PPC Geo-Bidding, Simplified
Recently, I came across a social media post that — honest to goodness — went on at length about the price the poster would be willing to pay for a new brand of ketchup. “I’d need 50 percent off to give it a try,” opined the timid tomato tester. “If I turn out not to like the […]
Are Paid & Organic Distinct Channels? Not So Fast
At our company’s informal book club, we recently had a nice discussion of David Hand’s The Improbability Principle: Why Coincidences, Miracles, and Rare Events Happen Every Day. Belief in causation where there is only correlation, faulty assumptions about how “randomness” works and similar errors are shockingly common, even among the educated. Superstition can be a nightmare for the […]
Reactive SEO vs. Proactive SEO
I, for one, love and respect our spam-fighting, quality-content-loving overlords. Perhaps because I’m mainly associated with the PPC side of our company, I and my paid-media contemporaries can get a little cantankerous about the details of paid search products, as addicted to them as we and our clients may be. That can tend to overshadow […]
7 Ironclad (Slightly Fudgeable) Laws of PPC Campaign Structure
[This post is a companion to a panel session at SMX East in New York, Sep. 30, 2015: The Great PPC Account Structure Debate – #smx #23B] It’s no secret that I’m no fan of needless busywork in PPC account management. Just as SEO firms used to bill clients for what Jill Whalen famously reduced […]
PPC Ads Not Performing? Reduce Cognitive Load
If you’re a seasoned online marketer, you’ve probably been exposed to user experience gurus, conversion rate improvement experts and their ilk. Even without knowing the high-level principles, many designers and performance marketers have developed a bias in favor of simplicity. Concepts such as the use of white space and decluttering a page have been bandied […]
Fresh Fish Sold Here Today? On Meddlesome Marketing Advice
There are literally hundreds of ways of telling the old marketing joke about the “FRESH FISH SOLD HERE TODAY” sign that appears by the fishmonger’s stall in the open-air market. (Here’s a really thorough version.) For those who’ve never heard it, the helpful observer helps the business owner whittle down the redundant words in the […]
PPC Audits: A Guide to Playing Fair
Arbitrary destruction of reputations turns people into slaves. -Nassim Nicholas Taleb, recent Facebook post Ever been taken down by an “ambush audit”? It’s not fun. Tempted to win new business yourself by ambushing an incumbent agency? Tempting, but… Is your organization actually built around approaching businesses and cold-pitching them, with the “ambush audit” as the […]
What Do These Google AdWords Features Really Do?
There are tens of thousands of PPC account managers out there today, which has led to a surprisingly wide range of account strategies. Can they all be right? If you’re an opinionated PPC pro like myself, you’re bound to think someone else’s theories are, well… weird. That bias being acknowledged, let the sparring begin! Even […]
Mobile PPC: For Control Freaks, Challenges Remain
(Warning: real-world data below!) Most advertisers continue to be unimpressed by subjective criteria in online advertising. And complex attribution patterns can involve too many leaps of faith. And yet… Is that a spring thaw you hear outside the window of your digital marketing event? No, that gushing sound you hear is the din of unanimity […]
Unleash Your Quality Score Beast Mode (Bing Ads Edition)
Thinking of getting fancy with Quality Score? It may be better to be more straightforward. Read on. Quality Score is the driving force in the PPC ranking algorithm at all major search engines; indeed, it has been since Google AdWords Select was released in 2002. You could do far worse than to model your strategy […]