Innovating In The B2B Search Space: Testing Geo Bid Multipliers
In a recent article in AdAge, Bert DuMars cites Forrester research which found that “only 11% of marketers set aside a specific budget for marketing innovation efforts, and only 9% make marketing innovation a part of every marketer’s budget.” I won’t go into how to secure…
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New: View AdWords Data Trends By Time Period In The Graph View
As some sharp eyed users noticed yesterday, Google has now confirmed the roll-out of graphical time period segmentation. A new drop down allows you to view AdWords data by day, week, month and quarter on the graph. The new feature makes it easy to view…
What’s In Your SEM Toolbox? I’ll Show You Mine…
A question I get asked pretty often is, “What tools do you use for managing paid search ad campaigns?” I love this question, especially when there are other paid search managers within earshot. Everyone’s got their favorite tools and everyone wants to add their two cents’…
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What The Heck Is AdWords Quality Score And Why Does It Matter Anyway?
Last month, Google announced some changes in how Quality Score is being reported. While it’s been described as just a reporting change (as opposed to a change in how Quality Score is calculated), some of my respected colleagues have pointed to the news as evidence that Quality Score somehow…
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Spotted: Stunning AdWords Policy Violations, That Facebook & Google Shouldn’t Be Happy About
Behold a brilliant display of Google AdWords advertising policy violations: This ad was spotted by Luke Alley from Avalaunch Media. As it turns out, Alley unearthed a deep pit teeming with ad violations. Search for “facebook support” on Google, and you’ll quickly see the ads are…
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Google: Here’s Why AdWords Cost Per Conversion Calculations Don’t Always Add Up
In the past couple of weeks, the question of how Google calculates cost per conversion in AdWords has been percolating in the PPC community. Robert Brady wrote a post illustrating that the cost per conversion reported in AdWords does not always match the manual calculation of dividing reported…
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72 Percent of PPC Marketers Plan To Spend Even More In 2014 [PPCHero Study]
Hanapin Marketing has released its 2013 State of Paid Search report, revealing how PPC marketers are feeling about paid search marketing and where they plan to spend their money in 2014. A large majority, 83 percent of respondents, said they are feeling positive about the state of paid search….
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Attribution: Busting The Myths
As one of the hottest topics in marketing, attribution is often presented as a panacea for marketers’ dilemmas, allowing you to understand how different advertisements in a purchase funnel work together. The typical description first shows how conversions attributable to various channels…
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10 Bad Assumptions About SEM That Might Get You Fired — Part 1
I’ve been a search engine marketer (both paid and organic) for over ten years, and in that time I have made my share of mistakes. I’m not talking about pure accidents here — most of these mistakes were caused by poor assumptions on my part which turned out to be horribly wrong….
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AdWords Editor Update Brings Upgraded Sitelink Management And More
Google released an update to AdWords Editor, version 10.2, that supports upgraded sitelink management and several other smaller feature updates. Apparently now dubbed upgraded sitelinks, these new sitelinks rolled out in June just prior to the enhanced campaign roll-out. They give advertisers the…
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5 Steps to Implement a Successful Bidding Strategy in Paid Search
When you set up bidding in paid search, it’s important you put a strategy in place prior to implementation. The most relevant questions that need to be addressed when developing this strategy are as follows: How many bidding strategies do I need? What cookie window should I use? Should I use…
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Google AdWords Testing New Drop-Down Navigation Ad Extension
Have you seen this new ad extension keenly spotted by Kim Clinkunbroomer of Philly Marketing Labs? As Clinkunbroomer pointed out, the “I am Looking For” ad extension gives users a drop-down navigation menu with links — in this case 10 — to specific sections of an…
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Google Adds Conversion Value Metrics To AdWords Graph
Jon Diorio, Senior Product Manager for Google AdWords posted on his Google+ page news of “a small reporting tidbit”. Conversion value metrics are now among the those available in the AdWords graph. The newly added metrics are shown in Diorio’s screenshot below.
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Google AdWords Geo-Targeting: Have We All Been Doing It Wrong?
It’s rare that a true challenge to a best practice (and a seemingly straight forward one at that) arises. But, when Marta Turek, Group Manager, Performance Media at Mediative presented case studies showing what happened when they tested an opt-out versus the traditional opt-in approach to…
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5 Secrets To Maximizing Retail Budgets For Paid Search
Over the last decade, the incorporation of search into the online shopping experience has led to a savvier generation of consumers who prefer the selection, price-transparency, and convenience of online retail to traditional brick-and-mortars. As a res…
4 New Reports To Optimize AdWords For Better Results
There have been quite a few new tools and features launched in Google AdWords (my former employer) over the past couple of months that may not have gotten the attention they deserve amidst the much more hotly debated launch of Enhanced Campaigns. Now that we’ve all transitioned and Enhanced…
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The Impact Of Google’s Quality Score Change
To assess the impact of Google’s recently-announced quality score change, I analyzed the pre/post change in Quality Score distribution across data for more than 100 advertisers. Since the exact range of scores differs for every advertiser, we looked at the percentage change in relative…
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AdWords Time Comparison Data Rolls Out In Web UI, Includes Filter Options And Exports
When Google rolled-out “compare dates” functionality in AdWords, it was welcomed, but limited to showing changes on the graph view only. Yes, you could get comparison data out of AdWords, but it was cumbersome. Good news: Over the next few days, Google is officially rolling out an…
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Why My Optimized Landing Pages Trump Your SEO Or PPC Landing Pages Every Time!
Landing page optimization is big business for successful PPC campaigns. Google’s weighting of where a paid ad will show and how much each click costs is factored, in part, on the quality of the landing page the ad leads to. But, on the SEO side of things, you don’t hear a lot about…
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6 Ways To Leverage Merchant Feeds To Optimize Product Listing Ads
Product Listing Ads (PLAs) are the new hipster ads of search marketing, but many retailers aren’t fully capitalizing on this huge opportunity. (I guess many don’t know how cool they are yet.) But, what goes into optimizing your merchant feed for your PLA campaigns, and what best…
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