Managing SEM campaigns can be a mind-boggling amount of work for media agencies, draining both productivity and creativity in a sea of spreadsheets. But as technology marches forward, so too do solutions for managing SEM campaigns, such as that offered by Israel-based Kenshoo, which recently inked a global deal with Havas Digital as a service provider.

Havas Digital brands, such as Media Contacts, Lattitud, iGlue and Mobext, have announced that they will now use Kenshoo Search, a trademarked third- gen campaign automation system that consolidates search campaign data such as Kenshoo’s RealTime Campaign management and bid management, and is compatible with all major search engines.

The goal behind the deal was to simplify SEM management for the agency with a platform that would complement Havas’s Artemis data analysis platform, Chris Williams, SVP and managing director, Media Contacts Toronto, tells MiC. Together, Kenshoo and Artemis provide a more effienct way to manage and measure search campaigns.

‘We can see the overlap between the display side of things and the search side of things. Kenshoo will allow us to set up a campaign so that the data flows through the ad-serving system and comes out in Artemis.’

SEM management can become incredibly burdensome when campaigns go beyond a few simple keywords, Williams says, and the amount of data that needs to be handled can start affecting planners’ ability to be creative and strategic in their work.

‘It can become a real nightmare in just managing the data, the workflow,’ Williams explains of search marketing management. ‘We’re spending an awful lot of time just moving numbers around – brute force moving of numbers around – instead of spending that time going ‘what are the best bids, what are the best keywords, what’s the best creative.’ And that’s the kind of thing that drives ROI for the client.’

‘By improving the workflow, now it’s like we have faster, cleaner access to the data in real time.’