The days of "bid gaps" and bid jamming are long gone. Today's PPC auction is much more complex, with native features like Google's Smart Bidding designed to automate busywork and eliminate the bid jockeying of the early 2000s. But Smart Bidding is no panacea—take a closer look at Smart Bidding and where human learning ultimately prevails.
A Misconception About PPC Automation
Using ad scheduling as an example, we explore the hypothesis that native Google Ads functionality -- and so-called "manual" optimization -- often do better than overdramatized third-party software. "To automate or not to automate" is not the question, and quite misses the point!
Ad “Creative” for PPC: Let the Data Speak
Every few years, the technology powering paid search creative undergoes a major shift. Advances in computing power have us on the cusp of the next major shift—user-specific customization—but before we cross that threshold, it's important to understand and execute on the basic principles that got us where we are today.
What Counts as (PPC) Science?
What counts as science? It’s certainly not for me to say. I’m neither a historian of science, nor a metaphysician, nor any type of arbiter of what counts as “scientific”. I did pretty well in high school, but. I abandoned the computer club (despite getting good, easy grades in Computer Science) because I didn’t have the requisite level of interest level in programming. At...
Search Engine Advertising: A Brief History
Keyword advertising is now in its 20’s. Some brief history. A lab is born The first company of significance to ever offer keyword-targeted ads appearing near Web search results was a search engine called Open Text, in 1996. In 1999, a leading search engine – AltaVista – did the same amid predictions that their greed would drive them out of business. (It wasn’t advertising, but rather...
