Digital Marketing, PPC, eCommerce and Lead Gen
Hi Everyone! I’m Brooke Townsend, and I’m what I like to call myself a “marketing minority.” I have been working as an in-house PPC Manager for Invitations by Dawn for about 3.5 years, and have loved (almost) every minute of it. Invitations by Dawn is an e-commerce wedding invitations and stationery company. Putting e-commerce and[…]
At Granular, we try to share as much useful information about the PPC world as we can. It’s a passion that we’re proud to have, but we acknowledge our views are just one perspective. PPC advertisers at agencies typically work with several clients that can expand across a variety of industries. We’re not used to working on[…]
Google held their annual GPS Summit in the end of May. We got to hear about all the new features coming to AdWords, and one of those features is currently in active beta for select accounts. I’m talking about Expanded Text Ads. This post will explain what is changing and what actions you may need to take going[…]
Display campaigns in AdWords are a great way to boost awareness for either your brand or a specific product or service. However if you’re new to this campaign type, you could end up spending a lot of money showing your ads to the wrong audience. Here are three simple ways you can create a better-performing[…]
May 24th was what we at Granular called, “The Oscars for our industry.” It’s the Google event we never want to miss as we get to hear about all the new features that are planned to roll out for AdWords. This year did not disappoint. While we won’t get to everything they covered, here are the[…]
Just like us, Facebook is a data-driven company. They don’t make decisions lightly and rely on deep statistical insights to make business decisions. One of their latest decisions was to roll-out a new product that helps businesses chat with customers with the help of automation. The need for this and the supporting data behind the[…]
Last week, I got to attend HeroConf in Philadelphia. If you’re not familiar with the conference it is the largest conference in the world that only focuses on paid search. It was a great chance to catch up with my PPC friends from around the world, moderate a whole day of breakouts, and get to[…]
I’ve been implementing Gmail ads for all of my clients lately to test out an under-utilized way of getting in front of new users. With my clients at Granular, Gmail campaigns have been one of the most successful Display campaigns I’ve seen in driving new leads. We also still see many advertisers are still unfamiliar[…]
Today we received notification from our Google Agency reps that there is an update made to Ad Rank, Extensions and Bidding. Here is a list of everything they told us is changing. We are improving how we account for the impact of ad formats (ad extensions) in Ad Rank Some Ad Formats can improve your[…]
Don’t worry, your supply of $0.24 Ramen and is still available. It just appears that someone or a system accidentally listed a lot of Walmart locations as permanently closed. In an attempt to find some cheap folding chairs for Granular in Milwaukee, Walmart was naturally on the short list of stores. Upon searching, we discovered[…]
Remarketing isn’t anything new anymore. It’s become one of the most common forms of Display advertising within the AdWords platform. Creating audiences in AdWords is fairly simple and is good for creating basic audiences. Google Analytics, on the other hand, allows you to create several, layered audiences that can be used to make your remarketing[…]
There was some big news dropped on the search engine world Friday, February 19, 2016. Google announced that they were changing up the layout of their search engine results page (SERP). This layout definitely affects PPC marketers since there are now fewer ads on the page. This layout also affected SEO marketers because organic results[…]
As a digital marketer I’m always trying to implement new ways to connect with my target audience. I consistently see positive results from my campaign performances when I’m building visitors’ confidence every step of the PPC path. An easy way to build that confidence is through proof points. I look at proof points as evidence that backs[…]
I recently had a conversation with a client about expanding their reach and going after their competitors with paid search. Initially they weren’t sure about this because they were afraid the competition would start targeting their name in retaliation. The funny part was their competitors were already targeting them and we could prove it. Google gives advertisers[…]
In October 2013, AdWords came out and clearly talked about how ad extensions have a direct effect on ad rank. This was an immediate call-to-action for PPC marketers to start adding as many extensions as possible. What makes this process a little more difficult is that Google doesn’t give us the ability to manually set up[…]
RLSA campaigns, or remarketing lists for search ads, is a unique way to get your ads back in front of previous visitors. For example let’s say someone visited your website and left because they weren’t ready to convert at that moment. If you have the remarketing code set up on you site, you will have the visitor[…]
Results of Our Instagram Ads Test Start with a small budget when testing a new channel / ad format – that’s almost always our rule. This of course varies based on your company size. Testing a new channel at one of the universities I ran paid for was often in the $10s of thousands of[…]
5 Signs You’re Working with a Bad PPC Company Whether you’re a large corporation or a small business, every marketing dollar is precious. It is always important to be on top of how your marketing budget is being spent to make sure you’re getting the most value. So how do you know if you’re not[…]
Whether you’re involved with PPC, SEO, email marketing or social media, the landing page can make or break the odds of a campaign succeeding. You can drive a lot of traffic, but if your landing page doesn’t convert then what’s the point? A 25% CTR and 400% traffic increase doesn’t look great if the return[…]
If you own a restaurant, store, or any business requiring foot traffic for survival, then most likely people are finding you on Google Maps. Google Maps offers much more than giving directions. If you value digital marketing for your local business, then Google Maps must be a part of your strategy. Here’s why. Local Results Are Showing[…]
On May 27, 2015 Twitter Advertising updated their analytics to Audience Insights. The goal was “to help advertisers understand key audiences on Twitter.” Well not only does Twitter Analytics help your paid social efforts, but it also can give you some ideas (with data) on how to improve your PPC campaigns as well. Let’s look at[…]
“Yeah, we can do that too”. Famous last words of the once-focused agency. Too many agencies and marketing contractors go the way of the cable companies, bundling their clients into massive contracts offering multiple services for one large fee. Marketing your company should be no different that your personal life. Do you LOVE your bundled[…]
As the seasons change, so do the needs of eCommerce businesses. Many of our clients have seasonal peaks and valleys in their website traffic and overall online revenue. The Granular team has managed paid search during “holiday hell week” at Best Buy and Target, so we know a little something about eCommerce seasonality. To match[…]
Improving user experience is one of the many factors taken into account when working on conversion rate optimization (CRO). CRO is a necessity when driving PPC traffic to any website. Why? Because so much is on the line when you pay for traffic. By using CRO, you are often able to improve efficiency and stretch[…]
Google has offered some type of AdWords certification since around 2010. It has been through a few name changes and rule changes, but it continues to be a fundamental element of adding trust for clients and showing that PPC experts are indeed what they claim to be. Trusting a PPC pro with your marketing budget[…]
