Buckle up friends, I am feeling extra salty this morning… In this post, I will dissect Google’s new search product, as reported on by Search Engine Land in this post. Where to begin??? From Search Engine Land: “Google is in the process of building an “all-new search engine” powered by its new A.I. technology while at the same time working on adding new A.I.-based features to its current search engine under the project name Magi.” Ok, so is everyone else, what else? “Google has put a team of designers, engineers and executives in charge of building out this new search engine that “could put ..read more

Well, here I am writing another blog post so quickly after the last one! But, Google Ads has been BUSY this week dropping announcements on the PPC community. In this post, I want to focus on their announcement regarding how keyword matching will work. That post is literally titled “Matching the most relevant keyword to every search”. My first thought was literally – “So what exactly have you been doing up until now?”. Seriously. Was it foolish as an advertiser to think that was what you’d always done? You can read the full Google Ads post here. Let’s dive into it, shall we? “What consumers w ..read more

I have not written a blog post in a while – have been pouring that energy into PPC Chat! But, after a recent consumer experience, I felt compelled to write one… Imagine, if you will, shelling out $400 for a hair dryer. Now, you did this after thinking about the purchase for quite a while and reading reviews, etc. You finally take the plunge and buy it. And it’s great – until it is not. It starts losing power after about 9 months. It fully dies within 20 months. The product carries a 2 year warranty. The company (I’m sure you can figure out who they are) replaces the dead unit. Sounds great rig ..read more

I am not an e-commerce guru, nor do I claim to be one. I do, however, have a lot of experience with building and developing web sites. You see, dear readers, I used to build web sites – back when they first became a thing. I have built them from scratch, gone through custom builds and now utilize the amazing readily available tools like WordPress or landing page tools like Unbounce when clients need web site help. If I were to work on or build an e-commerce site today, I would recommend utilizing a backend, such as Shopify, for the site. Why Use An Existing Platform For Your Site? The short an ..read more

Well, PPC Twitter went nuts (justifiably in my opinion) when news broke about Google Ads planning to remove advertiser’s access to some query data. The first tweet I saw was from Melissa Mackey:   Hey @GoogleAds – this is complete BS. Hiding information from advertisers who are PAYING FOR THIS TRAFFIC is egregious. Please reconsider immediately. #ppcchat sounds like we need to start another petition drive. This is crap. https://t.co/AYf9C7jtAK — Melissa Mackey (@Mel66) September 2, 2020 Of course the big question is what, exactly, does this mean? “Starting September 2020, the search te ..read more

I know we are all tired of hearing the phrase “unprecedented times”. I know I am. But the truth is, whether we are sick of hearing that we are “living in unprecedented times” or not, we are actually living in unprecedented times. What COVID-19 has been for people has been a widely varied experience. And attitudes about it are also widely varied. And, it has been absolutely devastating to many, many businesses – on this we can agree. But where people start to diverge is on how comfortable they are returning to activities they gladly participated in, without much thought for how they were conduc ..read more

Times are tough in all kinds of spaces right now. I was initially happy when I took on two new clients recently, both of whom sell hand sanitizer. Seems like a great account to have right now with the crazy demand, right? Well, not so fast… The first client is a distillery that has temporarily converted from making spirits to making hand sanitizer. The kind of story that is getting big press right now! You can’t find hand sanitizer anywhere in real life or in stores, so it seems like a great fit for e-commerce. So, I set up a campaign for hand sanitizer and set it running. It spent the entire ..read more

It has been quite a while since I have posted anything. I plan to change that, but first onto a very timely topic – how are you supposed to manage your PPC agency or consultancy during a pandemic? The short answer is, unfortunately, there is no road map for this. The longer answer is one that we in the PPC industry should be very familiar with… IT DEPENDS All joking aside, this is a crazy time. How much your particular agency or consulting business will be impacted will vary by a number of factors, including but not limited to: the industries you’re currently working with, your cash on hand an ..read more

Yesterday I happened upon this tweet, which I retweeted: Guess we can kiss Twitter team support goodbye. What a shame @GoogleAds your social team used to be a fantastic asset. #ppcchat https://t.co/sJ67hYp8bZ — Julie F Bacchini (@NeptuneMoon) October 10, 2019 The Google Ads Twitter team used to be amazing. For those of us who don’t have dedicated reps, the Twitter account was a place where you could get an issue you were having trouble with addressed and in a timely manner. Now, apparently, it is no longer going to offer any of this function. Which brings me to my larger point in this post ..read more

I’m going to jump into the fray on this topic too, because I have what I think is a bit of a different take on Jason Fried’s position (shared on Twitter): When Google puts 4 paid ads ahead of the first organic result for your own brand name, you’re forced to pay up if you want to be found. It’s a shakedown. It’s ransom. But at least we can have fun with it. Search for Basecamp and you may see this attached ad. pic.twitter.com/c0oYaBuahL — Jason Fried (@jasonfried) September 3, 2019 Let me start by saying, I get where Jason is coming from, it can absolutely be frustrating to see other busine ..read more