4. SEM (QA)

SEM QA is handled primarily by our team in Belize, with interaction from our team in Wilsonville, as needed. The QA team is vital to the success of our SEM campaigns as without their regular input many accounts would not be flourishing the way they do. Below you'll find a breakdown of responsibilities, tools, and resources, required to perform SEM QA for the month.

SEM First Month QA

QA Specialist

In order to perform QA for first month SEM accounts, or new SEM accounts, the QA Specialist will:

• Navigate to SEM QA Trello board
• Filter the Trello board for all new accounts, the "1st Month" label
• Next, navigate to Google Ads on the SEO Chrome Profile and locate the corresponding account, checking for:
  • All Conversions data has been imported from Google Analytics into Google Ads.
    • If not, the QA Specialist will leave a comment in the "QA Notes/To Do" column on the SEM Work Done tab of the client sheet
  • Review the audiences to make sure everything has been set up properly
  • Review the target locations, ensuring they're set to a 60 mile radius
  • Review the extensions, ensuring they've been set up properly, to include:
    • Site link extensions
    • Call out extensions
    • Structured snippet extensions
    • Call extension
    • Location extension
  • Ensure all extensions are all linked to the correct page of the dealers' website
  • Ensure the extensions have been set up under mobile device preference in Google Ads
• Once the conversions and extensions have been reviewed, still in Google Ads, the QA Specialist will then review each campaign 
  • Generally there are four main campaigns:
    • Branded
    • General
    • Make
    • Model
      • Some accounts may also have Co-Op
      • Whenever there is a Co-Op campaign, the QA Specialist will review the URL to ensure it's leading to the showroom page or the new inventory page of the dealers' website
  • In each campaign there will be Ad Groups and in each Ad Group there will be individual ads
    • Each Ad Group should include:
      • At least one Responsive Search Ad
      • Two Expanded Text Ads
  • Fluency is now adding call ads (e.g. click to call, this is new)
  • When reviewing the Ads in each Ad Group, the primary metrics to check for include:
    • Keywords
    • Spelling, grammar, and punctuation
    • Sentence structure, 
    • Correct trademarks
• The QA Specialist will also review the budget, making sure it correlates with the budget on the SEM Budget Tracker
• Additionally, the QA Specialist will check the budget both in Fluency and Google Ads
  • If the account has Facebook, the QA Specialist will also review the Facebook budget, as well as the primary text on the Facebook ads
  • The budget must be set to lifetime and the end date must be set to the end of the month that the campaign is running for 
• While still logged in to the SEO Chrome Profile the QA Specialist will search fort Google Tag Manager (GTM) and Google Analytics (GA) Accounts
  • If GTM and GA Accounts are not found in the SEO Chrome Profile, the QA Specialist will also search in the SEM and Digital Marketing Chrome Profiles
• The QA Specialist will also review Ninja Cat, ensuring an account has been set up
• The QA Specialist will add a due date for the SEM Specialist to complete all changes:
  • The end of the week
• Once the First Month client has been reviewed, the QA Specialist will add a new comment with a link to the "QA Notes/To Do" column on the SEM Work Done tab of the client sheet on the Trello card, and move the card to the SEM Specialists' individual column on the SEM QA Trello board

SEM Specialist

• The SEM Specialist must complete all First Month changes or corrections by the due date provided by the QA Specialist on their Trello card

SEM Monthly QA

QA Specialist

In order to perform standard SEM Monthly QA, the QA Specialist will:

• At the beginning of of every week the QA Specialist logs into Fluency, once there they will
  • Review the applied budget in Fluency, ensuring it matches or aligns with the account budget set in the SEM Budget Tracker
    • If the Fluency budget is not aligned with the account budget, the QA Specialist will:
      • Record the client's name on the Fluency Budget Sheet
      • Add SEM Specialists' name 
      • Label the account as either underspending or overspending
      • Then add the applied budget to the sheet, so they can see discrepancy in the budget
  • Once the budget has been reviewed, and the above accomplished, the QA Specialist will navigate to the SEM QA Trello Board
  • Create a checklist on the respective clients' Trello cards that have budget discrepancies, add a due date set for the end of the week
  • The SEM Specialist has until the due date to complete their corrections
• With campaign budgets set, the QA Specialist will next navigate to the DS SEM Monthly Account Tracker and/or SEM ARI Monthly Account Tracker
• Check the Monthly Task columns for cells marked with "1" and select that client to perform QA
• Next, navigate to Google Ads and review each campaign
  • Generally there are four main campaigns:
    • Branded
    • General
    • Make
    • Model
      • Some accounts may also have Co-Op
      • Whenever there is a Co-Op campaign, the QA Specialist will review the URL to ensure it's leading to the showroom page or the new inventory page of the dealers' website
  • In each campaign there will be Ad Groups and in each Ad Group there will be individual ads
    • Each Ad Group should include:
      • At least one Responsive Search Ad
      • Two Expanded Text Ads
  • Fluency is now adding call ads (e.g. click to call, this is new)
  • When reviewing the Ads in each Ad Group, the primary metrics to check for include:
    • Keywords
    • Spelling, grammar, and punctuation
    • Sentence structure, 
    • Correct trademarks
  • Additionally, QA will review the Work Done notes from the SEM Work Done tab of their respective client sheet, to see if the SEM Specialists' changes to the account will benefit the campaign as well as for correctness and accuracy
  • If the account has Facebook, the QA Specialist will also review the Facebook budget, as well as the primary text and trademarks on the Facebook ads
  • The budget must be set to lifetime and the end date must be set to the end of the month that the campaign is running for
• If any corrections are needed, the QA Specialist will leave their notes in the Any notes required will be left in the "QA Notes/To Do" column on the SEM Work Done Tab of the client sheet
• Additionally, the QA Specialist will provide a link to those notes on the clients' Trello card on the SEM QA Trello board.
  • If the requested changes are urgent, the QA Specialist will add a "High Priority" label to the Trello card, and add a 24 hour due-date

SEM Specialist

• The SEM Specialist must complete all Monthly QA changes or corrections by the due date provided by the QA Specialist on their Trello card

SEM Report QA

QA Specialist

The reporting period is the 1st through the 5th of each month, and in order to accomplish report QA the QA Specialist must:

• Navigate to and open the current month's SEM QA Folder on Google Drive
  • The link to the folder changes each month, it should be provided to the QA Team via link from the SEM Department Manager or SEM Team Lead.
  • This folder will need to be refreshed from time to time as the SEM Department has many SEM Specialists that are uploading reports throughout the day, the page doesn't always keep up with the pace
• Navigate to the SEM Monthly Account Tracker and/or the SEM ARI Monthly Account Tracker, and look for a "1" under the "Report Pulled/Report QA'd" columns
• Open the corresponding report in the SEM Report QA Folder on Google Drive, looking for:
  • 1st slide: The correct month, The Account Manager information should not be included (Going forward this will likely change), look for dealer's logo, and check for either DS or ARI logo
  • Subsequent slides: Review the KPIs, their numbers should correspond to what is being shown on Google Ads, while scrolling through the report, review the keywords, adgroups, and the phone call details, again, all of which should match with their account in Google Ads
• For Facebook Reports generated in Ninja Cat, the QA specialist will:
  • Ensure the Facebook KPIs are aligned and that the correct ads are being shown (i.e., ads from another client in the wrong report)
• When the report has been reviewed, the QA Specialist will add a "1" to the Report QA'd column on the Monthly Account Tracker 
• If there are errors on the report, the QA Specialist will leave a comment in the Report QA'd column, stating what changes need to be made or which errors to address, and add an asterisk in the cell

SEM Specialist

• The SEM Specialist must complete all Monthly QA changes or corrections by the due date provided by the QA Specialist on their Trello card

SEM QA Resources

Looking for something else? Click here to navigate to the QA (Quality Assurance) home page on Confluence