Today’s post is by Anvil Media‘s Nate Gancher. Those newer to paid search often ask digital marketers the reasoning for bidding on branded terms. The question of “why should we be paying money for a branded term that ranks #1 on SEO?” is certainly a valid one. Those well-versed in paid search know the answer to that question is cheap traffic, incremental growth, and increasing overall click-through rate by taking up a larger portion of the search engine results page. There is certainly value on paying for branded … Continue reading →

Today’s post is by Ian Lopuch of PPC Ian. If you’re a professional in the field of SEM, there’s no doubt that you’ve experienced competition on Google AdWords and Bing Ads. It’s becoming more and more difficult to maintain the same position, and your CPCs are likely under pressure from competitors. There’s a ton of stuff you can do to combat this trend, including ad copy testing, smart bid management, exploration of ad extensions, smart adoption of match types, casting a wide net (the Wide Tail as coined … Continue reading →

Happy Presidents’ Day…or, as it’s known to the part of the workforce that doesn’t get it off, Monday.  We in the PPC Associates blogiverse are lucky enough to have the day off, so there’s no marketing wisdom forthcoming. If you’re working today, Godspeed. If you’re off today, here’s hoping the skies are sunny, the slopes are snowy, and the kids let you sleep in for once. See you tomorrow…

Friends, readers, contributors…you’re all great. Take a few days off. We’ll be back on the 26th with more cutting-edge content, but until then, have a wonderful, safe, festive holiday!

Today’s post is by Terry Whalen of CPC Search. On October 2nd Google announced new AdWords functionality allowing users to view key Google Analytics (GA) data in the AdWords dashboard. The new metrics include Bounce Rate, Pages Per Visit, Average Visit Duration, and – added just last week – % New Visits. This data is available at the Campaign, Ad group, Keyword, and Ad levels.  I haven’t seen much written about this feature addition, but it’s really cool so I thought I’d call it out! How is this … Continue reading →