Category Archives: Blog

New Heights for HawkSEM as a Leading PPC Agency

Results are everything to our team at HawkSEM, both in terms of the growth that we usher our clients toward and in terms of the personal progress that our entire team achieves. Through our focus areas of social media marketing, SEO, conversion optimization, and PPC, HawkSEM scales revenue and launches every customer to unprecedented heights of profitability.

We love seeing clients rack up results that make them happy, but we’re also excited to share some news celebrating HawkSEM. Clutch, a Washington, D.C.-based B2B research and reviews agency, recently published its listing of firms with the top PPC management services around, and we earned one of the top-10 spots in a field stacked with over 200 competitors.

This accomplishment reflects the excellent quality and strong performance of our market
presence, operations, and industry experience, among other criteria that Clutch analyzes in creating and compiling its rankings. Beyond the hard data that factors into company evaluations, client feedback also weighs in strongly.

“They’ve done a great job. I gave them all the information I could and let them get to work. I offered a little guidance for subject matter that was difficult to parse and they picked up very quickly,” beamed one of our customers, the communications director of a nonprofit. “They have the expertise, knowledge, and time to push things forward on their own.”

“The numbers clearly speak for themselves,” highlighted a second, the marketing director at a public university. “Having consistent management of our campaign has been really crucial to our success. They’re very concerned about our metrics and our costs. They’re respectful of our money and spend it as if it was their own.”

The Manifest and Visual Objects, sister companies to Clutch, also speak highly of HawkSEM.

Business news and insight website The Manifest highlighted our team in its round-up of the top SEO services in Los Angeles, while Visual Objects, a portfolio curation platform, listed our design and development experience in a showcase of firms with superb digital marketing experience.

In a busy advertising and marketing scene, HawkSEM relishes knowing that we’ve distinguished ourselves from the pack with our exceptional strategy and skills. Whether you’re looking for PPC, design, or SEO work, your growth and profitability are ensured and safe in our hands. Reach out to us here to learn more about out the results that you’ll achieve with us – we look forward to collaborating to scale your success together!

HawkSEM Reviews 5 Star on Clutch.co!

HawkSEM Joins Clutch!

Without the right strategy, a digital program has no chance of success. At HawkSEM, we focus on maximizing revenue through ROI driven campaigns. We do this by targeting the right people, at the right time. This is especially important as personalization only grows more significant in the search marketing space.

We’re always thinking about ways to improve. Recently, we joined Clutch, a B2B ratings and reviews platform. Clutch uses data, qualitative insights, and client reviews to evaluate the companies featured on their platform. In the pay per click category alone, there are 2953 firms! It’s a competitive industry, and the world of search is always changing. For this reason, we’re grateful to have anything that can help us show prospective buyers our unique approach and proven results.

As part of our presence on the directory, Clutch collects unbiased and comprehensive reviews from our clients, and our clients, who have graciously given their time, provided very useful insights. Some highlights are shown below:

“They have the expertise, knowledge, and time to push things forward on their own.”
Communications Director, As You Sow

“We’ve seen an increase in leads from their PPC work.” – CEO, Real Estate Firm

“They hit the ground running, learning what our programs are and fine-tuning the strategy around the keywords in the ad copy.” – Director of Marketing, Public University

Our team could not feel better about receiving a perfect, 5 stars from our clients. On Clutch’s sister website, The Manifest, our company is also featured in quite a few categories, including social media, another marketing technique that demands a skilled and trustworthy partner. HawkSEM is excited to continue explore the possibilities of marketing with new partners. If you’re also a business looking to leverage the latest technologies and trends to meet their goals, contact us today to get started.

PPC Management – Increase ROI Year-Over-Year

How much are you spending on SEM every year? North American advertisers spent nearly $20 billion in 2012 alone. With that much money being thrown around, it’s important to focus on SEM and PPC marketing campaigns that produce real results, year after year—in other words, ensuring that the money you spend provides you with a significant ROI.

If you’re a digital marketing manager or CMO, you need to possess the resources and knowledge to properly measure ROI to be successful. Here are 5 helpful practices to improve PPC results, year over year.

How to Track ROI From PPC

To properly track ROI from PPC campaigns, you’ll need to have robust tracking tools (not just conversion tracking on Google AdWords), the latest technology, an experienced team, lead scoring and a detailed reporting system. The technology should be able to track specific keywords, ad copy, landing pages, ad position, and other factors that determine which visits lead to conversions. From this point, you can include these keywords into your CRM.

To elaborate take this example into consideration. AdWords will show that the keyword “refi Mortgage” led to the conversion and it stops there. What you really need to be tracking is:
• Keyword: “refi mortgage”
• Match type: exact
• Ad position: 2
• Ad Copy: “Lowest Refinance Rates”
After, your sales team has spoken to each lead, they must give it a score (we like to use a 5 star system). All this data together ties the loop to properly track ROI.

Launching an ROI-driven PPC Strategy

So you’re ready to launch a new PPC strategy that focuses on ROI. You’ll need to focus on three specific areas:

• Effective & Insightful Tracking
• Proper keyword targeting
• Relevant & Conversion Oriented landing pages

Part 1: Proper Tracking

Tracking goes above and beyond merely slapping a tracking code on your website and assuming the situation is now being handled. You may get some basic statistics from doing this, but how can you boost ROI based on this alone? As mentioned, you need to have the proper technology to really track effectively.

Part 2: Keyword Targeting

Keyword targeting is critical. Once you discover which keywords are generating the best leads, you’re well on your way toward developing an ROI-centered marketing campaign. In addition, there are multiple programs out there that can assist you with new keyword ideas, variations on keywords, and synonyms.

Part 3: Landing Pages

If executed properly, your landing page will be clear, concise, and conversion oriented. Verify that the landing page is not linked from anywhere except your PPC campaign to ensure effective tracking. By developing unique landing pages for specific ad groups/keywords and utilizing Dynamic Keyword Insertion (DKI), you will increase your conversion rates.

Know Your “Money Keywords” to Convert Conversations Into Customers

When it comes to budgeting SEM, most people have their bidding strategies backwards. Your campaign needs to be built around the understanding of what ROI ratio you are trying to achieve. If you are bidding a specific amount of money because you know what position it will put you in and what kind of traffic it will generate, and then multiplying that number by the conversion rate, you are going at things completely backwards.

Are you properly tracking ROI from PPC? If not, we would love to help you get all set up, get in touch with us today.

5 Proven SEM Strategies to Reduce Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)

Your customer base is the proverbial goose that lays the golden eggs, in that you have to keep feeding new customers into it in order to maintain profits. Yet you’re probably already aware of just how costly feeding that goose can become. If you allow your customer acquisition costs (CAC) to become to too high, you’ll quickly see those golden eggs start to shrink as your goose becomes a bloated, unhealthy mess, incapable of producing the kind of results you need.

Thus, the challenge then becomes being able to grow your clientele by bringing the right kind of customers in at just the right price. Sounds simple enough, right? Well, without a working knowledge of the market strategies proven to achieve such a goal, you risk wading through an unending stream of unsuccessful marketing ploys.

Proven Cost-Effective Techniques

  • Optimize and grade your leads: Too often, undecided clients let the sales cycle linger out of control, turning sales reps into marketers. Set clear criteria for your marketers based upon targeted, segmented feedback to determine what qualifies as a lead that can be passed on to your sales team.
  • Focus on what works: Monitor initiatives to see which yield high and low conversion rates. Don’t be afraid to abandon those that produce few results.
  • Don’t be afraid of customer trials: Market research has shown that consumers value a company’s willingness to guarantee their products or services at their own potential expense. By offering your new customers a trial period, you’re more likely you keep them over the long haul.
  • Indulge their need for instant gratification: By offering an incentive to work with your company, you’re engendering within customers an immediate sense of brand loyalty.
  • Enter the virtual world: If you’re one of the few holdouts that has yet to fully embrace internet marketing, it’s high time you became converted. Recent years have seen online marketing catch up and even threaten to overtake traditional marketing methods as the preferred choice in the business world. Much of that is due to its cost-effectiveness. Campaigns built around SEO and PPC often achieve better results than most other real-world marketing strategies, and often at a fraction of the cost.

The battle to keep your CAC down can be a difficult one, yet if you remain committed to seeing it done and have the right resources at your disposal, you can successfully keep your golden goose a laying. We here at HawkSEM are one such resource. As experts in SEM, we’re well-versed in all of the market strategies proven to keep customers seeking you out without you having to break the bank. To see just what we can do for your company, contact one of our team members today.

The Challenge of Cost-Effective PPC

So you’ve finally made the commitment to go all-in on a full scale PPC campaign. That’s great, yet there’s just one problem: so have quite a few others. Competition for keywords drives the prices publishers will charge for them up. Ultimately, you could easily see yourself spending more to generate new leads through PPC than you could recoup through actual transactions.

7 Tips to Keep Costs Low

That’s not to say that there are no ways for you to essentially achieve an ROI from PPC. Such techniques do exist; you just have to recognize them, and have the wherewithal to see them through:

  • Start by looking within: Look at your best customers. Analyze the feedback that they give as to what marketing tools brought them to you, and then focus your new acquisition campaign on that content.
  • Focus on specific keywords: Analyze search queries and results to see what specific keywords or phrases are uniquely relevant to your company. Too often, companies allow vagaries to limit the effectiveness of their search words or terms.
  • What makes your ad “clickable?”: The “clickability” of your ad depends largely on the relevance of the keyword it’s built upon. Connecting keyword relevance to click conversions allows you to enhance your ad’s effectiveness.
  • Eliminate strays: While many focus all of their attention on creating new content, you should also not forget the potential of that which you already have. Examine your paid ad for language can be misleading and produce unwanted or unproductive clicks, and then eliminate it.
  • Look at what you’re offering: Are you losing customers because you offer too much online, thus giving them no incentive to convert from casual observers to paying customers? Remember to give them what they want initially, yet leave them wanting more.
  • Look at what you can pay, not what you’re willing to pay: Review the historical PPC conversion data from other companies within your industry, or your own if you’ve already engaged in PPC advertising. Do you notice a steady conversion rate? Comparing the difference, if any, between your goal customer acquisition cost (CAC) and the actual conversion rate gives you a baseline figure at which you should pay in order to make ensure your PPC campaign’s profitability.
  • Optimize: While focusing on a baseline of profitability keeps your head above water, you don’t want to end up simply treading it over the long-term. Look for every opportunity to improve your conversion rates compared to your CAC.

Contrary to popular belief, you can help set the price for your PPC, allowing you continuous and cost-effective customer inflow with a near guarantee of high conversion rates. Yet reaching such an internet marketing utopia requires a fair deal of savvy. Don’t worry, we’ll provide the savvy. Our team here are HawkSEM knows what it takes to mount a successful, cost-effective PPC campaign. Let us put that knowledge to work for you. Give us a call and let’s see if we can help reach your goals.

What Every B2B Company Needs to Know About Customer Acquisition Bidding

When looking at a big business from the outside as a small startup, large companies seem to have no worries when it comes to balancing the budget. It almost seems as if they have money to burn on advertisements and do not need to care about increasing the ROI of PPC advertising. This impression could not be further from the truth, which is what many once-struggling businesses discover after they reach a certain level of success.

Cost Per Acquisition: CPA

Google AdWords is one of the most popular and most important marking tools available to businesses of all sizes, and in order to connect with potential customers, companies must have a strategy for cost-effective customer acquisition bidding. This seems straightforward enough: a business bids for the right for their content to appear next to relevant search results. This in turn equals clicks and potential revenue. However, just like any other aspect of economics, it is rarely so simple.

Top 3 CPA Insights

Take these three CPA lessons to heart as you begin your quest to advertising perfection:

Market smarter

Spending your advertising budget wisely is more important than having a large marketing budget in the first place. No matter how much money you throw at SEO, PPC, or CPA, if your content is irrelevant to what your business offers or you focus too much in one area only, your ROI will be mixed at best.

A number one spot does not mean success

Many people strive to reach the number one spot at any cost without realizing that spending the extra money is not always worth it. One of the best aspects of the conversion system is that it can analyze the ROI of using more money for a higher ranking. Sometimes, it is better to sit tight at number two in order to balance costs.

Quality is crucial

One of the most important things to realize about search engine marketing of any kind is that the content and quality of your ads and landing pages directly translates into more affordable CPA. The better your copy, the less you have to pay for getting it onto the top of the ratings list. If your content is poor, you will be required to pay even more to get it pushed forward.

Do Not Let Your Online Marketing Strategy Become Stagnant

Rotating your advertisements and updating your keywords is a great way to keep your content refreshed and without spending more on bids. For the most current and effective marketing strategies like this, it is best to look toward the professionals. Stay on top of rising customer acquisition costs with the help of HawkSEM. To speak with one of our experts, call 800-316-2220 and be prepared to have your current marketing plan perfected, trimmed, and made to be as efficient as possible.

Proven Strategies to Increase Organic Website Traffic

We all live in a world where we’ve become accustomed to instant gratification. “Wait” has become a four-letter word in the business world. When it comes to improving your organic web traffic, you want to see results yesterday. Unfortunately, just as Rome wasn’t built in a day, so too can you not expect to build a better ranking in the same amount of time.

Yet that’s not to say that you can’t see dramatic increases in a relatively short amount of time. Depending upon the amount of work that you’re willing to put into optimizing your content in order to improve your ranking, isn’t unreasonable to think that within as little as three to four months, you can start seeing an upward spike on your organic traffic.

10 Traffic Rules to Live By

The trick is knowing just how to make such increases happen. Here are 10 tips on what to do in order to see your search engine ranking improve:

  • Optimize: Focus on developing meta titles, descriptions, and keywords that are optimized to take advantage of those words and phrases proven to lure in traffic in your industry.
  • Employ analytics: Don’t be afraid to use analytic programs to find those long-tail keywords that are guaranteed to lead to high conversion rates.
  • Focus on quality, not quantity: Don’t simply flood your site with keywords. Focus on creating quality content that will lead to unique ranking improvements such as author rank. Moreover, you must generate relevant content that provides value to your target audience.
  • Utilize blogs: Including too much text on your main landing pages can make it difficult for customers to find exactly what it is that they want. Thus, move some of your keywords and phrases into blogs, allowing you to improve your rankings without inundating every customer with too much information.
  • Rely on the experts: Don’t be afraid to ask an industry expert to post a blog on your site, thus benefiting from his or her insider knowledge.
  • Be authoritative: Customers look to you for expertise. Be willing to answer any all question related to your business and your industry.
  • Watch your bounce rate: Check your content for keywords that will contribute to a high bounce rate, and modify it if needed.
  • Look for long-tail terms: Use long-tail phrases built around specific keywords rather than simply relying on words with the best search traffic. You’ll find that conversion rates with the former are typically higher.
  • Keep it simple: Don’t try to outsmart the search engines. Focus on your own content rather than trying to game their systems.
  • Be patient: Don’t be discouraged if you don’t see results right away. Remember that the process of improving your ranking is a marathon, not a sprint.

Improving your organic traffic flow isn’t overly complicated. Our team members here at HawkSEM are experts at increasing organic web traffic. When you choose to work with us, you will see increases in web traffic and more importantly a greater ROI from your marketing efforts. If you have questions or would just like to talk strategy with one of our all-star team members, give us call and let us work our digital marketing magic for you.

Digital Marketing Strategies to lower CPA for SaaS Companies

Far too many companies in SaaS only associate PPC with improving Cost per Acquisition (CPA). While you’ll find a wealth of information linking the two, that’s not to say that each is mutually exclusive to the other. Lowering your CPA is a broad-based task, with PPC being just one tool available to you to accomplish this. As you’ll see, there are other digital marketing strategies that you can also employ in order to bring on new business without having to break the bank.

Good Ole’ SEO

With all of the new online marketing trends that are so popular today, many overlook the effectiveness of plain old SEO. These words aren’t meant to downplay the complexity of this style of marketing, but rather to show that you don’t need to overhaul your content in order to make it effective at bringing in new business. By simply understanding search engine algorithms and how to mold your content to better accommodate them, you eliminate the need to throw a lot of time and resources in developing brand new advertising campaigns. By learning to master the intricacies of SEO, you enjoy the following benefits:

  • Self-reliance
  • ‘Evergreen’ sustainability
  • Greater ROI
  • More leads and sign ups
  • Free or expensive traffic increases

Mastering Your Poker Face

In the world of internet marketing, if SEO is card counting, then content marketing is mastering your poker face. Rather than understanding how the search engine ranking system works and manipulating it to work in your favor, content marketing is understanding your customer base and tailoring your content to them. Yet knowing your customers entails a lot more than just having their names and e-mail addresses on file. You need to understand what really makes them tick when it comes to doing business, such as their:

  • Buyer Personas and Backgrounds
  • Intent
  • Problems & Expectations
  • Values

What makes content marketing such a cost-effective method at improving your CPA is that you already possess most of the information needed to improve your content. A thorough analysis of your sales history and the feedback provided by customers will give you a wealth of information on just what content really hooks customers. Add in to that a detailed analysis of keyword trends and their conversion rates, and content marketing allows you a virtual sneak peek inside of customers’ heads without them even knowing it.

Understanding just how to use SEO and content marketing to bring new visitors to your site is key if you hope to see high conversion rates from your online traffic. Combine these two marketing strategies with a successful PPC campaign, and you’ll immediately see your site turn into a powerful sales tool. We here at HawkSEM can help to turn this dream into a reality for you and your company. With our expertise in developing highly successful and cost-effective sales campaigns, we helped countless other clients to strengthen their online presence and achieve a greater ROI from their marketing dollars. We invite you to join those ranks. For more information on our digital marketing strategies, contact us today.

5 Steps to Increase ROI from PPC

Analyzing year over year PPC data is not as straightforward as many marketing managers think. You have to connect trends in sales and trends in PPC campaigns beyond the number of dollars spent on PPC campaigns and revenue for a comprehensive PPC ROI report.

Step #1: Work Backward and Identify ROI From PPC Campaigns Based on Lead Scoring

You need to acquire meaningful data initially with keyword technology that tracks every conversion. A CRM system with an integrated lead scoring system can identify money keywords and give you a solid idea of what you can expect when highly qualified leads click on PPC ads. Other effective tools in initial and ongoing data acquisition and analysis include value track parameters, keyword conversion scripts, landing page conversion tracking, and a comprehensive CRM.

Step #2: Calculate Revenue From Each Lead

Determine the cost per lead and total revenue generated per lead. The formula is relatively simple: divide the total revenue acquired by the total number of leads in any given timeframe. Lead revenue can be calculated monthly, quarterly, biannually, and annually.

Step #3: Use Technology to Triangulate Data Between PPC Traffic and CRM Sales

Leverage the value of big data with the value of personal experiences from top customers and clients. Instead of only looking at the general connection between PPC traffic and sales, connect specific clients with specific PPC ads. It is important to separate the amount of ROI PPC campaigns are actually accountable for. PPC campaigns that generate highly qualified leads are more valuable than PPC campaigns that generate generic site traffic.

Step #4: Track Year-Over-Year Results From PPC Campaigns

Develop a number of metrics to look at in the long-term. See what returns from PPC campaigns look like over time, and develop a number of meaningful data points that represent ROI, not site traffic. YOY returns give necessary insight to the overall efficacy of different parts of PPC strategy, not just general conversion rates. Track efficacy and improvement in order to change money keywords, lead scoring, and CRM systems to drive ROI.

Step #5: Continue to Track Meaningful Metrics and Analyze PPC ROI Data

Naturally, the last step is to rinse and repeat. After all components are in place, get the most out of the data that provides answers instead of interesting statistics. Continue to drive ROI with PPC campaigns, not generic site traffic.

Contact HawkSEM to Learn More Now

At HawkSEM, we specialize in ROI. Request a consultation or call us at 800-316-2220 today for more information about how you can maximize returns with PPC.

Higher ROI from SEM – Digital Marketing Agency

You have an established SEM campaign that brings in moderate results, but it is time to move that campaign to the next level. In order to make the most of your marketing dollar, you must think differently about your strategy. Your digital marketing strategy should focus on “money keywords.” If you are like most companies, you bid for ad placement based on your position goals. You know the traffic you can expect, and you even go so far as to multiply your expected traffic by your conversion rate to get an anticipated ROI. Unfortunately, this is inefficient; it is actually contradicts the digital marketing strategy you should have in place to achieve results.

A Better Way to Design High ROI SEM Programs

Rather that plan your expected ROI after setting up your campaign, it should be the driving force in how you strategically plan. After all, you would not do any of this if you could not expect a ROI. If your end results are the reason for all your work, then it is logical that they should be behind the strategy.

1. Plan Your Intended ROI—It is always good to reach for the stars, but in order for your campaign to be successful, you need a reasonable ROI goal. If you have any questions about what you should be able to expect from a strong campaign, SEM experts can help get you on track.

2. Revisit Your Keywords—Not all keywords are as effective as others. While you certainly want to invest in a range of keywords, you may be better off changing your order of importance. If some keywords have consistently proven unprofitable, you may be better off dropping them altogether. Plan based on the ROI you can expect from each keyword on your list. It is crucial that you have proper tracking in place so you can properly plan for this.

3. Structure Your Campaign—Based on your ROI goals, you should figure the cost per acquisition (CPA) that is within your budget and that will generate a profit. When you compete for ad spaces strategically, you know when to put more money into an ad, and when to withdraw money from another. With proper planning, you can creatively structure your campaign to achieve your goals.

Use Your “Money Keywords”

Your “money keywords” are the keywords that bring you the required ROI to make the campaign worth your time and expense. In other words, they are your best performing and highest ROI generating keywords. The most effective way to transform your SEM program to reach the next level is to work with an experienced and ROI focused digital marketing agency that generates results.

Contact HawkSEM for more information on how to get the results you need.