Matt McGee says, “SMX West was buzzing last week, and much of the conversation was about Google’s recent change to how exact match keywords will work in AdWords campaigns. Although the news just came out last week, the SMX programming team quickly organized a “flash session” that happened Wednesday morning before the scheduled agenda began. Panelists including Marketing Land’s Ginny Marvin and SMX moderators Matt Van Wagner and Brad Geddes took questions for almost an hour from a big crowd of concerned advertisers. They covered topics including impact on negative keywords. whether... [...]

Dianna Huff says, “In my 17 years as a B2B SEO and marketing consultant, I hadn’t really considered giving PPC a go until Google changed the layout for its search results to remove right-side ads on desktop and to increase the number of ads appearing above the organic results to as many as four. Suddenly, SEO became a whole different ball game, especially since I work with small manufacturers, many of whom are SEO-challenged to begin with. Seeing the lower CTRs and my clients’ listings being pushed farther and farther down on the page, I realized it was time for me to learn AdWords so... [...]

Dianna Huff says, “In my 17 years as a B2B SEO and marketing consultant, I hadn’t really considered giving PPC a go until Google changed the layout for its search results to remove right-side ads on desktop and to increase the number of ads appearing above the organic results to as many as four. Suddenly, SEO became a whole different ball game, especially since I work with small manufacturers, many of whom are SEO-challenged to begin with. Seeing the lower CTRs and my clients’ listings being pushed farther and farther down on the page, I realized it was time for me to learn AdWords so... [...]

Ginny Marvin says, “Google and its sibling companies at Alphabet collectively bid on thousands of keywords in AdWords. That has been going on for years. The search giant has said its ad buying does not “directly inflate” pricing for other advertisers because “advertisers are charged as if it wasn’t bidding.” However, that’s not quite accurate. Participating in its own ad auctions has long raised conflict of interest objections. A report from The Wall Street Journal last month put a spotlight on the practice again with some eye-popping stats and renewed our questions about how... [...]

Ginny Marvin says, “Google has been slowly building out the new AdWords interface, which was introduced last March. More accounts have been granted alpha access, and on Tuesday, Google’s head of search ads, Jerry Dischler, said it is rolling out to even more AdWords accounts in the next few months. When you first get access, you may be taken right to the new interface, or you may see a notification in the top right corner or at the bottom of the screen like the one below. Don’t worry about clicking it and never being able to get back to the land you know. You can toggle back and forth... [...]

Ginny Marvin says, “Automation is nothing new in AdWords, but this month, Google launched a pilot that adds new text ads to advertisers’ accounts. Dubbed Ads Added by AdWords, the program started on January 26. Not surprisingly, this news has set off alarm bells among paid search managers that worry about Google usurping control over the ad creation and testing process. Here is what we know so far about this test. The initial set of advertisers were notified of the pilot on January 12. For those that chose to participate, ads were added to ad groups two weeks later, on January 26, at which... [...]

Ginny Marvin says, “On Thursday, some AdWords advertisers received an unexpected email from Google explaining upcoming changes to the phone numbers that appear in ads. The change affects campaigns that use both call extensions and location extensions. Google has expanded exposure for ads that include location extensions over the past year, including showing ads in Maps and in Local Finder results. As of January 19, 2017,  Google says it “may” show the local retail phone number when that store’s location extension shows in an ad even if a call extension in the campaign uses a different... [...]

Brett Middleton says, “For the founder sitting in coworking spaces like The Farm SoHo or CoCo Minneapolis, or working from a home office, the harsh environment of Google AdWords can feel like a trap. Where do you even start? Do you hire someone to manage your campaigns, or do you try to get by in the beginning by having your intern do it? No matter what you do, it can feel like the wrong choice; advertising your business for the first time can be very stressful. But you’re taking a leap, and you should applaud yourself for it — and then use these tips to start generating growth. Who... [...]

Ginny Marvin says, “Google debuted price extensions in July, enabling advertisers to show pricing information about products and services in mobile text ads. At that time, the extension format was in list form. On Monday, Google announced in a tweet that the swipeable card format that has been popping up will now be the standard format for price extensions. In addition to the new standard, Google announced price extensions will be available in 10 more languages. Available languages now include English, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Swedish. In... [...]

Todd Saunders says, ““OK Google, tell me how creepy things are going to get.” How would your 2006 selves respond to our advertising toolbox of today? You can target ads to people based on their income level who are also currently at the airportwith advanced geotargeting! You can follow your potential customers around with the very products they looked at but decided not to buy with dynamic remarketing. You can trigger ads to people based on what they say inside their emails with Gmail Ads. Much of what we internet users and advertisers deem as normal would have been considered creepy or... [...]