SEM agency in Hong Kong | Grow quicker with the best

Hong Kong's best agency for search engine marketing, proven by our successful clients

Cogney is the best search engine marketing (SEM) agency in Hong Kong, with 15 years of experience reliably achieving high-converting clicks at the lowest possible cost for the world's top companies.

Behind our clients' success - what makes us the best - is our advanced statistical techniques, obsessive focus on improving your landing pages, and all-in understanding of your industry:

we use statistical techniques to predict among ad variations those most likely to achieve above-average results.
we understand that an outstanding ad campaign is more than writing ad copy and managing bids, but what happens after the ad click: how engaging your landing page is. We analyze behavioral data and make adjustments to boost your page's conversion rate.
we love rolling up our sleeves to get into the guts of your business: gaining knowledge about your industry, your strengths and advantages within that industry, as well as the mindset and language used by consumers to search within a given product category. We don't just scratch the surface, but dive all-in.

But don't take it only from us; read what our clients say ▼

Testimonials

The quality of the leads from Google has improved.
— Daisy Jiang, CEO at Bookairfreight

Our performance keeps going up steadily.
— Walter Gutiérrez Omedè, Performance Marketing Manager at Nebia

We were looking for a high-end shop to build a quality foundation for us to grow on and the expectation was to build a funnel for real leads with real potential. Cogney delivered every step of the way.
— Björn Wahlström, CEO at Sphere State Group

Cogney is rated ⭑⭑⭑⭑⭑ on Google

Our Pricing

There's two costs involved to show ads on search engines:

The management fee
The ad spend fee

Let's talk about the ad spend fee first. Search engines charge advertisers based on how many clicks they receive for the keywords they bid on. Each keyword has a variable cost per click, which is determined by a continually running auction.

Your bid in that auction isn't the only thing search engines take into account though.

Ad positioning is not a straight "pay-to-play" system where the top slots are auctioned off to the top bidders. Rather, search engines like Google base ad placement not just on price but a more complex equation including quality. Google assigns a quality score to each keyword based on factors such as the relevancy of ad copy and landing page in relation to the keyword plus the ad's historical click-through rate. The higher the quality of the ad, the less Google charges the advertiser for that keyword. That being the case, a top SEO agency like Cogney can significantly increase the efficacy and ROI of an SEM campaign.

That brings us to the management fee. Cogney charges HKD 8,000/mo for SEM management, which includes one-time setup of the ad account and ongoing management of 5 ad groups.

An ad group is the combination of:

the keywords with a common theme being bid on
the ad (plus variations) shown when those keywords are searched
the landing page the ads point to

Think of ad groups as the topics you want to appear for. Typically these are your product categories or service lines for example. The more goods or services you offer, the more ad groups you'll probably need to capture all the ways people search for them.

Additional ad groups, if necessary, are charged at HKD 1,600/ad group/mo if the ad group is unique and needs to be built out from scratch. Otherwise we'll charge HKD 400/ad group/mo if the new ad group can be duplicated from an existing ad group and only needs minor modification.

So all in all, for a Hong Kong company looking to do SEM, a good starting budget would be HDD20k/mo including the management fee and ad spend. Tell us about your company and we can come up with some estimates based on what we see in the auctions to give you tailored advice.

How We Work

The best way to understand how we work is to walk through a simple example...

1. Research how people search

Imagine you're a Hong Kong travel agency wanting to expand to Singapore.

The first step is keyword research. This means looking at what keywords your site currently ranks for organically on Google, what keywords your competitors rank for organically as well as purchase ads for, and brainstorming additional keywords your site should go after.

We take multiple passes going through all the keywords and make a final list containing only those that are relevant to your business.

2. Write ads that attract the attention of those people (while repelling those you don't want)

Google ad copy variations for A/B testing

Once we know how people search, we create ad groups. These groups are the combinations of which keywords trigger which ads and go to which page on your website.

Each ad has several elements:

headline
description
call outs
site links

It's important to:

use the keywords in the ad copy
speak to searcher intent
use psychology
repel searchers who aren't your target audience so they don't click (remember you're charged per click)
do all of the above while staying within Google's length limits

We write multiple variations for each of ad element, which Google rotates and shares the performance data with us so we know what works and doesn't work and can adjust accordingly.

3. Learn from the data and make adjustments to improve performance

Once enough data comes in so we can make statistically confident decisions, we analyze the data and make any changes that would improve your performance.

Our two goals here are:

high conversions
low cost per conversion

Ultimately we want to drive as many conversions as possible where the lifetime value (LTV) of the conversion is greater than the cost of acquisition (CAC). In other words, profitable.

The Process in Detail

Pre-launch

Before we commence set-up of a new ad campaign, we'll ask you for data from any ad campaigns you may have conducted in the past. Such data can give us a leg up on the optimization process.

Next, we set you up for success:

Research keywords
Write ads
Set up analytics
Optimize landing pages
Create data feeds to pull in live data
Plan budget allocation
Brainstorm bidding strategy

Launch & Ongoing Management

Once the campaigns are live, we check on their performance every day. When we see statistically significant differences in the performance of different ads or keywords, we make adjustments to maximize your ROI.

Pace ad spend
Analyze search terms
Re-allocate budget
Adjust bids
Write new ad copy to A/B test
Maintain a "negative" keyword list
Monitor competitors
Test new landing pages
Make changes based on your marketing calendar

Celebrate Your Performance

You get access to a real-time web dashboard to track performance. Metrics like cost per click and ROI are never a mystery.

FAQs

How long does it take before I see results?

It typically takes us one week to one month for set up (because we research keywords and review your website, to ensure that your landing pages contain suitable content and that your website’s conversion funnel, i.e. the journey between your ad and check-out, is smooth and efficient). Then, it takes another month to optimize your campaign, eliminating non-performing keywords, adding new keywords and adding negative keywords to repel irrelevant traffic. Thus, it takes approximately two months before an SEM campaign begins stable and steady optimization and your website begins benefiting from a corresponding increase in traffic.

Do you write the ads?

Yes, with ad copy subject to your final approval before it is made live.

Do you own the campaigns?

Full transparency with our clients is one of the bedrock rules of how we do business. Therefore, you own and always have direct access to your campaigns, reports and analytics. You can read more about our business philosophy here.

Do you do non-English SEM campaigns?

Yes our team is fluent in both English and Chinese. We can run campaigns on Baidu, Bing, Google, and Yahoo.