The economy is a mess, and that’s saying it the polite way. My company (EnginePoint Marketing) has not been immune to the effects of the downturn. Some clients have drawn down their SEM campaigns to a lower level due to marketing budget cuts.
How do you adjust an SEM campaign to a smaller budget, yet make sure it’s still able to perform at a high level? Here are a few tips.
1. Have a target budget in mind.
Do you want to lower your monthly SEM budget by 20% or 25%? It’s easier to effectively adjust a campaign into a smaller one if you know what your target budget is.
As my business partner Kirk Phillips said in a recent post on his blog (BrandStoke)
Knowing the availability of resources is critical to achieving the desired outcome.
2. Don’t cut based on keyword price.
It’s seems logical to run a keyword performance report, look at what keywords are costing the most money, then cut them. The downside of that is you’ll end up cutting the best performing keywords out of your campaign. What you’ll have left is second-tier keywords doing a second-tier job. You may have to cut a few higher cost keywords, but using this as the sole decision-making metric is not a good idea.
3. Revisit negative keyword matching.
Negative keywords are a way of telling search engines what keywords not to match your ads for. This is one of the overlooked gems of paid search. Making sure you have a real tight, well-defined negative keyword list can reduce a budget by 15%.
For example, one of our clients sells casters, the wheels on the bottom of everything from office chairs to surgical carts. What they don’t sell is caster oil. Negative keywords ensure that bidding on the term “caster” does not match ad on searches for caster oil. It’s a simple concept, but so very often overlooked.
4. Pause specific categories, leaving others untouched.
Take a look at what part of your product lines you are supporting with paid search. Instead of taking a bit from each area, look at pausing ad groups that are not part of your core product line. Leave your core product area running at full steam.
5. Pair SEM exposure with SEO.
We prefer the blending method of search, using both SEO and SEM to drive traffic. But sometimes people get really focused on SEM. Review your SEO implementations. Some SEO changes might help you increase in rankings for keywords that you would no longer have to bid on.
Times are tight and sometimes budgets get cut. But hastily cutting an SEM budget can cause the remains of the campaign to falter. Any decent search agency can help you effectively reduce a campaign in a very effective way in a matter of a few days. But if you are running your own campaign, hopefully these tips will help you draw down a campaign until the economy gets a little better.
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