How To Reduce Landing Page Clutter For Optimal AdWords Performance (Search Engine Land)
When it comes to optimizing PPC landing pages, marketers often think about beefing up page copy, adding trust signals, or including eye-catching graphics.What they often neglect to consider are ways to reduce page clutter — ways to make the information on your landing page easier to read, or ways to visually enhance the most pertinent information on […]
Why I Hate Ad Extensions
Although there are endless touted benefits to ad extensions, here is a look why they may not be all they’re cracked up to be, with 11 detailed reasons. OK, “hate” is a strong word. If I were appropriately British, I’d probably soften this to “Why Ad Extensions Are Sometimes Found Wanting.” Being Canadian, all I […]
The Web from an Elite to a Mass Medium – The Irony of ‘Free and Open’? (Traffick)
Sir Tim Berners-Lee posted this reflection on the Google Blog on the 25th anniversary of his invention of the World Wide Web.For those of us who were around then, it would be convenient to say we remember the day it happened, or the year it happened, and we warmly embraced that hypertext world he created from Day […]
Quality Score Isn’t Actionable. Here’s What You Can Do About It (Traffick)
Everyone in PPC (and related display advertising) today knows that ad rank is determined in part by your bid, and in part by a multifaceted relevancy measure called Quality Score.What many still don’t realize is that Quality Score doesn’t merely determine rank on the page (of the ad listings), but also impression share or the frequency […]
3 Simple Changes That Can Mean Big PPC Bucks (Search Engine Land)
There are many ways in which PPC accounts can go astray. For example, wrong keywords, incorrect bidding, bad landing pages, etc… I think you get the picture. An often overlooked pitfall relates to basic marketing strategy/messaging. If basic marketing principles are overlooked, PPC goodness tends to fall off the rails.In this article, I’ll cover some […]
Do “Suspicious Minds” Make the Best PPC Managers?
It’s important to adopt the proper balance between an expansionary approach and a stance of vigilance. In the right proportion, the “suspicious mind” is a sharper campaign manager than the pure optimist, or the “laissez-faire” thinker. Why can’t you seeWhat you’re doing to meWhen you don’t believe a word I say? – Fine Young Cannibals […]
I Don’t Want No Scrub (Agency) on Search Engine Land
You know the song, so sing it with me people! I made some modifications to the lyrics below that demonstrate my point well: I don’t want no scrub (paid search practitioner) A scrub (PPC ) is a guy (PPC person) that can’t get no love from me Hanging out the passenger side Of his best […]
PPC for Start-Ups
A breakdown of three different ways start-ups often use PPC to acquire new customers and a look at which ones have proven to be the most successful. Paid search is the quintessential tool for acquiring new customers. So shouldn’t it be the ideal tool for high-growth start-up companies? Yes it can be, but it often […]
PPC Goes to Cleveland
PPC is still the hardest working channel in advertising. Clients get value they can touch, feel, and take to the bank. PPC gets on the plane. It goes to Cleveland. You’ve heard of the amplifier that “goes to 11?” PPC is like that, only it “goes to Cleveland.” If you follow the high level chatter […]
Better Than Finger-Cooking: Ad Testing Tool Use for the Reluctant Artisan
If you’re involved in ad testing, give these simple statistical calculators a try and ensure you have the familiarity with mathematical tools and foundations to succeed. Without even knowing it, all PPC advertisers are in the business of using predictive models to improve response rates. The barriers to entering the field are so low, though, that […]