Search Engine Marketing

Search engine marketing is an umbrella term referring to all activities utilised to generate visibility in search engine results in order to increase revenue. Common strategies and tactics include search engine optimisation (SEO), content marketing, link development, and pay-per-click (PPC) management.

It encompasses both. Paid search is sometimes also called search engine marketing. SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is the organic aspect of showing up in search results. There are a couple commonalities between the two, but in general they're very different beasts that require different approaches. In general, SEO is significantly more complex than paid search, although even paid search is more involved than you might think (with quality scores, ranking strategy, match types, search intent, etc).

Grab someone that has a clue on what they're doing. Thinking you can do this on your own is a big mistake. It's not that you can't figure it out eventually if you dedicate enough time to it, but if you don't learn fast enough you'll always be too far behind those that have figured it out. You have to ask yourself how many hundreds of hours you're willing to put into learning how to do this well. Figure out what people are looking for that aligns with problems you can help solve and create appropriate landing pages with supporting content.

Yes, Google AdWords is a form of search engine marketing (SEM). SEM encompasses various strategies and techniques used to increase a website's visibility on search engine results pages (SERPs), including both organic (unpaid) and paid methods. Google Ads is a paid advertising solution where businesses bid on keywords to display their ads in Google's search results. It falls under the category of paid SEM as it involves paying for ads to be shown on search engine platforms like Google.

Choosing the right SEM agency is a critical decision for successful online advertising campaigns. Factors to consider include their experience and expertise, strategic approach, transparency in reporting, industry knowledge, effective communication, budget and ROI considerations, additional services offered, and quality client support. By thoroughly evaluating these factors and comparing multiple agencies, you can make an informed decision that aligns with your business goals and objectives.

For most service businesses we recommend a minimum media spend of $1,500 to $3,000 per month on Google Ads (plus management fee), and $3,000 to $8,000 for competitive e-commerce or high-CPC industries like legal, dental and trades in capital cities. Below $1,500 in media, the data is too thin to optimise reliably. We always benchmark CPC, expected CPA and required volume before recommending a number — never a flat retainer.

Yes — always. We build accounts in your business name with your billing details, give you Admin access, and document the setup. If you ever stop working with us, you keep every campaign, every conversion action, every audience and every dollar of historical data. We never use master accounts that lock clients in.

We measure what your accountant cares about: cost per qualified lead, cost per sale, return on ad spend (ROAS), customer lifetime value where we have the data, and incrementality (would the sale have happened anyway). Click and impression reports are background context, not the headline.

We set up enhanced conversions with first-party data, offline conversion import for phone leads that close days later, server-side GTM for accurate iOS 17 / ITP tracking, and Consent Mode v2 for GDPR / Australian Privacy Act compliance. Default Google Ads tracking misses 20–40% of conversions in 2026 — proper setup recovers that.

Smart use of brand campaigns: bid defensively where competitors are running on your name, but tier the budget so brand search costs stay low. We also align with your SEO so brand keywords that rank #1 organically get a tighter ad spend, while terms with low organic visibility get more support.

Click and impression data is available within 24 hours. First conversions usually arrive within 7 to 14 days. The first round of optimisation (negative keywords, bid adjustments, ad copy testing) happens at 4 weeks. By month 3 you have enough data to make confident scaling decisions. Anyone promising "results in 7 days" is either burning budget or fluffing the metrics.

We use both — PMax for retail and e-commerce where the algorithm has rich product data, and traditional Search and Shopping for service businesses where PMax often runs hot on irrelevant audiences. We never set PMax to "set and forget"; we use account-level negative lists, brand exclusions and asset-level reporting to stay in control.

Yes. Microsoft Ads is often overlooked but for B2B, healthcare, finance and 50+ audiences it can deliver 30–50% lower CPCs than Google. We import campaigns from Google then optimise them specifically for the Microsoft audience and search behaviour — they are not identical.

We charge a flat monthly fee or a percentage of media spend, depending on account size — whichever is fairer for the client. We do not take "kickbacks" from Google or Microsoft, we do not charge based on impressions, and we do not lock clients into 12-month contracts. Standard agreement is rolling month-to-month.

Monthly written report with executive summary, key metrics vs target, what we changed and why, and next month's priorities. Live dashboard (Looker Studio) updated daily so you can check any time. Quarterly strategic review where we revisit the whole account. We do not send 40-page PDFs full of vanity metrics.