PPC Blog Posts

Ten Reasons Why PPC Is The Best Form Of Advertising

Tuesday, June 21st, 2011

Featured, PPC

I was idly surfing the other day, when I came across a very interesting article, which claimed that “Search Is the Worst Form of Advertising.“ You can read it here, if you’re interested: http://bit.ly/hphC9r

I won’t go into the details of everything that he said that was patently ridiculous, though if you’re interested, Melissa Mackey has covered most of the salient points on Search Engine Watch here: http://bit.ly/mCBAvw

Instead, I’ll offer a counter-argument as to why PPC is a really great way to advertise for many (most?) businesses.

Firstly, I should make it clear that the title is intentionally ridiculous – there is no ‘best’ or ‘worst’ form of advertising for everyone (whatever Mr Shatkin-Margolis believes), as different businesses may find a variety of advertising media to be the most effective.  However, there are many advantages to Paid Search, that may explain why it’s become a multi-billion dollar industry in just a handful of years. (more…)

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Google Tests Click Counts in PPC Ads

Friday, June 17th, 2011

Google, PPC

I have read a very recent blog about Google beginning to test displaying click counts in PPC adverts for specific advertisers. Implementation of such a technique would likely cause changes to new users and advertisers alike.

(Screenshot taken from Search Engine Land. The rest of the post here for screenshots http://searchengineland.com/google-testing-display-of-click-counts-on-paid-search-ads-82192). (more…)

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Google Now Puts Display URL Domain in Headline of Some PPC Adverts

Tuesday, June 7th, 2011

Featured, Google Adwords, Industry News, PPC

Last month, Google started putting the Display URL domain in the headline of PPC adverts for some advertisers. This only shows in “select top placement ads on Google,” according to the official Adwords blog.

http://adwords.blogspot.com/2011/05/showing-display-url-domain-in-headline.html

This is an attempt to make the brand more prominent. It will not show if the domain is already in the headline, but it will show even when the first description line has been moved up to the headline (unless the whole headline is more than 68 characters). (more…)

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Google AdWords Expert Part Seven – Optimising Your Bids

Friday, June 3rd, 2011

Featured, Google AdWords Expert, PPC

You might have been expecting this to be one of the first blogs in this series, but the simple truth is that the amount that you bid is very dependent on your conversion rate, and is strongly influenced by your click through rate and Quality Score. Until your account performance has stabilised, i.e. you’ve grouped and regrouped your keywords until you are happy with them, found some adverts that work, and your account has sufficient history for the Quality Score to be quite stable, your optimal bids are likely to change on a day-to-day basis. I certainly wouldn’t make major changes to your initial bids until the account has reached quite a stable position, unless your budget is running out (in which case, reducing the bids is a no-brainer).

So what is the best position to put your advert in, and how do you calculate it (this is effectively what you are choosing with your bid)? (more…)

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Intention Analysis or Just Funny Search Query Reports!

Wednesday, May 25th, 2011

Google Adwords, PPC

One of the things I love most about search marketing is access to Search Query Reports. While they are just keywords that people enter into a search engine, you occasionally come across the odd one that just jumps out of the page at you.

I’m guilty of it myself but it’s amazing how much trust people display when using a search engine – almost giving no consideration to how this data is being used (and stored). It’s almost like people are talking to a friend… although sometimes it’s like they’re talking to themselves. People share information on their interests and lifestyle like never before and give little regard to what’s actually happening behind the white background and multi-coloured logo. (more…)

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