PPC Blog

Most experienced PPC specialists will recognize the telltale signs of PPC mismanagement.

But if you’re not a PPC professional – maybe you’re a business owner or marketing director – you might overlook those indicators.

This is a problem because now, more than ever, it’s important that your PPC program is managed skillfully.

You have to be careful in interpreting those indicators and not jump to conclusions.

No one practice or setting can tell the whole tale.

And maybe your PPC managers have a good explanation for the small anomalies you see.

But when you see an accumulation of things in your account that are odd or even bizarre, you can start to conclude that the account is being poorly managed, whether due to lack of expertise or indifference.

So what are the signs of mismanagement that you should look for?

Here are seven of the most common ones.

Continue reading »

In the 10 years I’ve been running my business, never once has a prospective client asked if my agency is a Google Ads Partner.

Nonetheless, my team and I took it upon ourselves to become a Google Ads Partner (at the Premier level) anyway.

For a long time, becoming a Google Ads Partner was considered best practice. And it came with a few benefits, like having an assigned Google Ads rep and some additional Google training (if you were lucky).

Besides, meeting the requirements to become a Partner wasn’t onerous. So why not?

But recently, Google announced that it will be changing its Partner program by introducing new requirements. (UPDATE: Google recently announced that it will be pushing these changes to 2021.)

Which has many PPC pros alarmed.

Why? Because they essentially require Partners to put the goals of Google above the goals of their own clients.

Which has me wondering if the Google Ads Partner badge is now a red flag instead of a symbol of trust.

Continue reading »

When you manage online advertising campaigns for companies with global reach, the following question inevitably arises:

Do you really need to translate your Google Ads into local languages?

In most cases, the answer is yes.

Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately!), Google Ads won’t automatically translate your ads for you.

If you create an ad in English and then select Spanish as your target language, your ad remains in English – but it will target Spanish speakers.

And unless those Spanish speakers also understand English, your English-language ad won’t get much traction.

Continue reading »

On March 27, Google announced that it would give ad credits to small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) to help alleviate the impact of the coronavirus outbreak on communities and businesses.

My team and I were excited to learn about this new program. But we’re also a bit anxious to see how it will all play out — especially as the announcement and subsequent communications have been vague on details.

In this post, I’ll summarize what we know about the program so far, and where we see possible pitfalls.

Continue reading »

Some advertisers struggle to create display advertising programs.

Sometimes they don’t have the design expertise or capacity to create good-looking ads.

And even when they do, they may not create every possible ad size or type.

This is one of the reasons Google rolled out responsive display ads in 2016. It was a way to help out advertisers — and a way to potentially fill more ad placements.

Since 2018, responsive display ads have been the default ad type for the GDN, and responsive display ads are something we use quite often for clients.

And if you’re not using them for yourself or your clients, it might be time to take another look at them — for six good reasons.

But at the same, I can think of two good reasons why you might not want to.

Before we get into that, let’s quickly review what responsive display ads are.

Continue reading »

Some keywords garner so many clicks, you can quickly drain your budget if you use them.

So you (or your marketing team) might resort to the tactic of only running those ads for an hour or two a day.

I understand the problem. But limiting the amount of time you run these ads isn’t the best solution.

A better approach is to move beyond keywords and get more precise in your targeting.

Fortunately, Google Ads give us lots of options when it comes to audience targeting.

So many, in fact, that the choices can become overwhelming.

Therefore, I will use this blog post to show how you can move beyond keyword-only targeting with seven different audience targeting methods.

Continue reading »

It isn’t unusual for companies to offer free online PPC analysis tools.

So perhaps it isn’t surprising that Google itself got into that game in 2018.

Google Ads has a built-in feature that provides users with an optimization score and recommendations to improve it.

This sounds good in theory.

But what would happen if you applied Google’s recommendations across the board?

Continue reading »

By the time you become a PPC pro, you’ve probably launched hundreds of Google Ads campaigns.

But even with all this experience, you can sometimes overlook key PPC fundamentals in a rush to get ads live — or when grappling with Google Ads changes and updates.

And naturally, this kind of thing is even more likely to happen to PPC newbies.

In today’s article, I’m going to hit on three fundamentals for launching Google Ads campaigns that PPC pros sometimes overlook — and that PPC newbies might not be fully aware of.

Continue reading »

If you weren’t able to use December to prepare for PPC in 2002, it’s not too late!

You still have time to regroup and look ahead.

And it’s important to do so — because the strategies you put into place now can continue to pay dividends throughout 2020.

If you’re not sure where to start, here are four suggestions on where to put your efforts.

Continue reading »

In the past few months, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking (and writing) on the topic of building brand awareness through PPC.

Why is this topic so often overlooked?

I suspect it’s partly because so many of us are focused on account performance.

Performance is important, of course. We’re all keenly interested in performance metrics, such as leads, conversions and sales.

But if your sole focus is performance — to the detriment of brand awareness — then you will lose opportunities, jeopardize long-term performance and even put the health of your entire business at risk.

Therefore, let me continue to bang the drum of brand awareness by recapping some of my most recent articles:

Continue reading »