Do you want to create a Search Engine Marketing (SEM) strategy for your hotel but don’t know where to start? Have you tried, but are bogged down by all the jargon? Don’t worry, you’re covered with our SEM fundamentals.
Often the most confusing part of building an SEM strategy is understanding the terminology. So, to start us off, here are some definitions for relevant SEM foundation blocks—acronyms and all.
SEM: Also referred to as Paid Search. It refers to the practice increasing website visibility or traffic through paid advertising on search engines.
For any SEM strategy, there will be a few different bidding strategies for your ad campaigns. What you choose depends on your campaign type and advertising goals. Because of this, it is important that you write down and prioritize your marketing goals. Once you’ve done so, you can find the best bidding strategy for you. Here, we list and define the bidding strategy vocabulary.
Pay-per-click (PPC): This is when an advertiser pays only when their ad is clicked. Sometimes, PPC refers to pay-per-call, which is when a mobile user makes a direct call from the delivered ad. It is also important to note that SEM is always PPC, but other types of advertising such as Facebook, Twitter, or others can also be classified as pay-per-click. This is similar to how all squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares.
- Cost-per-click (CPC): This is the actual price you pay when someone clicks your ad in your PPC marketing campaigns.
- Cost-per-mille (CPM): Also known as cost-per-thousand-impressions, is the cost you pay for one thousand impressions on one webpage.
- Cost-per-acquisition (CPA): This is the cost you pay for a specified action i.e. a sale, booking, or form submit. It is interchangeable with “cost-per-action.”
- Click-through-rate (CTR): This is the percentage of people who clicked on your ad. It is calculated by dividing the number of clicks your ad gets by the the number of times your ad is shown.
As far as other words used in the world of online advertising, there can be too many to count. Below are some of the most common terms hanging around out there:
