3 SEM Tips to Improve Your Holiday Sales

Your holiday marketing plan should be complete and getting into full swing for the end of this year. If you are selling your products or services online, part of your holiday marketing plan should include search engine marketing, or SEM.

This time of year, the competition is fierce for online marketing. You need strategies that will get your message to the right people, but not cost a sleigh of money. Here we provide three tips to get you started on forming your strategy.

1. Set Up Your Metrics Tracking

   You will not know how your online marketing campaigns are working without exact numbers. Be sure you establish tracking for the metrics that are important to you. That might include:

   • PPC Conversion – Get the numbers from the search engines where you have set up pay per click (PPC). They will let you know how many clicks you receive from your ads, and more specifically, how many clicks result in a sale. This can be established through PPC codes provided by the search engine that you place within the code of your website.
   • Secondary Metrics Tracking – You can also set up with search engines to determine how many clicks result in secondary, or non-revenue, events, such as a newsletter signup, brochure requests, etc.
   • Other Banner Ad Tracking – If you set up banner or text ads on other websites, be sure you get the tracking codes from that affiliate so you can track the effectiveness of those ads.

2. Increase SEM Messages

   Using those metrics we mentioned, it is always a good idea to test different messages to see which one works the best. That may require a small increase in your PPC budget, but the better results in sales can easily offset that expense in the long term.

   Test at least two different PPC messages. For instance, you might try one that offers free shipping and one without. Test the results and then go with the one that works the best.

3. Increase Email List Mailings

   You may use your customer email list to send out regular newsletters throughout the rest of the year, but during the holiday sales period, you should utilize that list more frequently to provide notices of sales, promotions, reminders, etc. Don’t forget to provide a link to your website, and as always, check those metrics!