Unlocking SEM Efficiency with Ad Armor: The Game-Changing Tool for Ad Prioritization

In today’s competitive digital landscape, paid search (SEM) teams are constantly pressured to maximize return on investment (ROI) while controlling costs. Ad prioritization, a vital component of an effective search engine marketing strategy, has emerged as a powerful way to achieve this balance. By strategically allocating ad budgets across various listing types—such as SEO, PPC, PLA (Product Listing Ads), and others—SEM teams can optimize their spending while maintaining performance.

Ad Armor, a game-changing tool from The Search Monitor, is designed to optimize ad spending and enhance SEM efficiency through intelligent ad prioritization. This article will explore the concept of ad prioritization, its benefits, and how Ad Armor empowers SEM teams to achieve more with less.

What Is Ad Prioritization?

Ad prioritization refers to strategically deciding which ads should be promoted and which should be deprioritized or turned off based on their cost relative to other less expensive ad units. Ad Prioritization involves shifting the budget from higher-cost paid text ads to lower-cost alternatives such as organic (SEO), shopping (PLA), or local 3-pack map listings and ads.

Ad prioritization aims to ensure that ad spend is used cost-efficiently while shifting traffic away from expensive ads to less expensive ad types.

Why Is Ad Prioritization Important?

In an environment where every click costs money, SEM teams must be smart about how they spend their budget. Ad prioritization allows them to:

1. Reduce Costs: Businesses can save money by identifying keywords where your brand dominates the page and can benefit from pausing expensive ad types. 
2. Increase ROI: Shifting the click traffic to less expensive ad types, like organic search (SEO), leads to less costly clicks at the same or better conversion rates.
3. Budget Allocations: Prioritizing lower-cost ad types frees up ad budgets for more competitive search keywords that require higher CPCs and budgets to maintain market share. 

Ad prioritization is a strategic approach that aims to reduce unnecessary costs and free up ad dollars for reallocation to other keywords, thereby enhancing the overall efficiency of SEM campaigns. 

The Pivotal Role of Ad Armor in Ad Prioritization

Ad Armor, a cutting-edge tool developed by The Search Monitor, a leading authority in ad monitoring technology, automates ad prioritization. It uses The Search Monitor’s advanced ad monitoring technology to identify keywords where your brand has a high page presence on SEO, shopping, and local search listings, coupled with low competition from your top competitors.

Here’s how Ad Armor makes ad prioritization more effective:

1. Keyword Opportunity Identification

Ad Armor automatically scans, and monitors search queries across multiple listings to identify keywords where you have strong coverage on SEO and PLA listings. For example, suppose a business ranks well organically for a particular branded keyword with low competition. In that case, Ad Armor can recommend turning off paid ads for that specific search query to shift traffic to the organic result or other ad types. This strategy helps preserve the ad budget while maintaining traffic and visibility. Ad Armor works best on brand and brand plus keywords where businesses are most likely able to achieve high SEO page rank and page presence.

2. Ad Prioritization Automation

Once a keyword opportunity has been identified, Ad Armor automatically implements pausing expensive paid ads on just the search queries.  This is accomplished using rules you control, including defining competitiveness and page share that you require to pause ads on the specified search queries safely.  When advising each keyword, Ad Armor considers your top competitors, affiliates, partners, and irrelevant competition.

3. Real-Time Data and Customization

Ad Armor uses real-time data to continuously monitor performance, ensuring that the SEM team is constantly working with the latest insights. Customizable rules allow teams to prioritize or deprioritize ads based on specific business goals, performance data, or changing market conditions.

4. Cost Savings without Sacrificing Performance

Ad Armor works with your paid search and SEO teams to identify opportunities for ad prioritization.  A strong SEO strategy with ad prioritization is imperative for success.  This ensures that your brand remains visible on key SERPs, even when paid ads are paused, giving you full coverage and control over your digital real estate while saving money without cannibalizing clicks.

Ad Armor: A Game-Changer for SEM Teams

Ad Armor offers many benefits for SEM teams, making it a valuable asset for ad prioritization. It optimizes the budget, saves time through automation, enhances performance, and provides strategic flexibility, empowering teams to adapt to market changes or new business objectives as needed.

1. Budget Optimization: By focusing spend on the most cost-effective ad units, SEM teams can stretch their budget further without compromising performance.
2. Ad Armor’s automation capabilities are a boon for SEM teams. It automates the pause/unpause of keywords while protecting market share against competitors who may enter the market. This automation liberates teams, allowing them to focus on strategy and creative initiatives, enhancing their sense of control and productivity. By handling routine tasks, Ad Armor allows SEM teams to concentrate on high-impact activities, thereby enhancing their overall performance.
3. Enhanced Performance: Shifting the budget to lower-cost ads or organic listings achieves budget savings without impacting clicks and performance, boosting the confidence and success of SEM teams.

Boosting SEM Performance with Ad Armor and Brand Protection Tools

In addition to the cost-saving benefits of Ad Armor, SEM teams can achieve even greater results by pairing it with The Search Monitor’s Brand Protection tools. Brand protection ensures that your ads aren’t competing with infringing ads from unauthorized competitors, which allows your campaigns to operate more efficiently and profitably. Ad Armor plays a crucial role in this by identifying potential threats and recommending actions to protect your brand’s visibility and market share.

Here’s how Brand Protection works in tandem with Ad Armor to supercharge your SEM efforts:

Brand Protection Continuously Removes Competitive Threats

Brand Protection continuously eliminates competitive threats by removing unauthorized ads using your brand in ad copy from your branded keywords. These infringing ads can drive up your Cost-Per-Click (CPC) and dilute your search presence. Brand Protection tools help remove this competition, ensuring your ads can perform without interference.

Ad Armor Optimizes Campaigns Post-Protection

Removing brand infringers from brand and brand-plus searches significantly reduces CPC’s by eliminating competition.  Reducing competitive threats paves the way for a successful ad prioritization campaign. Businesses can confidently pause ads without worrying about losing market share to competitors because Ad Armor will alert you as soon as a competitor re-enters the market.  By deploying Ad Armor with Brand Protection, businesses will continuously reduce competition in tandem with pausing and unpausing ads as the market shifts, leading to higher cost savings..,  

Defense + Offense Strategy: The Winning Combination

By combining Brand Protection (a defensive strategy that safeguards your brand from unauthorized competition) with Ad Armor (an offensive optimization tool that maximizes your ad spend), SEM teams can achieve incredible results, including:

1. Significant Ad Cost Reductions: Removing infringing ads reduces CPC by as much as 30-50%, freeing up a budget that can be reinvested in higher-performing campaigns.
2. Increased Click-Through Rates (CTR): Eliminating competitive threats increases your ads’ visibility and clicks, boosting overall performance.
3. More Efficient Ad Management: Fewer competing ads create more opportunities for Ad Armor to turn ads on and off, ensuring that the budget is only being spent where it matters most.
4. Immediate Take-Down Complaints: The Search Monitor’s Brand Protection tools automate the submission of take-down requests to search engines, ensuring the quick removal of unauthorized competitors and protecting your ad space.

This defense + offense approach delivers powerful results by cutting costs and driving higher engagement and conversion rates. The combination of Ad Armor and Brand Protection is an unbeatable solution for SEM teams looking to maximize their budget while protecting their brand.

Final Thoughts

Ad prioritization is essential for top brands that want to control ad costs on search engines. By leveraging tools like Ad Armor from The Search Monitor, SEM teams can redefine budget focus and deliver superior results.

If you’re ready to transform your SEM strategy and see actual savings in your ad spend, it’s time to explore what Ad Armor can do for your business. Take the next step and start using Ad Armor today.