SEM is beneficial, right?

Help me prove it

[Trenton]

Hi

I want to do a SEM campaign - I kow what I'm doing and why SEMs important, but I need to persuade my skeptical boss that it's a good idea. He really likes hard data - do any of you have any data to prove SEM's effectiveness? I'll need to show him where I get any data from, so a link to any website showing this info would be great.

[zgb999]

Use the keyword estimator of Google adwords and show your boss how many clients are looking for products/services of you.

Also it will show him how much your competitors are paying (knowing that it will increase their turnover...)

[shorebreak]

1) Overture has a report on their site that quantifies the ROI of paid search & relative to other forms of online and offline marketing. It also quantifies improved unaided brand awareness that paid search impressions bring.

2) The Piper Jaffray report by Safa Rastchy that came out ~March '03 did wonders to legitimize the paid search marketplace. Get your hands on it and show to your boss.

3) Look through Clickz.com for SEM-related articles; I know there are at least 4 or 5 over the last year that have discussed SEM value.

4) Go to SEMPO.org; plenty of info on SEM value therein.

5) Tell him about how paid search has gone from 9% of online advertising in 2002 to 32% on 2003 and that he's already a bozo for having missed out on the trend in '03!

If none of that works, tell him there are tons of pretty women at SearchEngineStrategies.com #:^)

[Smiley]

>do any of you have any data to prove SEM's effectiveness

Yes, just get him to look at this site. Show him how it's now within the top 250 sites in the world (according to Alexa). It's all about SEM, if it didn't work we would not all be here.

Then again - quit your job and enjoy it for yourself :)

[roscoepico]

Fortune Magazine ran a nice article last month on SEM and included some decent numbers which may help you make your case.

Article Here [fortune.com]

[xbase234]

Run a search and show the boss which competitor's sites are showing up in your company's brand keyspace. If anything, he needs to know if competitors are banking on the company's name. These days, most businesses can't afford *not* to do some level of SEM.

[edited by: xbase234 at 10:21 pm (utc) on Feb. 2, 2004]

[tfanelli]

This is some info from Overture about how people find products they are looking for. It shows 42% of people use search engines to locate products online. So if you are not using SEM you are missing the biggest method of online marketing.

[content.overture.com...]