The PPC world is currently agog with the news that Google is going to stop showing advertisers a large percentage of lower-volume queries in our Search Terms report. (Indeed, they already have.) It seems imperative to address potential responses to this change, so I’ll do so next week. In the meantime, no matter how full or complete our query data remains, negative keywords will continue to be a...
Goldilocks & the Three Scones: A PPC Bidding Hack That Could Save You Money on So-So Queries
Five Ways to Keep Smart Bidding From Acting Not-So-Smart
In this week’s instalment I have one sharp new tip, and a few reminders of other key ways to use Smart Bidding without getting into hot water. As PPC account managers, many of us want some control. Yet under typical conditions, Smart Bidding in Google Ads gives us zero levers to pull. Boo. Well, look over here as I peel back the vinyl covering (it looks like a BBQ cover, but it has the Page Zero...
If One Part of Your Ad Group is Broken, Your Tests Could Be Misguided
The cool but challenging thing about targeted advertising is dealing with all the moving parts. Sometimes, for example, we may do our best to interpret an ad test, but in an environment where our analysis is handicapped by other mistakes that skew the test. Let’s say our targeting is inadvertently too broad. An account manager has bid relatively high on a one-word broad match, using any of the...
Predicting Your Customer’s Story, Or Helping to Write It? On Lifetime Value and the Overreach of Predictive Analytics
There’s something magical, mystical, and entirely unrealistic about forecasting on limited data. In Michael Lewis’ classic Moneyball, Billy Beane is the data-centric hero – a new breed of baseball manager for data-intensive times. But Billy knows when data has its limits: he regards pitchers to be like writers, as opposed to thoroughbred racehorses. Strong, hard-throwing, etc.? Nice on the...
Does Smart Bidding Make Life Simpler? That’s a Definite Maybe
Online advertising scales, if you let it. Once something scales, complexity threatens to drown us. That’s why we must use Occam’s Razor at times. Recognizing this, Google has packaged Smart Bidding using shorthand terminology and easy implementation in a bid (pun unintentional) to reduce the number of decisions facing human account managers. That could help you. On the other hand, if you’re a...
