Branding and awareness is becoming a strong metric for judging the performance of a campaign and a viable objective to achieve via SEM. Branding within the search engine requires serious budgetary investment as well as strict measurement techniques to ensure that the invested budget is being well spent. Unlike eCommerce strategies where a distinct clear metric is calculated from each click, a branding and awareness strategy looks to increase the awareness of corporate website within the engines. This being said the measurements taken must ensure that a return on investment is being seen, be it from placement within the engines, share of voice (SOV) or traffic to the site.

• Paid for Placement (PFP) engines and organic search are the two most likely types of search engine mechanism to use for a branding and awareness campaign.

• The major PFP engines and a selection of tier 2 are recommended, as these will give the maximum coverage within the search engine network. These will be complemented, especially on brand terms, by the organic listings.

• It is recommended that generic and branded keywords are used for a branding and awareness campaign; specific terms will not drive enough volume or be searched upon enough times to warrant usage.

• Similarly generic and branded creatives are also recommended to ensure the maximum exposure for corporate messaging is obtained.

• Control should be obtained by measuring success against the following (but not specific to any one): traffic, share of voice, impressions or rankings.