Paid Search & PPC

Automated rules are good for situations where you know you’re going to need to make changes at some point in the future based on some criteria like performance or time. For example, you might increase or decrease a bid on a keyword if it meets certain performance thresholds. Or you might want to pause campaigns[…]

I’m writing this the day after Halloween, which may be the perfect time to talk about Google Ads scripts since it’s a fairly scary subject to most people dealing with accounts.  But let me tell you…it doesn’t have to be.  With such an amazing, sharing community all around us, PPCers aren’t on their own…ever.  Trust[…]

Some would say we’re not significantly affected by the media we consume. I don’t claim to be one of them. After watching a lot of the movies being put out these days that show futuristic visions of how artificial intelligence might be incorporated into the world in the future, I can’t help but wonder how[…]

Synergy, change agents, deep dive, circle back, boiling the ocean, ping me – remember some of these cringe-worthy business buzzwords? Business is full of them, and yes I admit, I still use some of these words from time to time. What is it about business that gets us stuck on meaningless one-liners and platitudes devoid[…]

For a little while now, Facebook has been pushing its Marketplace section as a sort of Craigslist killer. There are quite a lot of listing and a decent amount of traffic inside Facebook’s Marketplace system. But it hasn’t caught on the way Facebook hoped. While the Facebook Marketplace is not going anywhere, as of now.[…]

With the advent of quick-to-market ecommerce platforms like Shopify, Big Commerce, and Squarespace (just to name a few) there are more people jumping into the world of ecommerce every day. While it’s possible to grow an organic footprint for an ecommerce brand, PPC and paid media continue to be the driving force behind ecommerce sales.[…]

Check out previous blogs in this series Think of digital content as gas in your car’s gas tank. The more content you create, the farther you can go on a single tank. In this metaphor, PPC campaigns are your car – your means of conveyance. A car without any gas renders it useless. On the[…]

Leads, leads, leads!  It’s the cry of B2B marketers everywhere, and for good reason. But consider this…do you try to force your offline relationships into spaces they’re not ready for? Or do you instead nurture relationships with prospects and customers in ways that work for them as you build trust and gently nudge them toward[…]

When Google introduced Responsive Ads to all advertisers in July 2018, I saw it as an opportunity to simplify the workflow for a common optimization task performed by search marketers: ad copy testing. It has long been a best practice to run multiple variations of ad copy simultaneously, accrue data, and decide winners and losers[…]

After somebody clicks on an ad, the only way to turn that person from a window shopper to a customer is the experience you provide for them on your website. It’s that critical moment, right after a click, for your brand to make an impression, gain trust, and ultimately get the person to spend their[…]

I wanted to start this blog series off (check out part 1) talking about one of the most underutilized and misunderstood digital marketing mediums: email. Email marketing is much more than just sending a newsletter or sales to your consumers. There are many secondary benefits from running an email marketing program, most of which can help[…]

When I first got into PPC management, I had basically no client management skills. I got into PPC because I read a book called The Future of Music (I’m a musician) that explained to me how digital distribution was changing entire industries and how the Internet made it possible for anyone to sell anything to[…]

The Technique In a previous post, I showed you how telling your customers how many have converted unlocks the principle of social proof and is helpful in persuading more people to take action.  In that test, I simply replaced a fairly generic introductory text in an ad designed to attract subscribers on Facebook to include[…]

PPC Management Takeaways From Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2018 With another Black Friday and Cyber Monday PPC season under our belts, it’s time for us to exhale with the rest of the retail and marketing world. As we take a second to catch our breath, we wanted to look back at the crazy week[…]

The Technique It’s been well-documented in marketing psychology books like Brainfluence and others that offering too many choices to your customers can create frustration and a mental paralysis that leads to lower rates of people taking action.  This New York Times article dives more deeply into the psychology behind it.  But basically, when the number[…]

Joe Martinez, our Director of Paid Media & Community at Granular, just wrapped up presenting at Confluence Conference for the third year in a row. Everyone in attendance got to learn why they cannot avoid YouTube advertising anymore. Besides learning about the value of YouTube, marketers got to learn all of the targeting options to make[…]

The Technique There’s a single word that can lead you to getting better results from your PPC ads.  That word is because.  Why is this word so effective?  Because whatever you put after that word acts as a justification or reason why a person should comply with your request.  And because people have grown used[…]

YouTube campaigns in Google Ads seems pretty straight forward, right? You have a YouTube channel. You link it with Google Ads. Then you can promote your videos on YouTube to the exact audience you want. Well not so fast. There are a few caveats you should know before creating your new campaigns. Let’s break a[…]

The Technique A classic way to be persuasive in advertising is to use a principle known as social proof.  The principle holds that when people are uncertain about a course of action, they tend to look outside themselves and to other people around them to guide their decisions and actions. One such way to implement[…]

Joe Martinez, Director of Paid Media & Community at Granular, presented at SMX Advanced yesterday during the ecommerce section. Setting Up and Tracking a Full TrueView for Shopping Strategy There can be more to your ecommerce strategy than Shopping feeds and marketplaces. Joe demonstrated to the crowd how you can use your products to push[…]

So, we know that most B2B companies really should have a killer Paid Social strategy these days.  But as soon as they get on board with the idea, the most frequent question I hear is undoubtedly “What kind of content should we produce for promotion?“  The simple answer is – content that is helpful to[…]

Most B2B companies suck at social media.  OK, it’s not just B2B companies.  But that’s where I want to focus for this post.  You may not have thought about this before, but social media is probably more beneficial for B2B companies than B2C ones.  Of course, this likely depends on the companies and industries we’re talking[…]

I’ve been recommending advertising videos on YouTube to clients, colleagues, and industry acquaintances for quite some time. Advertising on YouTube is one of the most affordable and efficient ways to build brand affinity and attract new customers. The issue we hear a lot is getting video content seems like such an expensive and long-winded ordeal.[…]

As we know from previous posts, your B2B prospects can vary widely as there are likely multiple stakeholders in all different stages of the buying process. They range from unaware of your product’s/service’s existence to ready to buy.  Since this is the case, you’re going to see the best results by matching up your ad[…]

Joe Martinez, Director of Paid Media & Community at Granular, just finished pulling double duty at SMX West. Check out the slides Joe presented on below. How to Use Feeds to Improve DSA Campaigns and Ads DSA feeds will help accounts easily set up new ways to target their pages. Websites with poor URL structures will[…]