In Q1 and Q2 of 2017, Merkle (my employer) reported on a positive trend for advertisers that showed a decline in brand cost per click (CPC) year over year. The CPC of brand terms is often determined by Google’s algorithm as opposed to the competitive landscape, so brands are often left to Google’s mercy in […]
It’s never too late for New Year’s resolutions, so why not give your PPC campaigns a little New Year’s love? In this article, I’ll provide suggestions to tune up your campaigns in 2018 and get them firing on all cylinders. 1. Review your ad copy Upgrading decent ad copy into fantastic ad copy almost always
As performance marketers, we’re conditioned to want to test everything. From the impact of feed titles to the incrementality of each channel, we want to be sure that we’re making the right choice before we commit all our resources to something. That goes for deciding which tools/agency to use as well. Moving your performance marketing
Comparing two performance marketing tools/agencies Read More »
While every part of your PPC program is important, few elements are as crucial, or visible, as your ads. Often, your ads are prospects’ first introduction to your brand — and we all know how important first impressions are! Additionally, you need your ad to accomplish certain things. You want to grab attention, communicate your
The wonderful thing about AdWords is that we all have our favorite ways to utilize it. We PPC practitioners each have our favorite reports and features, and we all have our own personal preferences for how we like to build and manage our campaigns. Unfortunately, this means we’re prone to getting stuck in our ways,
3 AdWords features you’re probably underutilizing Read More »
I believe artificial intelligence (AI) will be a key driver of change in PPC in 2018 as it leads to more and better PPC intelligence. So far, I’ve discussed the roles humans will play when PPC management becomes nearly fully automated and six strategies agencies can take to future-proof their business. In this final post
In a previous column, I addressed the challenges paid search advertising can present to industrial manufacturers who sell capabilities versus stock products. Another challenge is the AdWords help files themselves. As an advertising platform, AdWords is geared more to retailers — when a platform uses common retail products to illustrate keyword strategies, it’s often hard
Understanding AdWords keyword match types for manufacturers Read More »
Online advertising experts love to talk about the importance of matching your landing page content to your ads. And you’ll get no argument from me — it’s a great way to improve the performance of your online advertising. I mean, it just makes sense. People click on your ad because the messaging resonates with them.
How to reverse-engineer your online advertising strategy Read More »
Ahead of the 2017 holiday season, I wrote a column detailing how much more important locally focused ads became during the 2016 holiday shopping season, namely Local Inventory Ads and ads on Google Maps. Analyzing last year’s data, I found that searchers became increasingly likely to search for both brand and non-brand keywords within Google Maps
Holiday shoppers increasingly turned to Google Maps in the countdown to Christmas Day Read More »
Though paid search has long since cemented its place as a pillar of digital marketing, changes in technology and consumer behavior have continued to reshape the PPC landscape and keep search marketers on their toes. In 2017, we saw the last of “standard” text ads in AdWords as expanded text ads, introduced in 2016, became the
