Google’s recent decision to cease reporting on low-impression search queries – a minor nuisance, at first glance – appears to unleash more complexity than one might think. It has certainly produced strong opinions. The long and the short of it is: if, as an advertiser, you were accustomed to a reporting standard that would show you something like 10,000 unique queries (mapped to the keywords...
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...
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...
Selecting a Bid Strategy: Top Two PPC Bid Strategies to Avoid
Selecting a bid strategy is pretty much the make-or-break Google Ads campaign setting. For novice advertisers, this decision passes by in a whisper of time. Many have no idea as to the nuances of the reign of terror they’ve just unleashed – an environment conducive to massive waste, masquerading as an ad campaign. When pay-per-click search advertising was invented, there was no such thing...
This Hidden Trick in Campaign Experiments Will Blow Your Mind
Remember Deep Blue? In 1997, IBM’s supercomputer beat world chess champ Garry Kasparov in competition. Brute force computing power was starting to reign supreme over human intelligence, at least in a competitive game with a large, but more or less finite, set of possible moves. Computing an optimal single move to do at least as well as an opponent is one thing, but “thinking ten moves ahead”...
