Simple PPC Tweaks to Improve Performance #4: Dynamic Keyword Insertion

Dynamic keyword insertion or DKI allows you to have the keyword that triggered your ad dynamically inserted within the ad text or headline or at the end of your display URL or all three depending on what works to help you achieve your goal. This is one of SpeedPPC's more notable "super powers" where using our "token insertion code" you can automatically insert your seed or expansion or final keyword combinations into your ads with a single click. Because this

2015-05-04T13:49:00+10:00Categories: How-to's & Tutorials, Thoughts and Opinions|Tags: |
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Simple PPC Tweaks to Improve Performance #3: Test Multiple Ads

You should create at least two versions of each ad if running a small campaign while mid-sized and larger accounts should consider running three to five ads. I prefer to run at least three ads even for smaller campaigns and to set my ad rotation to either "Rotate evenly: Show ads more evenly for at least 90 days, then optimize" or "Rotate indefinitely: Show lower performing ads more evenly with higher performing ads, and do not optimize". This gives each

2015-05-01T11:54:48+10:00Categories: How-to's & Tutorials, Thoughts and Opinions|Tags: , , , |
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Simple PPC Tweaks to Improve Performance #2: Assigning Conversion Values

I've lost count of the number of accounts I have reviewed where even though they are tracking conversions they have not assigned a value to those conversions nor are they returning the actual sales value of those conversions (if retail or other online purchase). in many cases such as this they are looking at CPA or even click cost to determine if what they paid for that conversion is acceptable or if they paid too much. This may seem on

2015-04-29T13:53:44+10:00Categories: How-to's & Tutorials, Thoughts and Opinions|Tags: , , , , , , , |
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Simple PPC Tweaks to Improve Performance #1: Conversion Tracking

If your goal is to track conversions - well first make sure you are tracking conversions - that may seem pretty obvious but I have seen more than a few PPC accounts where conversion tracking was not implemented or was implemented improperly. In one particular case whoever implemented conversion tracking on the website put it on every page. The result was that every click resulted in a conversion! Wish that were true but if you ever see a 100% conversion

2015-04-28T13:43:03+10:00Categories: Thoughts and Opinions|Tags: , , , , |
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Bing Quality Scores – An Overview

Recently Bing made some changes to its Quality Score functionality. According to Bing this update only affects how quality score gets reported; ad and keyword performance fundamentals won’t be impacted. Here's the changes made: 1. Earlier quality scores. When an ad launches and there isn’t enough data on it yet, Bing Ads will show a quality score “based on marketplace data” instead of showing a blank “-” in the quality score column. 2. Reporting based on exact matching. Quality score

2015-04-17T12:55:46+10:00Categories: Thoughts and Opinions|Tags: , , , |
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Is Your Website Mobile Friendly? New Google Mobile-friendly Algorithm Coming!

When Google first made the switch from the AdWords "legacy" platform to the now not so new "enhanced" platform I wrote in a blog that at that point in time whether or not your website was responsive or mobile friendly was not an issue but that down the road it almost certainly would become a factor. It becomes a factor April 21st 2015. The below comes direct from Google: "When it comes to search on mobile devices, users should get

2015-04-10T12:27:46+10:00Categories: Thoughts and Opinions|Tags: , , , |
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Negative Keywords : A Primer

Negatives are important because they eliminate unqualified traffic from seeing and possibly clicking on your ads which in turn helps you cut down on wasted spend. I remember one client who was selling an air purification product that - I can't remember the exact brand name - but the model name/number included something like 15-X. When I first started managing the account, which had been running for quite some time, I noticed that this ad group had a huge number

2015-04-10T12:07:22+10:00Categories: How-to's & Tutorials, Thoughts and Opinions|Tags: , , , |
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Are You Tracking Everything?

Without exception the end goal of all PPC campaigns is conversions. This may be sales, this may be leads, this may be emails....regardless of what actually constitutes a conversion the end goal of all that keyword and market research, of ad copy crafting, of ad extension creating, of landing page optimization...is to generate it. Yet so many PPC accounts are failing to track many if not most of their conversion channels. Here's an example. A client that shall go unnamed

2015-03-30T14:33:56+10:00Categories: How-to's & Tutorials, Thoughts and Opinions|Tags: , |
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Why Quality Score Matters – Short and Sweet Version

I recently read an article where it was reported that "that the average Quality Score is roughly 5.1 out of 10". That is...unbelievable. Which is not to say I don't believe the report which was based on data culled from literally thousands of AdWords accounts. I find it unbelievable that so many AdWords account managers would be allowing so many low quality score keywords to remain active in their accounts. If nothing else it shows there's quite a few out

2015-03-23T13:00:04+10:00Categories: Thoughts and Opinions|Tags: , , |
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SEO – Are You Wasting Your Time?

Personally I believe SEO is a fool's errand. Now before all you SEO experts get your knickers in a bunch, let me explain. If one builds one's website using Google's best practices for modern web development as detailed here: https://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/ which includes easy to use intuitive navigation and product or services pages filled with high quality valuable content - then you should be good to go. And as long as you continue to keep your webpages up to date ie

2015-03-20T14:25:27+10:00Categories: Thoughts and Opinions|Tags: , , , |
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