They recognized the logic – but many had strong criticisms. Over the weekend, Google surveyed small business owners about their appetite to pay monthly subscription fees for a number of potential Google My Business (GMB) enhanced features and services. Some of the suggested offerings included request a quote, automated review/message responses, booking buttons, remove ads from a profile, Google search results placement, Google Guarantee, verified reviews and several others. “

What is PPC? How does it work? And, most importantly, how can you make it work for you? This chapter will introduce you to everything you need to know about the exciting world of paid search marketing: keywords, ads, budgets and bids, ad rank, targeting, and conversions. Let’s kick things off with the basics. What Is PPC? Pay-per-click (PPC) is an advertising model that lets marketers place ads on an ad platform and pay the host of that platform every time their ad is clicked

Google Ads is an expensive game if you get it wrong, Robin Sherwood reminds us. So, we figure you’re doing what you can to measure the performance of your campaigns. But just how are you doing that? Our best guess is you’re using your own historical data to measure your success. Of course, the inbuilt problem there is that it’s only your data. And there are few actionable insights you can get from it. Now, we’re not saying it’s useless. These metrics will show you if you’re i

Another year is quickly approaching. That means now is the perfect time to review current PPC best practices to start improving your performance. Lisa Raehsler suggests that there are opportunities to revisit the dependable PPC best practices but even more opportunity to implement new ideas into your program. Get ready to rock PPC in 2019! 1. Review New Features in Google Ads Another year, another Google deadline. All Google Ads advertisers must switch over to the new ad expe

What’s a good click-through rate in Google AdWords, Elisa Gabbert asks? What about a good cost per click and a good cost per action? Is your AdWords conversion rate up to par? These are the $10,000 questions. (Why $10,000? That’s how much the average small to medium-sized business spends on AdWords every month. Large brands spend way more!) Whether you’re new to advertising on AdWords, or your agency just signed on a new client in an industry you haven’t worked with before, i

It was a great pleasure to be a guest speaker and one of the experts at the seminar and training course in Malta on Efficiency & Effectiveness of Digital Marketing & Innovation (2 – 4 May 2016) focusing on Start-up and nascent businesses. Teaming up with Dr. Mindaugas Lauzikas, Director at GILE Experts www.gileexperts.com proved to be a great success for all the participants. Timu Fokinas aka Google AdWords Hero www.googleadwordshero.co.uk , was giving a lecture on how to sta

Recent data shows branded-search costs have increased since Google's right-hand rail update. See how marketers can identify irregularities and improve PPC engagement.​ Article by Thomas Stern. Since the recent update to Google SERPs that removed ads along the right-hand rail, our paid advertising team at ZOG Digital has monitored changes in the performance of PPC ads and the resources required to maintain engagement rates. Our client research shows that since the change to pa

Cost-per-click is a hugely important metric in AdWords. Columnist and Googler Matt Lawson dives deep into Google’s perspective on Average CPC. It stands to reason that when you’re running pay-per-click ads on Google, you want to know the price that you’re paying for those clicks. Here’s an important consideration, though: Average CPC is often not the price you’re paying for each of your clicks. This sounds more obvious than it actually is, but average CPC is only the average

Whether it’s “hotels near me” or “nearby hotels,” people often search for the same things differently. So reaching your customers in the moments that matter can sometimes be a moving target. In fact, of the billions of searches made on Google every day, 15% of them have never been seen before. Couple that with shifting product inventory and content hidden deep within your website, people don’t always find what they’re looking for. That’s why three years ago Google introduced