Got PPC Stockholm Syndrome?
Paid search conditions have improved in recent years, but do your old habits still linger? A summer of home renovations gave me a whole new routine to enjoy. Up at the crack of dawn to slap on a baseball cap and pretend to be busy with something, lest the men doing the “real” work think […]
The Siren Song of the 5-Cent Click
Paid search conditions have improved in recent years, but do your old habits still linger? A summer of home renovations gave me a whole new routine to enjoy. Up at the crack of dawn to slap on a baseball cap and pretend to be busy with something, lest the men doing the “real” work think […]
Google+: An Evolution in Social, a Revolution in Permission
Google+ is not another Facebook, yet poses a threat to the social network for non-social reasons. In terms of sheer user adoption, Google+ may be the most successful online service launch. Some estimates – such as one by Paul Allen – peg it at 10 million users. Some analysts – such as Bill Gross – […]
Display Ads for ROI: Hardest-Working Ads Online?
Too often, display advertising has been coddled, while paid search ads will do anything to make the paying customers happy. While search marketing has often been lauded for its killer ROI and – especially on the paid search side – its incredible capacity for fine-tuning and testing, its cousin on the display side hasn’t always […]
4 Reasons Not to Break Your Campaign’s Continuity
It’s important to think about long-term strategies and compromises that minimize the damage caused to paid search ROI with needless rebuilds. In golf, there’s a phenomenon known as a “member’s bounce.” Member of posh club strides up to the tee, whacks a ball out of bounds left, yet it kicks right off a bank into […]
7 Tips to Filter Out Lame Searches
A look at some categories of meta messages that might be relevant to your ad strategy. Last time, I explained that ad formats and copy can send meta messages beyond what is literally conveyed in the text. You aren’t just trying to “convince” a pre-digested subset of willing buyers, but rather, you’re engaged in a […]
It’s Not Just the Message in Your Ad, It’s the Meta-Message
Make sure you don’t just focus on what your ads literally say, but, more importantly, on what they convey. When Google first made qualifying advertisers eligible to display a distinctive blue “Google Checkout” icon with their AdWords ads, it led many to a significant discovery. This notation, not technically part of the ad’s message, often […]
In PPC, Let Probabilities Rule Over Passion
Five reasons we change the channel to turn away from our core focus on overall rates of customer acquisition, aggregate revenue growth, and total profit. In the last column, I showed examples of shiny objects that distract us from our core missions as marketers, taking up far more of our discourse, brain cells, and time […]
Beware the Shiny Object
It’s important to add new tricks to your repertoire, but not at the expense of overall client performance. Remember the world’s formerly greatest golfer, Eldrick (We Used to Call Him Tiger) Woods? In the pursuit of shiny objects and new motor skills (like late-night text messaging), Tiger neglected to put in the hours on his […]
7 Ways Google Should Get Naked
When it comes to your product, people want to know two things: does it work and how does it work? Google, with its promise to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible, speaks the language of transparency – yet it doesn’t always practice what it preaches. But I’m betting there will be continued […]