.

Keyword research and selection

As simple as it sounds, there is one step that requires more time and attention: choosing the right keyword.

This process starts with keyword research and determining whether you want to target people who are simply researching the web, those who are ready to buy, or those who are specifically looking for your brand and products.

Whatever you decide will be the starting point for your keyword research. Once you have a list of potential terms you can use to rank in Google and other search engines, you need to conduct keyword research through specific tools to better understand:

1. How many people use it on a monthly basis for searches?
2. How difficult it is to rank for it in organic search?

There are several keyword research tools that can help you understand the search volume each keyword has, the trends it has followed over time, related keywords, and the difficulty of ranking for each term. In this blog post you can read more about the different paid and free tools available on the market.

Make sure you start working with long-tail keywords. These are phrases of 3 to 5 words that are more specific than generic terms. While they won’t generate as much traffic, they will bring in people who are more interested in your content offering and have a higher chance of converting.

Ad copywriting best practices

Another important step is to create your ad. You need to work smart and create titles, captions, and descriptions that entice your audience to take the suggested action.

Here are some tips and tricks for creating the perfect search engine ad:

1. Include your keyword in the ad copy. This helps demonstrate to Google that your text ads are relevant to the user’s search intent.
2. Include information about what makes your product or service unique. Remember that you are competing on two levels. The first is with other businesses trying to rank for the same keyword. The second is the user’s attention; you want to have an ad copy that gets them to click.
3. Focus on what the user is interested in about your product or service. Avoid cramping all the features it has, and just stick to the one that makes it unique.
4. Make sure your landing page mirrors the ad and is consistent with the information shared. It should promote the same product, features and offers mentioned in the ad.
5. Include a call to action in your ad copy. Make sure you let the user know what is expected of them. Of course, the suggested action must be consistent with the user’s search intent.
6. Include numbers and pricing information in your ad. This is one of the most effective ways to stand out and grab your audience’s attention.
7. Make sure your ads are always up to date. You don’t want to spend money on an expired offer or a product that is no longer available.
8. If possible, try to create local ads by including the city or town where you operate and even your phone number.

Landing page optimization for better conversion rates

We said it before, your landing page needs to match the information in your ad. Consistency is key to getting people to take the suggested action.

Our first suggestion is that you always create and edit your landing page with the purpose in mind. You want visitors:

• Subscribe
• Buy
• Sign up
• Start a free trial
• Register for an event
• Contact your sales team

From there, you need to focus your attention and understand what drives people to your site, what barriers prevent them from converting, and what gets them to take action. These three points will help you achieve good optimization and results.

But the work doesn’t stop there. You then need to focus on three main areas:

1. Identifying potential problems with the design or functionality of the page that could interfere with the user experience and hurt conversions.
2. A/B testing to understand which headlines, copy, images, fonts, forms, and calls-to-action perform best.
3. Analyze page conversion data and optimize in a consistent manner to improve results.

Keep in mind that this is a work in progress and you should continually tweak based on the results you are getting.

Budgeting and bidding strategies

Finally, it’s important to spend some time thinking about and analyzing different bidding strategies. As we said before, the right strategy will depend on your ultimate goal for this online search advertising campaign.

So, think about your goal and start your first campaign with a small budget. Pay close attention and understand keyword behavior, optimize your ads and landing page. Only when you feel more comfortable working with SEA can you increase the budget to the numbers your organization wants to devote to this marketing effort.

Section 4. Advanced Strategies for Optimizing Search Engine Advertising Campaigns

Optimizing Search Engine Advertising (SEA) campaigns involves implementing advanced strategies to improve performance and maximize return on investment.

Ad extensions and their importance

There are many reasons why you should consider using ad extensions for your next Google campaign. First, they are the perfect way to make your ad take up more space on the Google search results page. They are free. And they help improve the quality and rank of your ads.

There are 12 types of extensions in Google, and each allows you to add relevant information. You need to choose them wisely

• Callouts: 25 characters or less and include information such as shipping policies and costs.
• Sitelink: Include additional links below the main ad text that can help the user find more relevant information.
• Image: Designed to help you include an image below your text ad, it’s ideal for promoting a product or service and evoking emotion.
• Call: Includes the phone number and makes it easy for users to call your business.
• Location: Ideal for businesses that have a physical location and want to drive more people to it.

There are also extensions for applications, pricing, structured snippets, promotions, lead forms and automated extensions. Remember, choose your ad extensions wisely. Make sure they align with your marketing goals for this SEA campaign.

To add your ad extensions, simply go to your Google Ads account and click on the Ads & Extensions tab in the left navigation bar. Select the Extensions option and click the drop-down menu. You will see all of the available options.

While you can create extensions for your campaigns, ad group, or ad, we always recommend that you do so on an individual basis. This allows you to better match your ad copy, user intent, goals and extensions.

Quality Score and its impact on ad performance

Quality score is a metric used by Google to measure the quality of your ad. It works by assigning a score between 1 and 10 to each keyword in your account. The higher your Quality Score, the more relevant your ad and landing page are to your target, and the lower your cost per click will be.

While the formula for this score is proprietary to Google and its algorithm, it’s known that it’s estimated based on three factors:

1. Expected CTR
2. Ad relevance
3. Landing page experience

To improve your Quality Score, you need to optimize your landing pages, improve the user experience, control your advertising budget, conduct regular keyword research, improve your ad groups, and test, test, test.

Keep in mind that a good Quality Score is somewhere between 7 and 10. But just because you have a good score on one ad does not mean you will have a good score on every campaign you create. Keep an eye on this number and always work to improve it.

Ad scheduling and dayparting strategies

Another great feature is ad scheduling, which allows you to specify the days and times that your ads will be displayed to your target audience. This option is a great way to increase your conversions and optimize your ad spend.

Some of the options it offers you include dayparting (ads will run at specific times of the day), day of the week targeting (ads will run on specific days of the week), and geo targeting (ads will be targeted to a specific geographic location).

The key is to understand when your audience is actually active on the web and to eliminate times when they are not. Are your customers active at midnight? How about early morning? You can get accurate insights from Google Analytics, try focusing on the last three months of website data.

Remarketing and audience targeting

Another great strategy is to use Google Remarketing and Audience Targeting features.

The former allows you to show a series of ads to people who have visited your website or a specific page on it. Our suggestion is that if this is your first remarketing campaign, focus first on those who have visited your homepage. Even if they are not as targeted as a remarketing campaign should be, it will give you a better feel for how it works. These types of ads allow you to gain brand exposure, become more recognizable, and increase the chances of converting site visitors.

The Audience Targeting feature is designed to help you create different segments of potential customers and tailor your ads to them. There are 4 categories:

• Google Segments: four categories of pre-packaged audiences based on their demographics, affinity segment, in-market segment, and life events.
• Your data segments: based on the interactions a user has had with your site. Also known as remarketing or retargeting.
• Custom segments: based on the intersection of Google data and your business. It creates audiences based on data such as their interests, the products or services they search for, the types of sites they visit, and the types of apps they use.
• Other options: Google allows you to go a step further and target people who meet multiple targeting requirements. For example, you can create combined segments of people based on their interests and economic status.

These may be the least used features in Google Ads, but it’s worth taking the time to understand how to use them and get the most out of them.

A/B testing ad variations for continuous improvement

A/B testing and ad variations are easy ways to compare different versions of an ad and understand which one performs best. You can try different calls-to-action, images, titles, descriptions, URLs, etc.

To set up your ad variation, simply go to your Google Ads account, click on Campaigns, click on Experiments, and then click on Ad Variations. Click the plus sign and start creating your first creative. There, you’ll need to set some rules to filter ads by headline, description, path fields, or URLs. And in the Create Variation tab, you can decide what type of variation you want to work with.

Section 5. Tracking and Measuring Success in Search Engine Advertising

Tracking and measuring success in Search Engine Advertising (SEA) campaigns is essential for evaluating performance, optimizing strategies, and achieving business objectives effectively.

Setting up conversion tracking

This is something you need to do in order to be able to see how many people who clicked on your ad are actually converting on your site.

Here’s a short video created by Google that will walk you through this process step-by-step.

Key performance indicators (KPIs) to monitor and what they mean

To get a better sense of how well or not your SEA campaigns are working, it’s important to monitor certain KPIs. Here’s a quick recap of the most important ones:

• Click-through rate or CTR: The ratio of clicks to impressions your ad receives. Understanding this number allows you to determine if your ad is resonating with your target audience; a low CTR means you need to make adjustments to your content, targeting, or bidding strategy.
• Cost per click or CPC: How much you pay each time someone clicks on your ad. A high CPC indicates that your ad may not be as relevant to your audience as you thought, or that there is a lot of competition for the keywords you chose.
• Conversion Rate: The percentage of your website visitors who complete a desired action (download, register, buy, sign up, etc.) The higher your conversion rate, the more effective your message and delivery.
• Cost per Acquisition or CPA: How much you pay for each conversion generated by your ad. This metric helps you understand how profitable your campaign is. A high CPA means your ad is not driving conversions.
• Return on Ad Spend or ROAS: How much revenue you have generated from your ad spend. A high ROAS is a good indicator because it shows that you are getting a good return on your investment.
• Impressions: Measures the visibility of your ad campaign.

Take the time to fully understand how these KPIs work and how you can use this data to improve the performance of your campaigns. This will help you maximize your budget and achieve your marketing goals.

Using Google Analytics for deeper insights

Linking your Google Analytics and Google Ads accounts opens the doors to new reports that help you understand what happens after someone clicks on one of your ads. It can help you understand which keywords are actually driving more conversions and create new audiences based on their interactions with your site.

Here’s a short video created by Google that explains how to link these two accounts and get the most out of them.

Some examples of the data you can get by linking these two accounts are

1. Get a better sense of which keywords are driving more conversions so you can edit your ad campaigns and focus only on high converting keywords.
2. Identify an audience of users who have left products in their shopping carts and create a campaign to help them complete the purchase.
3. Get a time-of-day report and understand what are the best times and days to have ads active.

Adjusting and optimizing campaigns based on performance metrics

Every Google Ad Campaign requires some adjustments. The first step is to focus on reading and analyzing KPIs such as click-through rate, cost per click, conversion, and ROAS. These are the main indicators of your campaign’s success and will help you understand what exactly needs to be changed.

Once you know what you need to tweak, you can try running some A/B tests or responsive ads to see which headlines, descriptions, and images work best for your target audience.

And never forget keywords. You want to eliminate those that lead to low impressions and high conversion costs.

Section 6. Challenges and Considerations in Search Engine Advertising

Search Engine Advertising (SEA) presents numerous opportunities for businesses to enhance their online visibility and drive targeted traffic to their websites.

Rising competition and increasing costs

Now that we’ve covered all the steps for creating your first Google Ad Campaign, it’s time to discuss some of the key considerations and challenges you may face along the way.

As you know, Google is the leading search engine in the global market. Every business is using it as a way to reach a larger audience, which is driving up the cost of digital advertising. And as if that were not enough, there are seasons (Mother’s Day, Christmas, Thanksgiving, etc.) when the competition is even fiercer.

Remember, the more competitive the landscape, the higher the bids needed to appear in the best position in the SERPs.

To try and fight this, you must try to work with keywords with low competition scores and high volume searches. In other words, keywords that people are using but companies are not bidding on.

Simple? We never said it was…

Ad fatigue and ad blindness

You also have to consider that we live in a world where we are constantly bombarded with advertising and promotions. People are tired of it and are always looking for ways to block invasive advertising. They have even developed a natural sense of avoiding ads and consuming only the information they care about.

It’s your job to create messages, images and ads that capture their attention. That’s why we’ve been so adamant that you can’t create a Google Ads or Bing Ads campaign in a matter of minutes. You need to spend enough time studying your audience, understanding how they behave and what interests them, and then you can create compelling ads.

Ad fraud and click fraud prevention measures

The world of Internet search advertising has just gotten more complicated. Today we are facing a new disruption: ad fraud and click fraud.

The former refers to the practice of using fake traffic to increase an ad’s views and clicks. It is used for financial gain and requires a certain level of technical expertise to implement.

Click fraud is when a person or bot clicks on an online ad with the intention of fooling the platform into thinking that a real user is interacting with it. This is usually done on a large scale with the intention of hurting a competitor’s ad budget or financial gain.

To prevent this from happening, you must

• Monitor your campaign performance and look for sudden ad budget or activity increases.
• You can block IP addresses from clicking on your ads, especially those you know are bots or fraudulent accounts. You can also block IP addresses from locations that generate much traffic but do not match your interests.
• Use click and ad fraud prevention software. AppsFlyer, Spider AF, Improvely, or Anura are good options.
• Focus on local ads instead of large scale ads, this will not only bring you more potential customers but will also allow you to prevent click fraud.
• Place your ads only on sites where you can find lots of potential customers.

Keeping up with algorithm updates and policy changes

If you want to succeed in SEA, it’s critical that someone on your team is constantly tracking Google’s algorithm updates. You can do this through your SEA agency, through Moz’s tracking tools, or even through X (formerly Twitter). Google has an account called @searchliaison where you can learn about new updates and changes to the algorithm as they happen.

Adapting to changes in user behavior and search trends

Finally, it’s important to pay attention to changes in user behavior. Remember, you are targeting people and just because something worked once does not mean it will always work. Get to know your audience and constantly monitor your performance metrics. That’s the only way to keep up and make the necessary changes in time.

Section 7. Future Trends in Search Engine Advertising

Predicting future trends in Search Engine Advertising (SEA) involves understanding evolving consumer behaviors, technological advancements, and industry developments. Several trends are likely to shape the future of SEA:

Voice search and its implications for advertising

We are living in times of great change, and SEA is no exception. Today, we see how voice search is becoming more relevant to users. It has become more convenient to just use your voice to do a search and get a verbal answer, rather than typing in every hint. Especially when you are on the go or in a hurry.

As a brand, you need to understand this and use it to your advantage. For starters, you need to optimize your site based on the way people ask questions using their voice. And you need to make sure your site is optimized for mobile devices. If not, you will not appear as part of the information that virtual assistants are using.

Machine learning and automation in ad management

Machine learning and AI have revolutionized the world of search advertising, making it easier for users like you to achieve your goals in the most cost-effective way.

If you go back a few years, you will see that if you were running PPC advertising, you would have had to manually manage your campaigns, adjust bids, and more. Today, AI and machine learning play a pivotal role and are responsible for analyzing huge amounts of data to discover key insights and trends to improve your campaign’s performance. Algorithms are now equipped to automatically adjust bidding strategies based on keyword performance, ad placement, and competitor activity.

All of this comes with a number of benefits you can enjoy, such as improved targeting and personalization, optimized bidding strategies, predictive analytics, and forecasting. However, there are some challenges you need to consider: data privacy and over-reliance on automation.

Integration with other digital marketing channels (e.g., social media, email)

By synchronizing your Google Ad campaigns with other marketing channels, you can amplify your overall marketing efforts, reach users across multiple touchpoints, and reinforce your message.

You can do this by

• Leveraging keyword synergy between your SEO and SEA efforts, and using keyword data from your SEA campaigns to inform your SEO strategy.
• Working towards the same business goal across all marketing channels: increase awareness, generate leads, improve conversion rate, etc.
• Align your message and content across platforms. Consistency reinforces your brand message and improves the user experience.
• Launch cross-platform retargeting campaigns.
• Create coordinated cross-platform marketing campaigns that complement your Google Ads messages with social media advertising.

There are more things you can do, but you get the idea. You need to align your channels so they all deliver the same message and target the same audience.

Conclusion

Creating a successful SEA campaign is an important step in achieving your business goals. For one, it drives targeted traffic to your site faster than any other marketing effort. And its data and analytics help you quickly understand whether your message is resonating with your audience and how much it’s costing you to convert each customer.

While AI and new technologies are simplifying the way we manage search advertising campaigns, there’s still more work to be done. For starters, you need to have a clear understanding of who your audience is and what search queries they are making. Then you need to master the art of keyword research. And you need to create attention-grabbing ads.

Our final tip is to always start small. Aim for long-tail keywords with low competition and work with a reduced budget. This will help you get familiar with the tool and bidding strategies. Then you can increase your budget, optimize and become more competitive.