Top 10 Best SEM Tools for Search Engine Marketing

10 Best SEM Tools to Jumpstart Your SEM Campaigns

So far you have got acquainted with the various features of search engine marketing (SEM) and how it works to give traction to your online ad campaigns. You have learnt about how keyword research in performed in SEM, how ad auctions work, and the steps to get a successful SEM strategy working for you.

There are a few tools that aid the marketers to perform their day-to-day SEM-related operations. This tutorial will look at these very tools.

The list, presented below, is formulated solely on the basis of reviews received by end-users. There are no paid placements or analyst recommendations:

The list's items are randomly placed with no specific order.

SEMRush

The SEM tool of choice of a lot of marketers, users, and evaluators worldwide; though it's not a tool exclusively designed for SEM.

The Advertising Toolkit of SEMRush comes with everything you need to plan, analyze and improve upon your SEM campaign to turn it into a profitable one.

SEMRush also has tools for content marketing, SEO, and traffic analytics.

Its reporting module can generate a whopping 3,000 to 10,000 reports a day, with each report containing up to 50,000 records.

Pricing: Pro: $99.95/month; Guru: $199.95/month; Business: $399.95/month

Free Trial: 7 Days

Rating: 4.9/5

Google Ads Editor

A must have tool if you are working on campaigns of multiple clients. The tool works as a desktop application where it can make bulk updates on a lot of ad campaigns.

The tool also lets you create, edit and preview multiple ads at one go just before they go live.

When it comes to management, this tool tracks campaigns on several parameters like click-through rate, cost, position, and conversion information.

Pricing: Free, as it's from Google.

Free Trial: Not Applicable

Rating: 4.3/5 (It doesn't have a few automation options other paid tools have)

Optmyzr

As the name suggests, it's an optimizer tool that works best for enterprise-grade digital marketing optimization campaigns. With this tool you can manage accounts on multiple platforms like Google Ads, Bing Ads, and Shopping Ads.

Core features of the tool include custom dashboards, key performance indicators, custom optimizations with rule engines, pre-written PPC scripts, unlimited real time refresh to name very few.

Pricing: Pro: $499/month; Pro+: $799/month; Enterprise: Custom Quote (Note: You can manage upto 50 ad campaigns with the enterprise plan)

Free Trial: 14 days

Rating: 5/5

Google Keywords Planner

If you need to plan effectively, this tool is the must have for you! With this tool, you can generate keyword ideas, and get volume estimates at country, state and city levels.

The tool is extremely useful for organizations which do not have a really big SEM budget or are beginning with their SEM campaigns.

However, there are limitations with this tool. You are limited to 700 keywords to get research ideas and only up to 3,000 keywords at a time for volume trends.

Pricing: Free, as it's from Google

Free Trail: Not Applicable

Rating: 4.2/5 (because of various limitations)

Supermetrics

The tool is a must have if you need to integrate it with various digital marketing platforms. So if you are perplexed with management of data on multiple platforms, use this tool. It will pull down data from different sources into a single reporting dashboard.

From there, you can transfer the data to Google Sheets, Data Studio, Excel and other such reporting platforms to create custom charts and graphs for demonstration and analysis purposes.

Pricing: Integration with Google Sheets: $99/month; Integration with Data Studio: $39/month; Integration with Excel: $99/month;
Supermetrics Uploader: $39/month; Supermetrics Functions: $29.99/month

Free Trial: 14 Days

Rating: 4.6/5  

Moat

Want to know how the display ads of your competitor looks like? Get it on Moat! It's a search engine of display ads.

All you have to do is plug in the brand name, hit Enter and get the display ads listed.

Along with displaying the ads, you get information about dimensions and run dates for all ads.

The paid subscription of Moat comes with additional features, most notably, video ad insights, email alerts, share of voice trends, and ad mock up feature.

Pricing: Free Version comes at no cost; Get Custom Quote for Paid version

Free Trial: Not Applicable

Rating: 4.3/5 (It's a tool with specific function)

Wordstream

It's an all-in-one digital marketing platform that provides detailed insights to optimize your SEM campaigns. Along with creation of smart ads, it provides all the information you need about the performance of your ads.

The tool is best for small business, advertisers and marketing agencies.

Wordstream also provides managed services in which the team of wordstream does the online advertising work for you so that you can concentrate on everything else related to growing your business.

Pricing: Wordstream Advisor: $149/month; Advisor With Premier Consulting: $448/month.

Wordstream Advisor for Agencies: $179/month or $1908/month

Managed Services:  Start with $5,000 monthly advertising spend at a price point of $1500 + 10% of spend for a 6 month package and $1000 + 9% of spend for a one year package.

Free Trial: Up to 7 days

Rating: 4.8/5

Shape

Manage and organize your budgets, conveniently and seamlessly with Shape! This SEM tool pulls budget dashboards from all campaigns across various platforms into one comprehensive dashboard.

With efficient visuals the tool manages multiple budget related data from various accounts. It also alerts marketers whenever they are about to cross the budget threshold of any ad campaign, thus minimizing the risk of overspend.

Pricing: Free for one client;
Premium Plan: $269/month for up to $100,000/per month ad spend for unlimited clients and ad campaigns.
Enterprise Plans: Get Custom Quote

Free Trail: Not Applicable

Rating: 4.8/5

keywordtool

Another wonderful tool for generating keywords from different sources! The tool generates 750+ keywords for free at one go in 46+ languages and from 192+ countries.

The tool integrates keywords from several sources most notably Google, YouTube, Bing, Amazon, Twitter, Instagram and PlayStore.

Pricing: Pro: $69 per month; Pro Plus: $79 per month; Pro Business: $159 per month

Free Trail: 30-days.

Rating: 4.7/5

SpyFu

Use SpyFu to know all about the keywords and ads of every successful business that also happens to be your competitor. Marketers can view and download competitor data with seamless ease.

The tool works well for small and medium sized businesses as well as advertising agencies.

Pricing: Basic:- $33/month (for yearly plan); $39/month (for monthly plan); Professional:- $58/month (for yearly plan); $78 month (for monthly plan; $39/for 1^st month)
Team: $199/month (for yearly plan); $299/month (for monthly plan)

Free Trail: 30 days

Rating: 4.8/5

SEM Tools: To Conclude

We have tried to be very diverse in our tools selection. What we did here is pick up a few tools (WordStream and Optmyzr) that provide features which cover every aspect of SEM. In addition tools like Moat, SpyFu, keywordtool and Shape work on specific aspects of SEM campaigning.

We have rounded up our discussion by including vintage tools like Google Ads Editor and Google Keyword Planner as well as SEMRush, which is probably the best tool ever made till date.