What is the difference between SEM and PPC?

Needless to say, marketing your business online is very important. Online marketing or digital marketing has emerged as a vital source to reaching the heights of success and sustained profitability. But when you step in to market your products or services, you encounter various technical jargon, SEM and PPC are one of them. For many, these terms seem confusing and businesses find it harder to differentiate them.
Don’t worry. This blog has been written to help you understand the difference between these two digital marketing strategies. We will explain everything in simple and plain language. Ready to dive into details?
Let’s solve the puzzle bit by bit!

Like every technical field, marketing is also teeming with hundreds of acronyms. SEM and PPC are two of them. SEM stands for Search Engine Marketing and PPC for Pay-Per-Click. In simple words, SEM is a process that ensures enhanced traffic to your website whereas, PPC is paid form of advertisement to show up your ads on the top of search engine result pages of Google or Bing.
But why do people get confused about these terms?
Because both these marketing strategies deploy sometimes the same set of methods and tend to achieve the same set of goals. For instance, they are used

and finally, if you want to run an effective and efficient marketing campaign to meet your goals and budget, you need to conduct search, planning, testing, optimization, and measurement.
Now, we dig deeper to give an exhaustive overview of both PPC and SEM so that you can understand fully the difference between these two elements of digital marketing.

SEM or search engine marketing is an umbrella term that includes Search Engine Optimization or SEO, Search Engine Reputation Management. SEM aims at improving the ranking and visibility of websites on major search engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.
SEO is one of the major elements of SEM. SEO is carried out on a website so that it may rank higher on search engine result pages without any paid advertisement. Various methods are used to optimize the website. Relevant, informative, and engaging content is created and distributed to attract the attention of customers. Eye-catching images along with responsive interactive web design are also incorporated. The relevant keywords linked to products and services that customers are looking for in browsers are added in content as well to increase the authority of a website. External links and intuitive navigation also add to the authority and ranking of a website.
Search Engine Reputation Management is another part of Search Engine Marketing. SERM is a process of influencing and controlling how customers view online businesses on search engines such as Google or Bing. Under this process, negative feedback is monitored and addressed, positive content is optimized, and social media profiles are managed to promote the authentic image of the brand, product, or service. SERM is an important marketing strategy because it ensures that the brand keeps enjoying a good reputation and suffers quickly from any event that may damage its reputation.
Some digital marketing experts include content marketing in Search Engine Marketing as well. Content marketing does not explicitly promote the brand, but it does intend to create interest in the products and services that the brand sells. Content can be in various forms such as blogs, newsletters, videos, infographics, and more.
Hence, Search Engine Marketing is a broader term that involves many digital marketing strategies. The collective aim of all these strategies is to enable websites to rank higher on the result pages of search engines. The higher your website appears on the SERPs, the more likely your website attract more visitors. But you have seen that SEM is a technical job, therefore, many ecommerce firms hire services of specialized digital marketing agencies offering SEM services. Your investment would pay off, there should be no doubt about it.
In a nutshell, if you want to make your business expand rapidly and reach the pinnacle of success and profit-earning, you must allocate a significant marketing budget for SEM.
Now we move to understand what PPC is and how it works.

PPC advertisement gets this name for quite a simple reason. You will pay only when your ad is clicked by the visitors, unlike in other marketing forms, you don’t have to pay for the display ad or banner. Instead, you pay only when someone lands on your website by clicking the ad.

The amount you pay for every click or engagement depends upon how frequently the keywords on the advertisement are being searched. If the keyword you are targeting through PPC is frequently searched, you could end up paying per click cost $10, $20, or even higher.  Less-searched keywords cost less, say a few cents or more.
You set a daily budget for PPC advertisement and your ads keep on appearing on the top of SERPs till your budget for daily advertisement is consumed. In other words, you keep on receiving clicks until the daily budget allows your ad to remain appearing on result pages. The next day starts with the same routine. The higher budget you allocate, the more clicks you have, and the more clicks you get, the more opportunities you have to gain new customers and increase profit.
The ads can also be run on a website. You can earn additional income from your website if you let PPC advertisers utilize space on your site.  In this case, you can earn a portion of each click that is made by the visitors to your website.
Now, you would have a grasp of the differences between SEM and PPC. But which strategy best suits you? You would probably be thinking about this question.  let’s discuss this.

Ideally, both SEM and PPC should be part of your digital advertisement campaign. But if you don’t have enough budget and have to choose one, you should consider the following factors before making the ultimate decision.

This is an important factor that should determine the ultimate channel for meeting your goals. For instance, if you want to increase traffic quickly, promote a product, or just want to give your website exposure, go for PPC as it produces dividends quickly.
SEM is a long marathon; it is well-suited to the objective of building trust in your brand on long- term basis. Furthermore, if you are looking to increase brand awareness or establish the authority of your brand, SEM would be the more appropriate option.

Both PPC and SEM demand calls for different levels of investment and expertise. You must assess how much money you can afford to invest in marketing.
As a thumb rule, PPC is capital-intensive marketing, that’s why it is called pay-per-click. Hence, if you have a tight and limited budget, it does not make sense that you should go for PPC.
SEM is a long process. It is a time- and expertise-intensive job, but not a financial one.  You can undertake an SEM campaign even with writers, IT experts, and marketers who are on your payroll.

If your website is performing well, that is showing a higher ranking against keywords, it means your website is SEO-optimized, you should not go for SEM. In this case, PPC would be a great step to enhance lead generation and sales.
On the other hand, if your website is showing poor ranking, you must go for SEM in general and SEO in particular. You need to first improve the ranking and visibility of your website on SERPs, then start investing in paid advertisement.

Some industries or domains are far more competitive when it comes to PPC or SEM. You need to first search your market and see what your competitors are doing in terms of digital marketing. After knowing their preferred choice of marketing, you would be able to make an informed decision.
So, there is no clear and straightforward answer. Multiple factors determine the suitability of a particular digital strategy to promote products and services you are offering online.

SEM and PPC are two important pillars of any holistic and organic digital marketing campaign. Both serve the purposes of increasing traffic and enhancing revenue stream while deploying the same keywords and other tools. But both are different in many ways.
PPC is paid form of marketing that is used when businesses want to reap the low-hanging fruit of increased visits, more impressions, and enhanced engagement. SEM on the other hand is a long-term strategy. It is used when advertisers have some long-term goals to achieve such as brand awareness, trust building, authority establishment, and the like.
Under ideal circumstances, both digital strategies should be used in a complementary manner. But if you don’t have resources and expertise, consider marketing goals, budgets, competition in the market, and other factors to make up your mind.