How do you craft a SEM strategy for global audiences?

1 Understand your goals and KPIs

Before you launch any SEM campaign, you need to define your goals and key performance indicators (KPIs) for each market. What are you trying to achieve with your ads? Who are you targeting and why? How will you measure your success and ROI? Your goals and KPIs should be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART). For example, you might want to increase your sales by 10% in Germany in the next quarter, or generate 500 leads from Japan in the next month.

2 Research your audience and competitors

The next step is to conduct a thorough research on your audience and competitors in each market. You need to understand the demographics, psychographics, preferences, pain points, and behaviors of your potential customers. How do they search for your products or services? What keywords do they use? What are their expectations and objections? How do they respond to different types of ads and offers? You also need to analyze your competitors' SEM strategies. What are their strengths and weaknesses? How do they position themselves and differentiate from you? What are their unique selling propositions and value propositions?

3 Choose your platforms and channels

Based on your research, you need to decide which platforms and channels are best suited for your SEM strategy in each market. You might want to focus on Google Ads, which is the most popular and widely used search engine marketing platform, or you might want to explore other options like Bing Ads, Yahoo Ads, Baidu Ads, or Yandex Ads, depending on the popularity and reach of these search engines in your target regions. You also need to consider the type of ads you want to run, such as text ads, display ads, video ads, shopping ads, or app ads, and the format and features of each ad type.

4 Create your campaigns and ad groups

Once you have chosen your platforms and channels, you need to create your campaigns and ad groups for each market. A campaign is a set of ads that share a common goal, budget, and settings, while an ad group is a subset of a campaign that contains ads that target a specific set of keywords or audiences. You need to structure your campaigns and ad groups according to your products, services, categories, or themes, and align them with your goals and KPIs. You also need to set your bid strategy, budget, location, language, and other parameters for each campaign and ad group.

5 Write your ad copy and design your landing pages

The next step is to write your ad copy and design your landing pages for each market. Your ad copy should be clear, concise, compelling, and relevant to your keywords and audience. You need to use the language and tone that resonate with your target market, and highlight your value proposition and call to action. You also need to ensure that your ad copy is consistent with your landing pages, which are the web pages that your visitors land on after clicking on your ads. Your landing pages should be optimized for conversions, meaning that they should have a clear headline, a relevant offer, a persuasive copy, a strong call to action, and a simple form or checkout process.

6 Test, optimize, and scale your SEM strategy

The final step is to test, optimize, and scale your SEM strategy for each market. You need to monitor and measure your SEM performance using tools like Google Analytics, Google Ads, or other third-party platforms. You need to track and analyze your metrics and KPIs, such as impressions, clicks, conversions, cost per click, cost per conversion, click-through rate, conversion rate, and return on ad spend. You need to identify what works and what doesn't, and make adjustments accordingly. You also need to experiment with different variables, such as keywords, bids, ads, landing pages, offers, and audiences, and use A/B testing or multivariate testing to find the best combinations. Finally, you need to scale your SEM strategy by increasing your budget, expanding your reach, or adding new markets, as long as you maintain or improve your ROI and profitability.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?