Pay-per-click (PPC) is a model of internet marketing in which advertisers pay a fee each time one of their ads is clicked. Search engine advertising is one of the most popular forms of PPC. Search Engine Land columnist Ginny Marvin has shared fie PPC trends for the new year. Marvin says, “In closing out our big recap of all the big 2017 trends and changes in PPC, I predict we’ll see trends in artificial intelligence, audience targeting, attribution and local marketing continue to develop in 2018. Those are all exciting areas, but that’s not a particularly earth-shattering prediction.... [...]

Search Engine Land columnist Ginny Marvin has summarized important trends and changes that occurred in the year 2017. Marvin says, “The first half of 2017 saw the final sunsetting of AdWords Converted Clicks and the introduction of Google Attribution, the biggest product release announced at Google Marketing Next. Search marketers have had access to some attribution data in AdWords and Analytics, but Attribution pulls in more multichannel conversion data and feeds back into AdWords for bidding strategies. Read more on what Attribution means for search marketers. Google also added Maximize... [...]

Brian Wood says, “Title tags are a meaningful on-page ranking factor and are among the most influential factors in determining click-through rate (CTR) from search engine results pages. Higher CTR not only drives more traffic immediately, it also improves organic rankings when combined with good on-site metrics. Title tag CTR is also difficult to test: it requires a large number of pages that drive a lot of organic visits, and a pretty big chunk of time — usually around two months to give Google time to index all the pages in the test and then collect enough data to have statistically... [...]

Brian Wood says, “Title tags are a meaningful on-page ranking factor and are among the most influential factors in determining click-through rate (CTR) from search engine results pages. Higher CTR not only drives more traffic immediately, it also improves organic rankings when combined with good on-site metrics. Title tag CTR is also difficult to test: it requires a large number of pages that drive a lot of organic visits, and a pretty big chunk of time — usually around two months to give Google time to index all the pages in the test and then collect enough data to have statistically... [...]

Andrew Goodman says, “PPC account managers are held to exacting performance standards. Their efforts are judged by KPIs like Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) and CPA (Cost Per Acquisition). That sounds simple enough. But it’s a lot easier to set tough performance standards than to achieve them. As competition mounts, an account manager may decide to shorten their time horizon to four months instead of four years, figuring that keeping the gig is a lost cause. That leads to “Operation Obfuscate” — to fool the boss by the attributed conversion numbers, at least over the short term. This... [...]

Purna Virji says, “I was conned into my love of cooking by my husband. Never having set foot in the kitchen until the grand old age of 22, my husband (then boyfriend) — a former chef — said he’d teach me some simple recipes. I somewhat enjoyed the process but very much enjoyed the lavish praise he’d bestow upon me when eating whatever I whipped up. Highly encouraged that I seemingly had an innate culinary genius, I looked to grow my repertoire of recipes. As a novice, I found recipe books inspiring but confusing. For example, a recipe that called for cooked chicken made me wonder... [...]

Anna Shirley says, “I’m sure many of us working in PPC (or across the wider digital spectrum) have been asked at least a handful of times in recent months, “Should we be worried about automation?” I’ve heard it from clients, and even prospective job candidates. And I can see why the question is commonly asked; it is a very interesting subject with a lot of possible responses, ranging from, “Yes, we’re all doomed. Let’s head to the hills!” to “No way, machines could never do what I do!” In this article, I want to look at some of the main arguments against fearing the... [...]

Frederick Vallaeys says, “Doing PPC reporting right often involves some trade-offs between time and money. The perfect report takes a lot of time to build — time that could have been spent improving the performance of an account. A quick and repeatable report, on the other hand, is usually generated through a tool that costs money. So the arrival of Data Studio, which offers very customizable reporting, and now does so at a cost of $0, warrants an investigation to determine how it can help account managers. Because the tool suite of my company, Optmyzr, also includes PPC reporting, spending... [...]

Frederick Vallaeys says, “Doing PPC reporting right often involves some trade-offs between time and money. The perfect report takes a lot of time to build — time that could have been spent improving the performance of an account. A quick and repeatable report, on the other hand, is usually generated through a tool that costs money. So the arrival of Data Studio, which offers very customizable reporting, and now does so at a cost of $0, warrants an investigation to determine how it can help account managers. Because the tool suite of my company, Optmyzr, also includes PPC reporting, spending... [...]

Purna Virji says, “Here’s a question for you: Do you think a brand can influence your behavior outside of purchase preference? Put another way, will seeing the North Face logo make you want to take up hiking in the snow? A few years ago, researchers at Duke University conducted an experiment with 341 students. Their goal? Studying what makes a brand powerful and how we’re influenced by brands. As part of this study, the students were asked to complete what they were told was a visual acuity test. During this test, either an Apple logo or IBM logo flashed on the screen for a second, so... [...]