Search Engine Marketing – Journal Sun Media

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) uses Google search advertising to drive qualified leads to your website who are ready to take action. For tips on ensuring a successful SEM campaign, see Submitting a Successful SEM Request.

Targeting Capabilities

Geography: Ads are served to a custom geography with zip code-level targeting.
Keywords: Ads are served to users searching for relevant keywords within the target geography.

Note: When adding keywords to your Proposal, you may receive the error message “Unable to reach the minimum budget for keyword budget estimate. Try adding more keywords or increasing the size of your geography.” This indicates that there is not enough search traffic for the keywords selected in your target geography to meet the minimum budget requirements for a campaign.

To solve this issue, increase the geography or add additional keywords. You may want to add keywords or phrases that are broad and encompass the industry. To get more ideas about keywords, try running a competitor’s website as the URL and see if that changes the keyword selection.

Devices

Desktop
Mobile
Tablet

Platforms and Positions

Platform	Position
Google Search Network	Absolute Top Impressions: The very first search result on the page.
(Google maintains 87% of market share)	Top Impressions: Any search result above organic results (second, third, and fourth positions).
	Specific positions are not guaranteed and less common placements may be included.

Ad Creation

Supply the following information for the SEM team to build relevant ad copy.

Choose the goal:
- Lead gen: Calls
- Led gen: Form fills
- Increase site traffic
- Special promotion
Google My Business email address:
- Provide the email address associated with the advertiser’s Google My Business (GMB) account to enable the location extension on the ads.
Phone number:
- The advertiser’s main phone number will display on the ad. When a mobile user clicks to call, it will dynamically be replaced with a different tracking number for phone call performance and insights.
Landing page:
- Provide at least one landing page. Landing pages must be valid websites containing content relevant to the ad copy.

Note: Using the above information, the SEM creative team will develop and launch ad copy on behalf of the client, unless pre-approval is requested upon campaign launch.

Reporting

Campaign performance is accessible 24/7 with our live Analytics dashboard. For definitions of the metrics used in analytics, see Metrics.

Google now uses Responsive Search Ads. For more information, see Responsive Search Ads.

Impressions

Total ads served to users

Impressions delivered are reported as outlined in the initial proposal or contract.

Clicks

/Click-through rate

The number of users who clicked on the ad and the rate of users who clicked based on total impressions delivered.

Keywords

Clicks, impressions, and page positioning performance is included for each keyword.

Devices

Desktop, mobile, and tablet

Clicks and impression performance is provided for each device.

Phone calls

The number of users who clicked to call the phone number on the ad from a mobile device, including the duration, time of day, day of week, and whether the call was answered or missed.

Geography

The interactive map shows impressions delivered with a heat map on zip codes. A complete breakdown of geographic performance can be found in the chart.

SEM Ad Components

SEM ads consist of a text ad that can include additional components called Ad extensions. Ad extensions, such as phone numbers, addresses, and site links, are dynamic and independent from the overall text ad. Ad extensions can show in a variety of ways depending on device, ad position, and other factors. The ads in reporting are representations of how an ad might look on Google because ad extensions can display in a variety of combinations.