Does SEM Work?

So, people have been probably recommending that you look into SEM services in Singapore, as a larger set of suggestions regarding general digital marketing. It is absolutely true that general marketing as a whole is a must moving forward, as it is going to be the only way to advertise and market to people moving forward.

In short, people simply hate broadcast television now, as they have to deal with schedules, the commercial interruptions themselves, which no one ever liked in the first place, etc. People have never been okay with telemarketing, junk mail, banner ads or spam, and other channels through which to advertise, such as periodicals and radio are also well on their way out.

The thing is, though, digital marketing is a broad term, and there are a number of different approaches to marketing and advertising on the digital level. Relying on only one form of it is foolhardy at best, so you definitely want to explore your options. Do you want an SEM agency in Singapore? Well, I can’t give you a distinct yes or no answer to that, because it’s a little specific to case. You’ll see what I mean in a second, after I explain what SEM actually is.

What is SEM?

SEM is search engine marketing, and is powered by search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo among others. However, it is not to be mistaken with SEO, which is the biggest thing in which you should invest most of your marketing resources.

You have seen the results of SEM, and it takes one of three basic forms. When you do a search on Google, as the most common example, you see paid advertisement links up at the top of the search results. These are one of the forms of SEM. You may also see thumbnails across the top above said results, and these are also usually paid advertisements. Furthermore, you may see sections off to the side containing ads, and sections and websites that deliver somewhat generic, usually unintrusive ads powered by Google and the like, which together make the third form of this.

Obviously, there are some issues with this idea, and they become obvious once you think about it for a moment. The biggest issue is the same one the any sort of in-page advertising can have, but we’re getting to that next.

The twin Achilles heels of SEM?

Before I point out the legitimately helpful cases where SEM can be used, and they do exist, let’s look at the flaws in the strategy. The first one, which I consider to be the more severe one, is the questionable nature of paid results at the top of search results. This undermines SEO tactics, which is increasingly enraging pretty much everyone, and it also brings into question the veracity of search results as a whole, compromising the reliability of a search engine in the eyes of consumers. Yes, those links do have a small icon next some indicating that they are ads, but that really doesn’t solve that issue.

The other flaw is one that all advertising like this has – ad blockers. People are very ferocious about using ad blockers, and will put them on any device that they can. All of the major PC browsers support ad block extensions, and such things are not illegal in any way. It’s a little trickier to get ad blocking working on something like consoles, set-top boxes and mobile devices, though the more tech-savvy people can do it with relative ease.

So, when can SEM services in Singapore be helpful?

I am informing you now that you do not want to put all of your advertising resources singularly into an SEM agency in Singapore, but don’t let those flaws in the strategy stop you from bringing this into your marketing strategy as a component. As I just finished saying, it is actually harder to block ads like this on mobile devices, and it is even harder on things like set-top boxes, game consoles and other embedded systems. Add to this the fact that people are somewhat more tolerant with the lesser-intrusive varieties of ads when using a mobile phone, tablet or similar device, and you do have a chunk of the device population out there, as well is demographics, which can be reached by SEM.

It’s also a good idea to go ahead and have an investment in a future marketing channel, as the core technology behind SEM and it’s algorithmic outreach systems are going to adapt to some new form which I am not qualified to predict, when Google and other search engines finally do away with those paid top search results, and when ad blocking becomes prevalent in simple on other devices. The core concept behind SEM will adapts to some new form, and if you are already entrenched in SEM services in Singapore, they will simply migrate you to whatever new form mistakes in a fairly seamless fashion.