Paid Search & PPC

Expert Tips, Insights, and Analysis

PPC experts Anna Borchert, Emily Martin and Steve Kroll at conference

Welcome to your hub for Paid Search & PPC know-how. Uncover actionable tips and strategic insights, all scrutinized by industry experts. Navigate the intricacies of cost-per-click, ad auctions, and keyword targeting. Our goal is to turn the complex PPC landscape into a stroll through a well-lit park.

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Competitor Brand Terms

Pros and Cons – PLUS: 9 Examples Analyzing the Most Sophisticated Performance Marketers. The Temptation of Bidding on Another Company’s Brand Terms in Google Is it wise to bid on a competitor’s brand keywords in Google Ads? For anyone with experience utilizing strategy, it can feel a bit like taking a blow torch to your[…]

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Battling Banner Blindness

In the ever-evolving landscape of digital marketing, advertisers are continually seeking new ways to capture the attention and engage with their target audience. However, one persistent challenge that marketers face is the phenomenon known as “banner blindness.” This term refers to the tendency of internet users to subconsciously ignore or overlook banner advertisements on websites.[…]

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Ad Campaign vs. Post Boosting

Most of us have seen the Facebook pop-up “This post is doing better than 95% of recent posts. Promote it to reach a wider audience.” While social media platforms offer businesses a range of advertising options to reach their target audience, one question I hear from clients often is, “Should we also be boosting posts[…]

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Add Competitor Brands to Your Negative Keywords

How it can Improve ROAS & Lower CPCs To ensure effective ad spend when managing PPC campaigns, it’s important to exclude certain audiences and keywords that are not likely to engage with your ad or lead to a conversion — this is where negative keywords come in.  Negative keywords are search terms (and phrases) you[…]

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How to Lose an Account in 10 Days

As a millennial, I have a love for romantic comedies from the early 2000s. One of my favorites is How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. I’ve owned the movie on VHS, DVD and now Digital, and have probably watched it over a hundred times. A few of the Granular folks were recently talking[…]

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LinkedIn Business Manager

In recent months, LinkedIn has rolled out its own version of Business Manager similar to Meta. This is designed for a more streamlined approach to managing and sharing all of your LinkedIn assets (page, ad account, etc.) both internally with your team and externally with agency partners. Setting up your company in Business Manager as[…]

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Jumpstart your Ad Copy Right Now

For more than a decade, I’ve been crafting ad copy for Facebook, Instagram and Google Ads, and I often struggle to find a solid starting point. Tired of constantly starting from square one, I came up with an easy-to-follow list of idea generators that would spark good ad creative ideas and eliminate those moments of[…]

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Competitor Brand Terms

Pros and Cons – PLUS: 9 Examples Analyzing the Most Sophisticated Performance Marketers. The Temptation of Bidding on Another Company’s Brand Terms in Google Is it wise to bid on a competitor’s brand keywords in Google Ads? For anyone with experience utilizing strategy, it can feel a bit like taking a blow torch to your[…]

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5 Ways to Optimize Landing Pages for PPC

A landing page is a crucial component of a successful PPC campaign. A well-optimized page can improve your page engagement and conversion rate, bringing more leads to the website and more sales for your business. Today we’re going to walk through the top 5 ways you can optimize your landing pages for your pay-per-click campaigns.[…]

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Six Conversation Starters Better Than The Weather

As an extrovert, I never found it challenging to make small talk before meetings. In fact, I actually enjoyed it and found it very valuable in making connections with others. That however all changed when the majority of my meetings shifted online, and I found myself starting almost every meeting with the same exact conversation:[…]

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The Social Situation with Sarah

I’ve been obsessed with social media since I coded my first layout on MySpace around 2003. I’ve dabbled in them all, from Xanga and AIM to Vine and Tumblr. I met my best friend on Instagram six years ago and even created a Facebook group that now has almost 30k members. It only makes sense[…]

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Getting Global: MacKenzie’s Slovenian Sabbatical

As an avid travel enthusiast, one of the benefits I was most excited about when I started at Granular was the 1 month-paid sabbatical earned after 3 years with the company. I was so excited to finally earn my sabbatical in early 2020, so you can imagine my disappointment when traveling had almost completely stopped.[…]

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four easy steps for communication between agency and client

Four Easy Steps for Successful Communication Between an Agency & Client

Successful communication is a skill that can be hard to learn and harder to teach but is extremely valuable. Good communication between two parties can help make tough situations easier and good situations great. This is especially important when communicating between an agency, like Granular, and a client. Both parties have different backgrounds and different levels of knowledge of digital advertising and the client’s business.

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GA4 Webinar: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Your current Google Analytics is going away – but don’t fret, GA4 experts from Granular hosted a webinar to share all of the relevant information you need to know about the switch from Google Analytics to GA4. Check out the webinar below, followed by more in-depth information on key slides and helpful resources. If you[…]

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Six TikTok Ad Limitations & How To Get Around Them

Six TikTok Ad Limitations & How To Get Around Them

TikTok has exploded in popularity in recent years and advertising on the platform is constantly changing and being updated to meet regulations. With all of the different types of audiences on TikTok you can target, marketers should be aware of some limitations to using TikTok. So to help answer the common question of “What’s the[…]

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Google Premier Partnership

MILWAUKEE, WI – FEBRUARY 23 – Milwaukee, Wisconsin-based Granular, one of the nation’s leaders in paid digital marketing, today announced it has achieved Google Premier Partner status for the eighth year in a row. This exclusive designation places them among the top 3% of Google Partners that meet the new, more rigorous program requirements across[…]

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B2B Industrial CPC Trends

Industrial B2B Conversion Rate and CPC Trends

When reporting on campaign data, especially with newer clients, we often get some form of the question “Are these numbers good?” or “How does this performance stack up compared to other people in my industry?” These clients, while all in the industrial/manufacturing space, vary greatly in account size & scope. Their ad spend ranges from[…]

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How Brands Leverage Digital Advertising To Give Their 2023 Super Bowl Ad Extra Yards

I enjoy watching football and consider myself semi-knowledgeable about the sport (cough cough, 2021 Granular Fantasy Football Champion talking here) but I couldn’t have cared less who won the Super Bowl this year. So, if you’re anything like me, you watched the Super Bowl for one or all of these three reasons: #1 – The[…]

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AI for PPC

ChatGPT, OpenAI’s latest space-and-time bending artificial intelligence program, is a free-use dialogue tool allowing one to submit a series of variables or questions, from which the machine will source its seemingly limitless knowledge base for an answer. Ask it anything from the mundane (“what’s the best chicken parmesan recipe?”) to the outlandish (“give me a[…]

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How Scale Modeling Made Me a Better Marketer

It’s no secret that having and holding onto hobbies can bring an insane amount of joy and fulfillment, albeit sometimes with stress. Hobbies allow you to unlock your creative potential, with the skills and creativity you bring to your hobbies helping you in other areas of your life. Scale modeling, at least in hobby terms,[…]

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What We See For PPC In 2023

Granular’s Top PPC Predictions for 2023 Anna – eCommerce & Programmatic Advertising: I’m looking forward to seeing how much OTT/CTV advertising grows in the next year. We’ve already seen massive growth in the space since 2020, and with more people expanding their paid subscriptions to platforms like Netflix, I am excited to test out more[…]

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Artificial Intelligence

5 Things You Need to Know Before Using Artificial Intelligence for Ad Copy

AI chatbots, such as Chat GPT and deep learning image models like DALL-E, have recently created a lot of hype surrounding artificial intelligence services online. I believe these are game-changing tools that will alter how we live and work, but it’s essential to consider the potential downsides before using AI for your company or product.[…]

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Duplicate Snapchat Ads The Easy Way!

I love Snapchat as an ads platform, the snapchat business manager setup is simple and it reaches a younger audience, which can be useful, but I’ve always been annoyed and slightly confused about the “clone” feature. Cloning is useful if you want to reuse everything exactly as it is, such as if you want to[…]

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View Competitor Google Ads

See Competing Google Ads For Free

A Quick Overview: JUMP TO DETAILED STEPS Good to know: Countless hours have been spent by marketers and business owners across the world trying to figure out how to see the digital ads their competitors are running. When it comes to seeing ads in the Google Ads ecosystem, users have had to rely on 3rd[…]

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Getting Started With Amazon Ads: Ad Types

As technology becomes more advanced, it has been easier than ever before to shop online. If your client is selling products online, they need to be on Amazon. Over 70% of consumers in 2022 use Amazon for their online shopping over any other eCommerce site so now it’s more important than ever to establish your[…]

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amazon coupons and deals

Increase Conversions With Amazon Coupons, Deals and Promotions

If you sell products or run ads on Amazon you’ll quickly notice it’s hard to stand out in this busy marketplace. Luckily, there are a few ways to boost sales and conversion rates while decreasing inventory. The best and most popular options are Coupons, Deals, Promotions, and Prime Exclusive Discounts. Coupons Coupons are the most[…]

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