Awareness and consideration are fundamental metrics used to measure the effectiveness of paid search.  One of the most common ways to measure these two metrics is to simply monitor the impressions and clicks. Impressions are usually associated with awareness and clicks are associated with consideration. But using this methodology can be deceiving.  Assuming that when a particular search campaign generates 100 million impressions, that 100 million eyeballs actually see the ad is misleading. There are, however, tools that can help measure the level of engagement with consumers when they click on the ad and arrive at your website; which I believe tell a much more compelling story of your search campaigns. One tool is called SEM Director. This tool allows marketers to assign values to particular actions on the website.  For example, one page view can equal 1 point; signing up for a newsletter can be 2 points, watching a flash presentation can be 3 points, logging in can be 4 points, etc. You can assign and prioritize values on specific landing pages based on what actions you want consumers to perform.  Then you can take this data at the keyword (and campaign) level and identify which terms, ad groups or campaigns are the most effective for generating awareness and consideration.

Technorati Tags: search marketing, search engine marketing, sem, paid search, pay-per-click