Search engine marketing and display advertising | Google Digital Marketing & E-commerce Certificate

This paragraph introduces the concept of Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and display advertising, emphasizing their importance in digital marketing. It outlines the topics that will be covered, such as online paid advertising through search engines, websites, and apps. The speaker shares their personal experience with SEM and its effectiveness in rapidly increasing brand visibility and reaching target audiences. The video aims to teach viewers how to utilize Google Ads for SEM, covering ad campaign creation, bidding strategies, keyword match types, ad auction process, and creating effective ads. The importance of SEM in digital marketing roles and its potential to improve ad performance through user actions is highlighted.

This section discusses the advantages of using SEM as a digital marketing strategy, including reaching potential customers likely to make purchases, quick visibility on search engine results pages, learning which ads drive sales, and controlling where searchers are directed. It compares SEM with non-digital channels like magazines, highlighting the benefits of digital marketing's trackable and optimize-able nature. The paragraph also delves into pay models for SEM, focusing on Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising, which is favorable for businesses as they only pay when someone clicks on their ad. The alignment of Google's interests with advertisers through PPC is also mentioned.

This paragraph covers the different types of Google Ads and their specific uses. Text ads, shopping ads, local services ads, Google Maps ads, and call ads are explained, highlighting how they cater to different business needs and are displayed in various locations. The concept of ad extensions is introduced, detailing how they provide additional information about a business, such as links, phone numbers, and addresses. The paragraph also touches on YouTube as a search engine platform and its potential for reaching customers in their consideration phase.

The process of creating a Google Ad is outlined in this section, starting with defining the campaign goal, which informs other campaign options. It explains the concept of campaigns in Google Ads, which are ads that share a budget, location targeting, and other settings. The paragraph details steps such as choosing the campaign type, setting a budget, selecting a bidding strategy, targeting the audience, creating the ad, and setting up conversions. The importance of understanding these steps for effective SEM is emphasized, as well as the need for conversion tracking to assess campaign success.

This part of the script focuses on the foundational role of keywords in search engine marketing. It explains the concept of keyword match types—broad match, phrase match, and exact match—and their significance in determining when ads are shown. The script also discusses the importance of negative keywords in excluding irrelevant searches. The ad auction process is introduced, explaining how Google determines ad rank based on bids, ad quality, and ad extensions. The need to align keywords with ad content and landing page for successful ad auctions is stressed.

The paragraph presents best practices for creating effective search ads, emphasizing the importance of focusing on user needs and benefits, including relevant keywords in ad headlines, and avoiding generic sales language. It advises against nonspecific calls to action and recommends using specific, relatable language. The inclusion of ad extensions is encouraged for a more prominent presence on the results page, and the importance of optimizing the landing page for a cohesive customer experience is highlighted.

This section introduces responsive display ads, a type of display advertising that allows for automatic generation of ad combinations by Google Ads. It contrasts this with uploaded ads, where advertisers create and upload ad graphics. The benefits of responsive display ads are detailed, such as ease of use, broader reach, effective use of videos, and time savings. The paragraph also provides tips for choosing effective images for display ads, emphasizing the importance of visual focus, product prominence, and appropriate settings.

The video concludes by congratulating viewers on their completion of the section and encourages them to access the full experience on Coursera for job search assistance and to earn an official certificate. It also prompts viewers to watch the next video in the course and to subscribe to the channel for more lessons.