Welcome to Cultivative’s weekly roundup for all things PPC from around the web—everything you need to know right now about PPC!
At Cultivative, we’re all about making your life easier. We’ve gathered the top PPC news and innovations from around the web and getting it into your hands. Check out what we found this past week.
Google Smart Shopping Campaigns: Everything you need to know to get started
By Manuel Vilella Salcedo | Oct 12, 2020

If you’re new to Google Smart Shopping Campaigns (SSC), Manuel Vilella Salcedo offers a comparison of SSCs versus standard Shopping campaigns to help you get started. Salcedo argues that the primary value proposition to SSCs is to combine Shopping and Display into a single campaign and simplify the creation and maintenance of them. He reviews the main pros and cons of each and how to create an SSC.
How to Use Paid Social for Holiday Ecommerce Success in 2020 (+Why It’s Crucial)
By Akvile DeFazio | Oct 14, 2020

With the unexpected year in Ecommerce, it will be crucial for brands to leverage social media this holiday shopping season. Akvile DeFazio highlights the importance with, “In August, eMarketer reported that they expect total retail sales to decline by about 11% this year in the United States due to social distancing measures being in place, but that e-commerce will likely grow by as much as 18% by the end of the year.” To make the most of your paid social media this holiday season, DeFazio recommends:
1. Prioritize mobile strategies
2. Optimize the user experience to prevent losing frustrated mobile shoppers
3. Perform extra quality assurance checks to ensure engagement
4. Expand your e-commerce capabilities with Facebook Shops
5. Try Facebook Shops’ design layouts
6. Test out your Facebook Shop now, before the holidays hit
7. Utilize Instagram Checkout to drive conversions
8. Leverage Instagram waived selling fees
Setting Up A LinkedIn Ads Marketing Funnel
By Bahador Jamshidi | Oct 15, 2020

Bahador Jamshidi reviews targeting ideas for different stages of the marketing funnel on the LinkedIn Ads platform. He covers top of funnel considerations for core audience, lookalike audiences, and third-party integrations. He also covers mid and bottom-funnel aspects for retargeting website audiences, video views, and form engagements.
PPC Brand Safety 2020: Social Channels
By Andrea Taylor | Oct 15, 2020

Andrea Taylor explains how to protect your brand on your paid social media, with Facebook and Linkedin advertising platforms in particular. Taylor reviews how to access the Brand Safety shortcut in the Facebook Business Manager. From there, she covers Publisher Lists, blocklists, and Facebook Ad Delivery Reports. You’ll want to utilize brand safety features if you’re running ads on the LinkedIn Audience Network using single image and video ad formats by accessing the campaign targeting options and scrolling to the Placement section.
Microsoft Shopping Campaigns for Brands Now Enables Advertisers to Participate on Products Ads with Their Retail Partners
By Joshua Dreller | Oct 15, 2020

Consumers are armed with more information than ever before, with “85% of consumers conduct[ing] online research before making a purchase,” according to Joshua Dreller. Businesses are rethinking practices to attract and retain customers, including retail partner marketing. Microsoft Shopping Campaigns for Brands now allows manufacturers to create and fund Shopping Campaigns that will directly take the consumer to their products on the retailer’s website.
PPC Town Hall 25: OMG Commerce’s insights to dominate Holiday E-commerce
By Frederick Vallaeys | Oct 15, 2020

E-commerce has been ahead of what was expected at the start of the year. To gain a perspective on how we could navigate the coming Holiday season and make the most of it, Optmyzr’s PPC Town Hall spoke with OMG Commerce’s Brett Curry and Greg Maycock about all things e-commerce and shopping, with these top five insights for this holiday season:
1. Changes in the last few years
2. Aligning PPC outcomes with business goals
3. Understanding YouTube campaign structure and formats
4. How to leverage audiences
5. Free PLAs and Deep Feed Analysis
5 Tips for Creating Accurate Projections
By Kamlyn Spivey | Oct 19, 2020

Future projections seem to cause unease for digital marketers. Past performance data is an area of more comfort as these numbers are known, and a plan of action can be created. Projections deal with uncertainty but are vitally important for moving forward. Kamlyn Spivey offers these tips for creating accurate projections:
1. Use past performance
2. Use industry benchmarks
3. Leverage Google tools when possible
4. Don’t be afraid to adjust projections
5. Be able to explain your data
7 Tips To Deal With Google’s Search Term Changes
By Bethany Bey | Oct 19, 2020

“On September 1, Google began limiting the number of search terms advertisers could view within the search term report. This has obviously caused an uproar with advertisers as this report is incredibly important in making sure you are paying for quality clicks.” In response to Google’s limiting search terms, Bethany Bey offers these seven tips:
1. Determine the loss of search term visibility in your account
2. Reduce bids on broad match or modified broad match keywords
3. Add broad match negative keywords
4. Add negative keyword misspellings and variants proactively
5. Use other ad platforms to find negative keywords
6. Use keyword research tools to find negative keywords
7. Try out Smart Bidding
We hope you learned something new you can apply to your PPC business strategy. Let us know in the comments below what you want to start implementing. As always, we are happy to be a resource for your paid advertising needs. If you have any questions, feel free to contact us.