Staying Competitive In PPC: Learning From Black Friday’s Most Popular Offers

The five-day Black Friday weekend from Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday provided an insightful glimpse into how retailers are running their PPC strategies for the holidays. Particularly interesting are the variety of offer types run by retailers, ranging f…

How Google AdWords’ Ad Rank Algorithm Update Increased Brand CPC’s by 600%

On October 22nd Google announced that ad extensions will now be a factor in ad rank as well as the importance of ad extensions eligibility to display in your ads. As with all algorithm changes no one really knew what this meant for performance or how this was going to affect our PPC campaigns. The initial conversations were that […]

Will Big Retail Rule Paid Search On Black Friday, Cyber Monday Again This Year?

Here we go, just over a week until Black Friday and Cyber Monday. All hands are on deck, budgets are ready to be unleashed. The big box retailers appear poised to yet again dominate paid search results for queries related to these all-important retail …

Optimizing For Seasonality: 4 Critical Paid Search Strategies

November and December are the most seasonal months for search marketers. For retailers, this holiday shopping period continues to be the most profitable time of the year. In fact, in 2012, over $42 billion was spent online by consumers in these two mon…

Bing Ads Introduces Refined Broad Match Keyword Targeting

In an effort to help advertisers attract more click volume from the Yahoo Bing Network, Bing Ads has rolled out Broad Match keyword targeting. The company says that with refinements and ongoing updates the “Bing Ads platform is able to deliver Broad Match conversion metrics that are 85% of…

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Getting A Better Read On The Value Of Smartphone Paid Search

The increasing ubiquity of mobile devices has been a mixed blessing for paid search advertisers. On the one hand, most industry stats show smartphones and tablets driving nearly all Internet traffic growth, while volume from traditional desktop and lap…

How Recent Organic Search Changes Will Affect Paid Search

Search marketers were pitched not one but two curveballs recently which have forever reshaped the landscape of search engine optimization (SEO). The industry saw the first one coming a mile away as Google began encrypting organic search queries two years ago. Now, there’s almost zero…

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New AdWords Ad Ranking Formula: What Does It Mean?

AdRank in AdWords is a key AdWords marketing concept that plays a huge role in determining how prominently your ads are displayed in a SERP and also your cost-per-click. So, when Google quietly announces huge changes on how AdRank is being calculated, …

The Double Serving Myth: When One Company Monopolizes PPC Ad Results

Here are two scenarios that are currently keeping many PPC advertisers up at night — maybe you’re one of them: A parent company buys up a significant portion of the competitors in a sector, and with the backing of large budgets,  advertises each site on AdWords and Bing Ads, shutting…

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Bing Ads Analysis Tools Go Live: Dimensions Tab, Performance Comparison Graph

Bing Ads launched two very handy tools today that make account analysis from within the web interface a reality. The Dimensions Tab provides a shortcut to performing campaign analysis and includes access the fantastic Distribution graph. If you’re not using the distribution graph already, do…

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AdWords Smartphone CPCs Drop Sharply After Enhanced Campaigns Transition [RKG Report]

With two months of enhanced campaigns behind us, RKG’s Q3 Digital Marketing Report offers a look at the near-term impact of the roll-out on its client set, which includes 40 of the top 500 online retailers. Most metrics remained relatively stable, however the effects were seen in smartphones…

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